It's been a while since I posted anything or updated the field guide. So here's some recent pictures of critters.

We have this critter proof bird feeder which is only supposed to feed the ickle birdies. However the squirrels just rock it and rock it and then eat what falls out, similarly for the acorn woodpeckers, so any little birdie that's trying to eat at it will have quite the roller coaster ride. It's fun to watch the circus though.

I think this birdie got too fat at the bird feeder and now he won't fit through the bars! He had an amazing bright yellow bit on his head which of course I didn't capture in the photo. I took the picture through our windows and it was hard for the camera to focus, I should learn how to manually focus I guess.

Quite a nice humming bird picture. They continue to thrive at our house and visit often.

I think this is the biggest king snake we've seen at the house. He must have been at least 2 feet long. This was just in front of the garage and then he slithered over to our front step and snuck into a pipe that leads to our downspout, I bet it was very comfy in there for him. We haven't seen him since, but we did spy a teeny little king snake around the same area so perhaps this big snake was a girl snake and about to give birth? The little snake slithered into a impossibly small crevice under the front step and vanished, makes you wonder what else is living under there. Oh well, King Snakes can eat rattle snakes and aren't venomous so we're kinda happy to have them around.

An adorable deer family have been visiting a lot, eating the ivy off the trees and generally trying o eat everything they can. I managed to catch a picture of these guys on the driveway which I'm pretty pleased with.
and elsewhere...

This is a California Giant Salamander, he was really big and a little grumpy when my wife tried to move him off the trail (we were mountain biking). He made a great hissing growly noise and we left him alone, It was early in the morning (6:30AM) so he hadn't warmed up yet I don't think.

An adorable We also saw a raft (or
paddling) of ducks. Check out the last one, he's so fresh he hasn't even turned from yellow yet. Awww, how precious.