The bright red orb caught the setting sun brilliantly. The camera only wanted to pay attention to the apricot and washed it out but in real life that cherry tomato was striking against that dark soil and I did a double take for a split second: how did that get there?!

Bird or squirrel? Something out there wanted jewelry to dress up the young tree for the Homecoming dance.

(Edited to add, Well, huh. If I click on the photo it goes sideways but shows the tomato.)

It suddenly hit me this morning that what I didn’t want to call fear–but still, it was a nagging, ongoing sense of dread–all the angst around meeting a new surgeon in two weeks, about having a more major surgery than expected, not at Stanford but in a hospital where I knew no one nor my way around and there would be no old friends who were nurses suddenly popping up, about what the results might be, about the pain meds, the recovery, the being made to get up and walk after they’ve cut into you–

–last time, they got me upright and I insisted, Take my blood pressure before you try to make me do more.

It was 73 over something like 30 and they decided okay, let’s get that up to 80/40 first.

The stress that had triggered last year’s eye infection to resurface.

All of that.

It didn’t matter anymore. There was no problem anymore. There was just something to go through and then go live happily ever after and that would be that.

Finding and rescuing that beautiful little finch had in some way I cannot describe somehow rescued me, too.

Most mornings, I wouldn’t have been looking out that window for another half an hour–but today, I did.

Two Bewick’s wrens caught my eye, and I realized with a start that I hadn’t seen one in several months. And as they danced around and I delighted in watching them they drew me to see…

…Oh goodness. How long had that poor thing been there.

A finch was tangled in netting around my blueberries that I’d thought was too fine a mesh for a bird to dart through. It was caught up to its shoulder and around. Oh, man…

I stooped down next to it. It struggled to get away. I put my hand under its feet so it wouldn’t be hanging by its shoulder and wing like that and that gave it something to push against to try harder to get away. Flutterflutterflutter, with the strands cutting in. No blood at least. I had never seen the underside of a finch wing from that close up before.

But then it held still for a moment.

I looked at it and it looked at me–and the little bird closed its eye slowly for a moment. (I could only see the one from there.) I hoped not in pain but to rest ever so briefly.

I felt somehow trusted. By a wild thing. I felt its feet on my hand. I fervently hoped I could do right by it.

Then it struggled again against the strands because it had to. It is the nature of it.

I assessed: what I needed was scissors to cut that plastic so as not to jerk the little thing around when breaking it free, but I couldn’t risk the harm of walking away and coming back out and its panicking or hanging.

So as carefully as I could, I balanced that sweet little finch on my knee and worked on breaking those strands with both hands, wanting so much not to hurt it, glad that at least the netting was that fine.

It knew before I did and suddenly it burst out of there: not to the camphor tree above but over to the step outside the bedroom door, facing me. It caught my eye, and only then was it off and away.

I walked inside marveling that I had even been there at that time. That my favorite Bewick’s wrens had not only come but had kept it company till help arrived. And they’d made it so it did.

Even the sparrow in its fall is known to Him: that scripture became vividly real to me today.

Oh thank you Etsy. It’s artisan-made, it’s not mass-produced, just like you used to be all about. And you totally guessed what I wanted to see.

Or how about this one, with the cobra climbing the stick? (Look at the smirk on that thing.)

Or maybe not so much.

Actually, I laughed–and then went, wait.

What if some idiot tried to shoot it out of my hand to save me?

Just raising a little cane here.

Yesterday two pigeons flew up to the peregrines’ nest ledge, canoodled a bit, and checked out the digs in the box. Heyyyy–nice spot. They came back again today for awhile.

Momma Peregrine showed up a little later, went into the nest box–and put her head down and started sniffing around where those brazen wingrats had dared to trod.

She and her mate had to reclaim their box! And stand on the ledge and show the world just exactly which apex predators own this spot thankyouverymuch.

Their four young are not yet great at this hunting thing so the parents are still making sure they get enough.

And now they know there’s a Doordash delivery just begging to happen.

One of this year’s fledglings parallaxing at sunrise today. Raptors bob their heads before taking off to gauge the distance and trajectory of what they’re aiming for–but this one made me laugh.

And it made me remember.

I wrote about it at the time it happened 15 years ago and I’m sure I’ve mentioned it here at least once since. It was such a powerful experience.

Today fellow knitter Clara Parkes asked on her Substack, If there were one thing in nature that you could become one with, what would it be?

