journal

today while patche and i were birding we saw a yellow breasted chat and a house finch having a conversation!! we’d known there were chats nesting at that trail because another birder had mentioned them to us and we’ve heard them making their weird chat noises plenty but i never thought i’d get to seem them since they’re usually super cryptic and shy!!

there’s also a colony of chimney bees at that trail system which i have been checking in with every time i’ve gone. when i first found them i thought there was a bunch of flies swarming at my feet, but when i looked closer i saw they were bees and just off trail they had a weird looking neighborhood i had never seen before! today i finally got to see them in the process of building their turrets, i noticed they root around them in such a way that some gland at their butt is positioned to deposit a little dirt pellet and those pellets are what their turrets are build from.