When the red, red robin…

… comes back to Capistrano.  Well, I might have gotten that part wrong, but the robins have definitely come back to my back yard.  I saw one a couple of days ago, and today I saw flocks of them flitting back and forth between all the oaks out back.  They like the small tree that hangs over the edge of the water out there, they were in that tree, and splashing around in the water and enjoying themselves, exactly as I observed last year.  In addition to them I saw a bluejay, a cardinal, a Downey woodpecker, and, amazingly, an Anhinga.  I couldn’t get pictures of the other birds out there, but I did get a lousy one of the Anhinga or you might think I’d lost my mind.  I think it was just passing through though.  The sandhill cranes were also out there on the island where they nested last year.  This area is surrounded by bird sanctuaries so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see so many different birds. I’m glad I’ve finally taken time to notice what nature so thoughtfully provides.

And oh by the way, I didn’t need Merlin to ID the Robins for me.  Okay, now that I said that I did put a photo through Merlin and it’s an American Robin!  And my assumption that the robins would be out there daily for a couple of weeks has proven to not be true.  I’m glad I stopped what I was doing to go out and take some pictures because I haven’t seen even one robin since that day.  Monday I think it was.