There were fun answers, beautiful answers, and here was mine. Since it’s behind a paywall, I thought I’d share it here, too, where members of the falcon community can read it:

I was on the camera crew for a season monitoring the peregrine falcon nest high up on San Jose City Hall. I would love to be able to spread my wings and coast on the wind like one of those magnificent birds.

As I sit here remembering: one of the chicks at first grew big enough to explore the concrete HVAC ledge outside the nest box, its feathers for flight beginning to grow in, no longer a ball of white fluff.

And then it moved more slowly and after a day or two, quietly passed in a back corner of the nest.

The parents fed their other chicks and soon they were teaching them how to not just fly but transfer food mid-air, how to hunt, how to dive at over 200 mph, all the peregriney things.

And then the father came back to the wooden box the UCSC biologist had installed. It had a layer of gravel to mimic the rocky cliffs of nature. He stood there facing the remains of the one that had perished for some minutes while I at my computer, hand hovering over the mouse, waited to see what he might do next.

And what that was was something that had not been observed before in that species, from what I’ve been told: he bent way over towards his son’s body and then with the top of his head, the most tender, vulnerable part of his own, pushed it down, down, to give a burial to his boy where it would be left undisturbed.

It was astonishing and profoundly moving. Love. Love is the entirety of the universe. I want to forever be part of that love.

It’s that time of year again: wake up, pick enough cherries for a pie, pit them, strain the juices back to the fruit, freeze in happy anticipation of good times to come, then go take a shower so you won’t walk around an impromptu redhead. The tart cherries ripen at the rate of about one pie per day.

And on a side note. I am quite sure the photographer did not notice, not when she took the picture and not when she posted the picture on the real estate listing. This is outside that house’s kitchen door.

Picture #30.  Look at how nice and cozy that thing is in its corner, waiting for lunch.

The eyases are flying well and their air traffic controllers have gone home.Thank goodness for those who do that work.

One of the camera crew did a hatch-to-fledge four and a half minute compilation of the 2025 season so far, here.

Meantime, the three newly fledged females were immediately spotted yesterday; one was rescued from behind a glass balcony so she wouldn’t hurt herself trying to get out and was put in a box and taken to the roof of City Hall above the nest. Got her feathers sprayed so she wouldn’t panic-fly to get away from the humans as they set her down but rather wait a moment drying off while they disappeared. She’s fine.

The male, though, nobody knew where he was.

So one of the BOGs (boots on the ground during fledge watch) was looking today when she saw a homeless guy looking up. He told her there was a hawk that had a bunch of crows harassing it, so he’d been keeping watch to make sure it was okay–and there was our Chico!

When she explained that it was a peregrine falcon just learning to fly and that multitudes of people were going to be grateful to him for finding him and looking out for the little guy, you can imagine how that felt to someone who doesn’t usually find himself being looked up to.

They chatted a little and she found that the birds mattered to him, all of them, and he felt for the one being harassed and stood by him.

And so he became a hero to the falcon community.

Our little Chico got retrieved, went through being boxed and hauled upstairs like his sister the day before, and is now living happily ever after.

Meantime, chemo cap #6 got finished, #7 is started, and I have been invited to a sisters and female cousins lunch where I can get to give it to Janna in person. I can’t wait to see her.

Yesterday there were three falcon eyases huddled together at the end of the upper ledge: two steps and they’d be off. Momma Hartley again flew right to them with a meal to entice them to come for it but from eighteen floors up they went, Nope. After you. No, after you. No, I insist. Well *I’m* not gonna let go of this perfectly good gravity.

And so they got a second extra day of letting their feathers grow out more.

Flap unevenly and you find yourself doing the Hokey Pokey and turning yourself about.

And then–hey! Cool!

The last one hung around for awhile hoarding the prey all to herself but after three hours alone for the first time ever it got to her: if they could do it she could do it, and she, too, flapped those wings and stepped off into the air to see what would happen next.

(Forgot to hit post last night.)

It’s been a month since some of my second rare apricot batch came up and I’d thought the last few were a lost cause and nearly tossed them. But the camera could see what happened today that I wasn’t quite sure of: we are going to have first leaves tomorrow, which just makes me all kinds of happy. To life!

Meantime, Momma falcon flew past her young dangling prey to try to induce them to fly today, but they were too well fed already and it was too hot. Naah, you eat it, Mom. Not going.

Which means their feathers will be that much longer and readier when they do start fledging. 77F Sunday? Now that sounds more reasonable!

Last one to fledge is a raw egg! Neener neener!

