Locally, the Steller's Jay (Cyanocitta stelleri), also called the Long-crested Jay, the Mountain Jay, and the Pine Jay is related to the Crow and Magpie and is usually associated locally with the higher conifer forests of the Sierra, but on occasion they do visit the lower desert valleys. In fact, it's not uncommon to see the Steller's Jay anywhere, from the Truckee Meadows to the summit of Mt. Rose.

This photo was snapped this week while three birds visited a backyard orchard of apple and pear trees in the old southwest section of Reno. You can see its crested top (the only crested jay this side of the Rockies) and cobalt blue body feathers. It's such a pretty bird, even if it is a bit noisy and aggressive toward other birds.

It's good to offer water in your garden for Blue Jays and other wild song birds. This jay, for example, will eat insect pests. Of course, it will nibble on nuts, seeds, apples, pears, grapes and other fruit, too, so be sure to grow enough to make everyone happy.

The Steller's Jay builds its nest usually mid way up the tall pine and other conifer trees. The nest is open, bowl-like, made of forest debris including twigs and pine needles. The clutch usually consists of three to five eggs.

The California or Valley Quail (Callipepla californica) are out and about, always a welcomed sight in spring. Very soon the roving coveys will include a line of chicks.

Quail are a common sight, often seen even in the downtown neighborhoods of Reno, Sparks and Carson City, although, since they are ground dwellers, they are vulnerable to fast moving autos, garden poisons and prowling house cats.

A signature pastime for Quail is the dust bath. The covey searches out a nice sunny spot of bare dirt where they belly down, twitch, wiggle, flap their wings and fluff their feathers. It's quite a sight to see. Giving Quail a space for this ritual is just one more reason not to have traditional grass lawns in the desert. Provide some shrubby landscaping and a nice sunny patch of soft bare dirt and you just might get them to visit.

According to Desert USA, the origin of the latin name, Callipepla, means "beautiful robe" which is certainly the case with our Valley Quail. We are lucky to have them as our neighbors.

Each year in spring, it seems both the Golden-crowned Kinglet and the Lesser Goldfinch make it a habit of collecting the hairy filaments off the leaves of several types of hardy yucca. We think the bird pictured here is a Dark-backed Goldfinch (Carduelis psaltria), the smallest of the Carduelis species. This beautiful American seed eating songbird is common in the Sierra and is often seen in Reno backyards. They often gather in small groups around bird feeders and baths.

Interestingly, in 2009 UC Berkeley published a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences about the effects of climate change on the birds of the Sierra Nevada. The study found that 48 out of 53 bird species studied actually migrated, following or "tracking" the climate the birds preferred. The study goes on to say the birds that didn't relocate, such as the Western Scrub-Jay, were ones able to live amongst the humans.

There has been local song bird action around this Perry's Agave and Hairy Yucca. It seems the Kinglets and other small birds like to snip the filaments for nest making.

Both of these pictured plants are cold hardy for our area (approximately zones 5 - 9). The yucca will grow to about twenty inches high with an almost three foot spread. The agave will grow to about 9 inches high. Both are beautiful plants and are great for rock gardens and other types of xeric landscaping.

The flower pedals of many different types of yucca are edible and some are considered to be delicious (no guarantees...). You can try putting freshly picked flower pedals into your summer salads. You can find recipes that call for harvesting the entire flower stalk as it emerges in late spring, early summer. The tips resemble the look of asparagus tips, but you won't get to see the flower stem bloom with this technique. Many types have long lasting flowers, some extending into late summer.

Apparently, especially in earlier times, many native American tribes utilized the yucca for food and for weaving, making baskets, weapons and clothing and also for making soap (hence the common name, Soapweed). Many Yucca types are incredibly easy to care for. Most do not uglify during the winter. They are natural born bird feeders and they will make your garden landscape look like you know and love the environment within which you live.

