So... sadly enough, our wren family made out like bandits in the night. I woke up one morning and they were gone. But the good news is that we have available real estate now. As of today, it looks like we have new neighbors. 
As of Tuesday, we have baby wrens in our birdhouse! The mom feeds them constantly and their "cheep, cheeps" are growing louder and louder by the day. The dad flutters around protecting from predators (mainly us & visiting jays) with a horrible gurgling racket. Overall they are very pleasant tenants. . . I will post more pics as the chicks start to emerge from their cozy home.
I was in the garage one evening and heard a bird flapping its wings. It seemed to be trapped behind a stack of boxes up on our shelf. I climbed up onto the car and peered over expecting to rescue a sweet little song bird. But instead I saw this strange, bizarre creature from the fire swamp!! It was not sweet at all and instantly began hissing at me! I slowly removed the boxes to free the bird. . .which turned out to be a Common Poorwill - a night hawk. The thing continued its attempts to frighten me by opening its wings & huge mouth. After snapping these photos I opened the garage and left the little vulture to fend for itself.
Our little wren has found his little lady and now they both are busily building their little nest. There are now so many twigs inside the birdhouse that they are starting to pop out the vent holes. Notice the one sticking out on the right side. If you look inside the doorway, you can hardly believe that a little bird could fit in there. . . but they continue to pop in & out with more little twigs. 
We've had our bird house up for over a year now with no visitors. So you can imagine my excitement when I woke up this morning to a friendly little house wren poking his head out. He has been vigilantly building a nest and calling for a mate all morning. We hope he finds a lady friend soon! In the meantime, we are enjoying his melodious song!
Everything at the ranch is starting to pop with color! I love this time of year! The scrub brush is blooming and my perennials are coming back in full force. Our favorite song birds have returned. As Ryan put it... "It sounds like an Amazon rain forest outside." 
Sunday was an amazing 75 degree sunny day... followed by a week of windy cold weather. But spring is on its way. The tulips are poking their leaves out and the birds are getting more active. Our favorite new feathered visitor is the Meadowlark (the yellow breasted bird pictured below). We hear the Meadowlark's melodious song frequently, but they rarely come up to the house. About 2 weeks ago I started putting corn on the ground for the birds. The scrub jays love it... and to my surprise so do the Meadowlarks. They come right up to the back door and sing to their hearts desire! A cute little robin stopped by to see what all of the commotion was about.
Believe it or not, on Christmas day we spotted a flock of 12-13 wild turkey at the ranch. We couldn't get close enough to get any close-up photos... but this will give you the basic idea. Soon after we saw them, they retreated back up the mountain.
It's been snowing since we woke up this morning... and I love it! We've had a really warm fall this year and I've been aching for snow. We already have about 2in and the forecast projects that we could get as much as 9in in the next 36 hours. Our feathered friends are coming to the bird feeder in droves. We even got a second visit from our lone quail. We named him Herb.
We had a new visitor to the ranch, a northern bobwhite quail. Shockingly enough, he came up to the bird feeder! He was beautiful!
With the recent snow, we've had a lot of vistors to our bird feeder including a Downy Woodpecker. He rotates between the feeder and the tree. Others pictured below are the House Finch, a 'winterized' American Goldfinch, Black-capped Chickadee, and Gray-headed & Slate-colored Dark-eyed Junco.
All of our winter birds are back at the Ranch! We have a new vistor that we didn't spot last winter - the Stellar's Jay. He's really shy so it took me a couple of sightings to finally snap a photo. Isn't he beautiful.
Everytime Ryan & I venture down to the river, we feel like we've walked right into a National Geographic special. We've witnessed 6 bald eagles flying together, an oprey flying with a huge rainbow trout in its talons, and the list goes on. Yesterday we discovered the American Dipper. The bird dives into the river to get its food. It had made its nest on the side of a cliff 8ft above the river. While enjoying our fishing outing, we watched as the mom & dad continuously brought food back to their chicks.
