They’ll have to use a crane (but not a heron)
Monday January 07th 2019, 11:42 pm
Filed under: Life,Wildlife

The toyon berries, which were orange for a long time, are ripe and red and the robins are going to town–there was a large flock of them dashing back and forth past the window all day. They didn’t like my moving towards them with a camera but there were at least three still hiding as I snapped.

Occasionally there will be stories in the news about birds getting drunk on fermented berries. From what I’ve read, that’s an urban myth: they’re not drunk, they simply eat too many in the sudden abundance to the point of the weight of their food making it hard to fly, much less gracefully.

The toyon is an understory to the big redwood which is coming down on Thursday (and thankfully did not do so on our house in the big windstorm Saturday–it is not a healthy tree.) It may be flawed, but it’s beautiful, its trunk intricate and 53″ wide, and we will all miss it. How big a change it will be I don’t know yet.

Hopefully the toyon will be fine with its shade suddenly gone.

But that redwood has to go before the hawks start nesting in it. And before it does any more damage to ours.


3 Comments so far
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If you’re willing to prune a branch or two, Peninsula Humane might want some of those berries for the injured migratory birds coming through now. Up here in Contra Costa, it’s the cedar waxwings – one bird will go through a foot-long branch in a day and we’re always looking for bushes with abundant berries to “donate” food!

Comment by Deb 01.08.19 @ 4:31 pm

We’re back home from our own holiday celebrations, and I’m glad to see that yours have gone well. Also the robins’!

It’s a bumper year for robins in Minnesota, too. Six were hopping around my feeders today, but more were scratching under the shrubs.

Comment by twinsetellen 01.08.19 @ 5:38 pm

and I know a woodworker who would love to have that redwood….

Comment by Holly 01.10.19 @ 11:31 pm



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