Is this a Sharp-shinned Hawk? It sat in the apple tree for awhile recently, came to startle the usual birds, the Stellar Bluejay and the Robins reappearing again now that it's spring. Hanging out by the dripping water, there have also been a few Kinglets and the Lesser Goldfinch. There are no bird feeders close by, but the water attracts the song birds. It makes sense that the Sharp-shinned Hawk and other birds of prey come looking round the water source for some small treats to eat. It's fortunate that there are trees in and among the landscape of yards in the city for all the birds to use. Life in the menagerie.

The body of the Sharp-shinned Hawk is especially shaped to hunting and catching prey in close quarters, inside and between trees. According to Wikipedia, their numbers greatly dwindled during the late 1960s and 1970s, most likely due to the accumulative effects of the widespread use of poisons such as DDT. After DDT was banned, numbers of all three species have come back strongly in the United States and Canada, back to the point where, if the right habitat still exists or is renewed, the Sharp-shinned Hawk is expected to re-localize and re-integrate.

This particular bird had the habit of perching with only its right claw. It's left claw was kept tucked away, used occasionally to fuss with feathers. It sat in this spot for almost five minutes.

Along with news of social trends moving toward small things -- from sporty fuel efficient autos to recycled lumber and tiny houses, comes a story from Los Angeles about a group of neighbors in one of the super super rich canyon areas of L. A. banding together to try to stop a new mystery neighbor -- they suspect perhaps a foreign prince -- from building a residential compound the size of a Wal-Mart: 86,000 sq feet across several adjacent lots. The lots themselves are worth millions each. There will be a 42,681-square-foot house, a 27,000-square-foot villa, a guest house somewhere around 4,000 sq feet. It's as if Reno's new American Gothic mansions and Tuscany styled villas have suddenly become appropriate only for weekend guests. If it's inevitable that a superstore sized residential compound be built in the already compacted hills around L. A., the hope would be that the landscaping plans accommodate birds like the Sharp-shinned Hawk and California's amazing song birds.

Today the streams coming down from the Sierra are silt colored and flowing above their usual waterlines. There are flood warnings in California and amazing amounts of snow in the high mountains. It is exciting. The little Kinglets have come down closer to town. It feels like a natural, serendipitous goodness coming into spring. It is, in spite of the crazy universe, a hopeful year with the surroundings, the wet, snow covered, saturated ground, the perennials showing green. Maybe, hopefully, it will be a good wildflower year and a good vegetable year and a wonderful gardening year all around.

Everyone hopes for a good year. Of course! Of course! Who can not hope for an abundant and juicy sweet food for the summer to prolong the hope for an even more abundant harvest come fall? And thus, the relationship between the weather and the land and the birds -- the unpredictability of so much seasonal mortality -- energizes the heart. Spring wakes us, a result the body feels immediately like the crisp clear air enough to incite the mind to wondering. It's true, the snow is high and such a necessity for where we live. How great to be living in a place where the end of a drought coincides with the beginning of the growing season, even as always temporary as it is in this arid landscape, this scarcity of erratic and uncertain moisture. So much snow. It hearkens back to other memorable winters here. The summers always followed with hiking the high country delayed, due to snow packed passes, high water creeks and roaring rivers. We can live with that. We want to live with that.

We built this bird house out of old fence planks seven summers ago. The dimensions of the box and the hole were calculated for attracting the Red Shafted Flicker, a local woodpecker and helpmate for keeping the insect populations down during the spring and summer.

Although this bird house was built specifically with the Flicker in mind, it's perch hight is too low, too close to the ground. Each spring, the Flickers find the house, check it out, even go inside to test its comfort and safety, still, none have ever actually set up housekeeping. Next year, perhaps, we'll relocate the house high up in a backyard tree. But that would entail having to climb it!

There are two types of Flickers in North America. The Yellow Shafted Flicker (Colaptes auratus), also called the Yellowhammer, resides in the eastern part of North America. In the west, we find the Red Shafted Flicker (Colaptes auratus cafer). Both are types of woodpeckers and although they will eat seeds, they're great insect eating birds.