Bluebird boxes and more...

I've been working on making some bluebird boxes to put up around the neighborhood, since I've seen quite a few Western Bluebirds hanging around. I'm building "two-holed mansions", designed by Linda Violett of Yorba Linda. Apparently, House Sparrows aren't fond of the large two holed mansions, and the larger floorsize allows young bluebirds to spread out a bit more in the nest. Check out Linda's website: http://home.earthlink.net/~lviolett/.

Unfortunately, I've found butterflies to be scarce around here... here's a photo of a Fiery Skipper (Hylephila phyleus) I found yesterday.

Also, I added California Gnatcatcher to my neighborhood list the other day (because my yard is so small, I've decided to keep a neighborhood list instead). There's a hill immediately adjacent to the neighborhood, and I saw one male gnatcatcher there. There's also a lot of cactus, so there should be Cactus Wrens as well.