While working in the garden, I kept noticing a bird banging around by the screen porch. I'm embarassed at my poor powers of observation, and that I failed to figure out what was going on until today. We have two big Buddlea plants (planted from cuttings a couple of years ago) planted right up against the house. I peered into the shrub at a height of about 3 feet, and looked down into this nest: (the black hair is horse hair, from Jake the horse, next door, presumably)
So, we quietly waited in the garden to try and get a better look at the secret life of the birds:
If you look really carefully in this photo, you can see the bird, on the fence. (Look in the third screen on the right, in the lower right quadrant.)
Now that we are aware this is going on, we are realizing that we have to be very careful in certain parts of the garden, and certainly in the screen porch, if we want to see the babies succeed!
We think our bird is a Towhee. This link has more information, and the call. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/California_Towhee.html#sound
