western tanager ~ 05/11/14 ~ at home

western tanager in New Zealand Christmas tree

Piranga ludoviciana in Metrosideros excelsa

Myrtaceae

On Saturday, Andy spotted an all-yellow bird in the neighbor's kiwi Christmas tree from our 3rd floor window and described it to me.  He said it looked like a canary with a yellow head and some coloring on the wing, but not all black.  Besides Townsend's warblers over the winter, we rarely get bright yellow birds on this side of town.  So, I queried a friend less than 2 miles away on the ocean side of the Peninsula since she sees yellow birds regularly around her home.  She's also noticed a couple atypical birds with orange heads hanging around.  We finally got a picture of it Sunday after several glimpses of it and a mate as they flew around from the neighbor's tree to the tree tops in the park and back again.  We went running from room to room, too, hoping to see them through one of the windows.  I think they'd be impossible to see from the ground.  I went from guessing it was someone's lost pet parakeet to a female hooded oriole.  Ha!  Nope.  Depending on the angle, that orange crown is not always visible, which makes distinguishing male from female difficult at times.  I wonder how long they'll hang around?  They really seemed to like picking at the red blooms that look very much like bottle brush.

in memoriam to Sonja

monarch butterfly

Danaus plexippus

Pacific Grove has two main sites where monarchs overwinter (out of an estimated 300 identified sites along California's Coast): the Monarch Grove Sanctuary and George Washington Park. The monarch count in the area is down again this year. I find it interesting that the Ventana Wildlife Society found the butterflies move between sites as much as 40 miles away throughout the winter.

By Valentine's Day (easy enough to remember), most of the monarchs will have mated and begin heading out of the area to lay eggs in the Central Valley. I like this map of monarch migrations in CA.

At some point, I'll have to post my Polaroid pics from 10 years ago when I raised almost 1000 monarch butterflies in my OH apartment. The trick was to prevent my 3 cats from playing with the adults. I hadn't meant to raise so many, but I didn't have the heart to throw away all the eggs... especially when many of the local nature centers had infection issues that killed off all their stock. I liked to call my bedroom the "butterfly love shack" - that was a fun summer!

ps 3/10/10 - I want to acknowledge my mentor Dr. Sonja Teraguchi. She shared with me the thrill of raising life, the importance of natural fluctuations, and the value of documenting my observations. Thanks to recent communications with Art and Renee, I've been reminded of her influence in my life and have especially missed her spirit and inspiration lately. Click on my lepidoptera label in memory of Sonja.