Urban Birding 2

On Saturday, I spent about an hour-and-a-half with my three-month-old daughter wandering around a giant shopping center in Roseville, CA.  My wife was spending some time with some friends, and so my daughter and I took the opportunity to have a look around.  As we walked between huge box stores and along expansive parking lots I was impressed, as I often am, at how much animal life was finding a way to live in and amongst all the human impacts that exist in very urban areas.  House Finches were in the bushes all over the place and White-throated Swifts and Lesser Goldfinches were frequently flying and calling over head.

During our rambling, my daughter and I made two particularly exciting discoveries.  The first was finding a bee hive!  The swarm had built their hive in the nooks and crannies of a potion of a wall that have been made to look like pile rocks.  The bees were industriously visiting the wisteria vines, blooming not far away, and also coming in from much greater distances as they foraged for food for the colony.  I was pretty thrilled to find this hive, but was careful not to make too much a big deal about it when people were passing by because I was worried that someone would freak out and that the property managers would find out and spray the colony.  This was weird for me because I usually like to share sightings like this with anyone who is willing to listen, but here I figured that the best thing for the bees would be secrecy.  The second exciting discovery was a Bushtits nest!  The pendulum nest of lichens and spiders web was hanging in a small ornamental tree only about 6 feet above the ground.  The tree was in a little ally way between two humongous stores.  The two adults were very busy searching through the landscaped plant and bringing caterpillars and other insects they found back to the nest to feed their chicks.

Even though this was not a bird walk through some wild place it yielded some wonderful nature experiences, and was a wonderful way to spend some time.  It served as a terrific reminder that there is wildlife to be seen everywhere, and I look forward to continuing to share similar experiences with my daughter.