For the first time there was a third scrub jay begging at momma today. The other two tried to get in on it but were ignored and yet they all stayed close together, a family of four flitting around my small yard keeping all others at bay–and between them those jays have learned, for the first time since I planted this tree, that mandarins are edible. They even peeled it out by sections.

I stuck a small bird netting cage on kind of sideways over some of the untouched ones as best I could to at least make it hard to perch there. The ones that look like this, well hey, they’re welcome to come back for seconds.

The baby falcons in San Jose, meantime, with nature pressuring them to try out this flying thing they didn’t feel ready to spend the energy and risk on in the 95+ heat were not so cheerful.  That was quite the tantrum! Wow!

A scrub jay. Its favorite spot seems to be in front of my recently-planted apricot: it offers a little clearing where it can see under the bushes to the sides and anything coming from above with the young tree protecting its back from attack.

Where did it get that orange thing… What is that? Curiosity got the better of me and I went outside to see. The jay dropped it and scrammed.

In my astonishment I said quietly but quite out loud, Where did you get that?!

It looked like a tiny, ripe mango exactly like one off my tree, miniaturized. Maybe an inch and a half long. A slight wrinkle that said it was ripe, and it smelled faintly like a mango, to0, but not with those round black seeds. I tossed it back where it had been, went inside to wash my hands and before the door was even shut the mama bird had snatched it back up.

Instantly two more were right there, just as big as she was (as fledglings are), acting like babies as they begged for food: fluttering their wings with bodies lowered and heads stretching upwards, beaks gaping wide. Like teenage boys towering over me in the kitchen back in the day. (One was 128 pounds and 6’2″ at 12 when he had seven more inches to go. I am 5.5″. I totally related to that jay.)

She pecked at the loquat like a raptor going after a carcass, ripping into it with that long sharp beak, feeding them bits. Such a small amount of food to me but everything in that moment to the three of them. I knew that was a sight you wouldn’t see a day or two from now: she was already starting to fly away when they begged, but for a loquat? This was to be shared and Momma was going to make them.

I have no idea where it had come from.

I did notice that the young ones acted afterward like they owned my little yard specifically, and I checked the mango flowers they’d gone after previously to make sure it was still covered.

And then I looked up loquats.

I had tried buying them once, been unimpressed, and that was that.

There are kumquats, which are in the citrus family, but loquats are in the–rose and apple family? Huh.

And there is one particular variety, well spoken of, that looks like and tastes rather like a champagne type mango. So now I know one of my neighbors is apparently growing a Yehuda loquat. They’re so soft and fragile when ripe that you can almost never find them in grocery stores, you almost have to know someone with a tree or grow your own.

Nope, nope, nope. I am not planting one. At least not before I’ve tasted what they’re really supposed to be like. I’m not taking it on word of beak.

Or just below it, actually.

This little guy got caught trying to escape upwards into the awning for awhile. I had no way to guide its way out without risking squishing it and eventually it managed to escape on its own.

My first take was a monarch–but that big white area on the downbeat suggested a different tune.

You don’t need to get an ID app, your phone has one, he said. Push the Lens button below the photo and let go.

Regal Fritillary, was the suggestion that popped up.

It was fanning its wings a lot and they glistened slightly in the noon sun as if it had just come out of its chrysalis.

It probably had.

It was gorgeous.

I’m so glad it shared its new day with me.

(Coming back to add, So that’s why I spelled it wrong the first time: Fritillaria. That’s a flower.)

It’s banding day and I had a tab open to watch. But it turned out banding happened nearly two hours after they said they were on the roof getting ready to rappel down and I thought I must have missed it.

Plus there was less to see: in all these years the parents have vigorously defended their young, coming in close but never making actual contact. Till today. (Screen grab courtesy San Jose City Hall.)

UC Santa Cruz professor Zeka Glucs had her GoPro camera on top of her helmet. But not for long: Hartley, the female, swooped in, talons out, and knocked it right off her head. They hope the damage is not too much and to be able to retrieve at least its initial video. One fierce peregrine mama coming right at it in 1, 2, 3…!

Imagine having a raptor that can dive at 241 mph coming right at your head.

The count is indeed three females and one male, the one that’s two days younger. Females are a third larger because they have to be able to cover all their young since they do most of the brooding and keeping the young warm before they’re old enough to thermoregulate.

The parents tend to fill the tallest beak first and from the get-go Little knew the drill and would leap up for it again and again in order to get as high as his sisters, showing how energetic and fit and survival-worthy he is and intercepting like a basketball star.

These parents bring lots of food and those young are well fed. And healthy!

(Edited to add photos retrieved from the GoPro!)