Yesterday I visited the three bluebird boxes that we have in the burned forest on Goats Peak. The first box, nearest the orchards and open fields, had been visited by bluebirds.

There were almost 300 pictures saved to that camera over the past week but most of them had been triggered by windblown vegetation. The first picture here is of a male Western Bluebird, perched on the lid of  the box.

The second, a pair of Western Bluebirds, the female on the box and the male just flying in to join her. 

The third picture shows both birds at the nest box, the female at the entrance.

The second and final boxes that I checked had been stuffed with twigs, which I have read is a sign that wrens have taken possession. I would like to follow a family of wrens with my cameras but they had seemingly poked twigs into the entrance holes until even they would not be able to enter and build a nest! So I removed the twigs and also moved the top nest box, the one highest on the slope, bringing it down to the edge of the field, where I am told, bluebirds like to nest. The one box visited by bluebirds is only about 100 metres from the edge of the field.

Bluebirds are not the only birds that nest in the old burn. California Quail and Mourning Doves, both ground nesters nest there. Yesterday a quail called repeatedly, although I did not see him. Last year I flushed a Mourning Dove from her nest full of eggs, up near the top of the first ridge of the little mountain. I often see White-crowned Sparrows here, which are probably nesting now and yesterday, I got a couple of photographs of a male White-crowned perched on the top of a snag.

Deer bedded among the Ceanothus bushes were disturbed by my ramblings. Most of those that I saw were pairs of twins, fawns from last year that are now approaching their first birthdays. They have recently been rejected by their mothers, who are now preparing to give birth to another crop of fawns. 

The bucks are growing their antlers, now covered with fuzzy velvet. Most of the deer are still losing the last of their winter coats, giving them a rather ragged appearance. 

The last picture shows a doe that is heavily pregnant, soon to deliver her fawns.

While feeling my way through a mat of bushes, I accidentally punctured the lower calf of my left leg with the broken end of a dry branch. I ignored it for most of the afternoon but when I got home, I found that my shoe was filled with blood. After dinner, Martha persuaded me to go to the emergency department at the hospital to have it looked at. Now I have sutures to be removed in about a week—and instructions to take it easy for a few days. So the cameras will be getting fewer visits for a few days.