Baby Bushtit

 

Stranded Bushtit Fledgling, Cole Valley

If anything can be cuter than a little bitty bushtit, it's gotta be a baby bushtit. Because it was messing around the side of a car, I first thought the tiny bird was fighting with its mirror image, as some birds do. But when it tried to fly into a nearby tree I could see that it was just a fledgling. It failed to reach even the first branches of the tree, then fluttered across the sidewalk onto a home's door frame, then down to the ground, and then back onto parked cars, silent all the while. 

I looked around and kept my ears out for an adult bushtit, but none appeared. I cringed as the fledgling flew weakly across Cole Street, hoping it wouldn't get hit by a car, and was glad when it landed on the roof of a parked pickup truck. It was tuckered out by then and settled down, even closing its eyes for a time.

The surreal part of the incident was watching the fledgling's struggle while no one else walking by even noticed the bird. I left hoping an adult bushtit would come to the rescue before a passing raven took notice of the helpless little guy.

Ornate Leaf in Golden Gate Park

The squirrel nipped off the flower top of a plant (Pentaglottis sempervirens) growing at the base of the redwood (Sequoia sempervirens) on the edge of the AIDS Memorial Grove, ate the good parts, then resumed foraging without returning to the plant. There's no FDA to ensure the safety of what a wild animal eats, so they don't necessarily gorge themselves on any one thing, just in case it's toxic in large amounts. Wikipedia says the flowers of this plant are edible, the roots are toxic, and the leaves are medicinal.

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