Where the raven flies there's jeopardy."
This was a really fun and invigorating walk. First I'll mention the music. Genesis Archive 1967–75. Specifically discs one and two which is a live performance of the album, A Lamb Lies Down on Broadway. This show was at a favorite venue of mine, The Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, 1975. How I missed going to this concert still eludes me. Anyway, the music seemed to pace perfectly with the walk.
For those who think we don't see any fall colors in SoCal.
The continuing saga of the green lynx spider # 1 and her unhatched eggs. But the very, very 1st green lynx spider report was the 2nd blog entry I did on my walks. That was April 20th and is here. That's before I knew what kind of spider it was. That was also a very young and quite tiny spider. The first adult green lynx spider was reported on 082413 here. That spider was located in the Salvia uliginosa (aka, Bog sage) in the garden and I lost track of it---until today.
Meanwhile, the green lynx spider I've been calling green lynx # 1 is still tending her nest. I was a little concerned because the plant she's on has been cut back some for fall but she's safe. I just wonder now if those eggs are ever going to hatch.
Now, onto the excitement. Two weeks ago I reported on a red-tailed hawk which had caught itself a nice big squirrel. Well there's a part of the story I never mentioned, the part where I went back to see if the hawk ever went back down from the tree to its prey on the ground below. It did not. I felt a little guilty for this because I was the reason the hawk flew off with his catch and I was the reason he left it on the ground and went into the tree. I figured once I left it would swoop back down and have a meal. But it didn't. Here's a picture of the squirrel taken upon my return from the top of the hill almost 40 minutes later. It was getting dark and the hawk was nowhere to be seen.
I say I felt a little guilty but truth is there is so much squirrel and rabbit activity on this campus because they don't really have too many predators. These rodents and lagomorphs are rather complacent over the whole thing from what I can see. They certainly aren't too bothered by people which indicates to me people feeding wild animals. I personally don't think that is wise.
Today I felt vindicated however. Once again I crossed paths with my hawk friend, right across the street from the previous incident. This time though he had a jack rabbit. This time he wasn't going to leave because of me. But not only was there this tolerance of my presence I think the bird realized I was helping it out by scaring off potential competition for its kill.
I moved in gradually to get that shot. That's as far as I was going to go. As I turned and headed across the street I was alerted seeing this guy flying in. He was making a hell of a racket and I knew why.
I believe the crows calls were being directed at the hawk. I've seen crows swoop on hawks many times presumably as a territorial thing. Every time I've witnessed this the hawks simply out fly the crows, they never actually engage.
I wasn't planning on scaring the crow away but it had crossed my mind. As it turned out the crow was simply more intimidated by me than the hawk. In fact I don't think the hawk was very concerned over my presence at all. Maybe he remembers me, perhaps accepting me as a non-threat this round. I happen to know this crow and I mentioned before I'm sure this bird recognizes me. Crows are particularly adept at this by the way.
The lamppost is just above and about 15 meters in front of the hawk and here he comes...
I moved from the middle of the street to a spot in front of them both.
That got to be a little too close for comfort for the crow and he flew across the street perpendicular to where we started onto another lamppost. He bitched at me a bit. I was talking back too.
The crow finally flew off back to where I usually see him at sunset, typically with his partner. Once again once he saw me he decides to take off. I thought maybe back to the hawk and rabbit but no, he went off into the sunset.
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