Mealtime for birds in the garden

I never tire of observing creatures in our garden.

Some of the birds visiting this past week were Brown-Eyed Bushtits, who always travel in flocks.

This is one of the bushtits on a branch of the Ray Hartman ceanothus shrub, eating either seeds or caterpillars.

Other regular visitors are Bewick's wrens.

Trees and shrubs in our and neighbors yards keep the wrens here all year-round.

Here one of the wrens pokes its beak into a deteriorating gate post for insects.

We keep cutting back the invasive, non-native English ivy, but in the winter and spring months when the berries ripen, we leave the branches with berries alone.

Cedar waxwings, American robins, Northen mockingbirds and California towhees such as this one enjoy the luscious berries. Once the berries start to dry up and the birds are no longer interested, we cut back the ivy as much as possible.