The Avian Hierarchy

The birds around here seem to occupy a vertical hierarchy.

The smallest birds, finches, crested titmice, juncos and  chickadees stick to the bird feeders outside our kitchen door. The goldfinches look like fluttering yellow leaves as they take their places in the queue on the nearby shrubs, while the creepers defy gravity walking down the thick trunks of the oak trees.

The rosemary is in full bloom, spilling over the retaining wall. I went out and picked a few sprigs for my cassoulet and wondered how one could ever use up all that rosemary. The  golden crowned sparrows love to eat the flowers. Earlier today, between rain showers, the bush was heaving with them, many of them discernible only by the movement of the branches. 

Just above the sparrows on the hill are the quail  settled in for the winter underneath a leucodendron. They are elusive birds, and  prefer to stay on the ground where they make hollows  for their dust baths. They burst explosively from the bushes when disturbed, but fly only very short distances. We came upon a number of the little craters they make for their dust baths, and often see ten or fifteen them as they make their evening promenade down the back steps. 

The big oak tree behind the fence is where the crows like to hold their board meetings. At some hidden sign, they begin to gather from all over, calling and shouting to each other as they arrive, all talking at once as they settle into the tallest branches.

Above the oaks, the turkey vultures sit in the tops of the telephone poles and fence posts holding their wings out to warm in the sun. Like the crows, they are very social birds and soar in circles, catching the thermals as they scan the fields beneath them.

They jays and the woodpeckers seem to move  comfortably between the lover levels. The jays love the suet but don't seem to be able to figure out how to hang onto the wire holder so they make frantic flapping leaps from the ground straight up, grabbing a beakful before they drop down again. The woodpeckers are usually the last birds standing on the feeders, having vanquished even the jays.

The other day my neighbor saw a dove taking a bath in the big pothole at the bottom of our driveway.