At top left is the view of our neighbor's backyard seen from our side window. I look at this everyday and never get tired of the chunky blocks of darks and lights. The rest of the page consists of traces left by my pen as I thought through a design for a small backpack designed to transport three pints of vegetable juice for a customer who walks a mile to and from work and carries three jars of juice for snacks and lunch.
More thinking about the backpack, but then things get interesting on the feral bird scene. The wild turkeys visited again in the late morning, two hens and the eight half-grown juveniles from yesterday. Today the babies gathered under a rose bush and sat for a while, ignoring Jesse, who watched from his perch beside the woodpile. After a while one of the babies flew up to the top of a very tall tree!
I watched some more while the two mothers pecked bugs from the grass and the babies seemed to nap under the bush. Then suddenly two more females appeared, only these were slightly different from the usual turkey hens. I noticed the feathers on top of their heads and their white faces. Peahens! Never before have we seen feral peahens around here. I did some research and discovered feral peafowl exist in urban areas, notably LA. They're members of the pheasant family and are forest birds. So this forest-surrounded street would be a good environment for them, but I've never seen them here before. Another idea I had is that these are domestic peahens escaped from someone's yard around here. At any rate, these two were quite comfortable with the wild turkeys, and the turkey mothers seemed unruffled by the presence of these two peahens. These turkeys and peahens are the coolest, calmest birds I've ever seen. I would like to have their composure and regal posture!
Jesse meanwhile retreated to his favorite side-of-the-house spot, the roof of P's car. He is bored by wildlife I think, since they are unimpressed by him.
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