Yesterday I returned to the old burn on Goats Peak to check our bluebird boxes. One of the boxes contained a nest of dried grasses but I think it is not a bluebird nest, for the saved pictures on the camera monitoring that box showed visits by some species of small, brown bird. This picture shows a small brown bird with wings still spread, alighting at the entrance to the box.

The second picture shows a small brown bird at the box entrance--carrying a blade of dried grass--while its mate sits on a branch above.

In the third picture, a magpie is perched on that branch. Magpies search out and plunder the nests of other birds.

The fourth picture shows the beginnings of a wasp's nest attached to the underside of the second of our three bluebird nest boxes. When I first peeked in, a wasp was at the nest but it left at once, exiting through one of the ventilation holes in the bottom of the box. 

I have discussed this problem with Maurice, who built the boxes and he has some fabric with which I will close the ventilation holes to wasps--but of course, the main entrance used by birds will still be available to them. 

The fifth picture is of a small paper wasps' nest that was about three meters above the ground on a partially burned tree trunk. 

The third bluebird box checked had been stuffed full of twigs. I did not remove them but there seemed to be no proper nest constructed. Again, I don't think that was the work of bluebirds. In fact, I saw no bluebirds on this visit, so it seems that that they have all "shot through" --as they would say down under.

Next year if I am able to put out bluebird boxes again, I will try to locate them at the edges of bushy or forested areas, next to open grassy fields.

I saw 7 or 8 mule deer in the burn; there they find both food and cover in the abundant Redbark Ceanothus.

Wild roses are blooming. 

A speckled beetle was in one of the rose blossoms, possibly one of the flower beetle group. 

Many of the roses were being visited by honey bees, obviously collecting nectar, as they tumbled about in the stamens and made no attempt to probe for nectar. They were active to the extreme, frantic it seemed, as they moved from blossom to blossom.

Notice the load of pollen collected on the hind leg of one of the bees.