Banker's Hill LBB viewing..

There’s a new gathering spot—some might call it a watering hole— that you might not have heard of in Banker’s Hill, my neighborhood in San Diego.

Unless you’re prone to chirping.

According to my new best friend, AI, there are over 435 bird species in San Diego County, the highest number compared to other counties in the US.

I did not know this when, together with a small team of landscaper guys, we installed a bird bath just outside my kitchen window in my front walled garden.

I am NOT a bird watcher. I can with certainty identify a hummingbird, and thanks to my friend, Connie, identify the Osprey whose nest looms large on a telephone pole over our weekly hike at Lake Murray. We stop every time. We watch the birds.

According to San Diego Bird Alliance, Shelter Island, North San Diego Bay is one of our area’s best places to see fine feathered friends. Just recently on a stroll before the Diana Krall performance at Humphrey’s Concerts By the Bay, we spotted these three happy winged creatures on our walk along the water.

With limited interest in birding, the impetus for the birdbath fountain was more about repurposing.

For the first seven years I lived in my home at 215, a cast-off very large fountain (extremely heavy—unmovable heavy!) in four pieces lived in the far-right corner of my pint-sized garage. It was a victim of built-up annoyances about water-feature maintenance no longer tolerated by my next-door son and daughter-in-law.

I regularly scraped my car’s right front bumper or my shin or ankle—or both—on that cast concrete fountain.

In desperation, to save my car and my body parts and to get it out of the garage, but also to repurpose an imposing and beautiful polished concrete sculptural piece, I discussed the dilemma with the head landscaper guy. Within weeks, a new and relatively maintenance-free, self-circulating version of the cast-off garden object appeared in direct line of sight from the kitchen window. As I snapped the ends off asparagus stalks, dried the crystal glasses, or polished my father’s silver cocktail shaker, I could bird watch.

Amazingly, it didn’t take long for the birds of Banker’s Hill to find their new gathering spot, the local watering hole.

Daily, a dozen or more rather common looking birds sit on the rim, skitter across the very shallow water pond, or flap their wings sending water up and out. Chirping and chittering, they appear to play and converse and tease one another. Their little beaks switch side to side as they drink, bathe, and frolic. They are extremely difficult to photograph!

There are no exotic specimens in the Banker’s Hill Birds Bath—no Rainbow Lorikeets or Paradise Tanagers. Not even a Kingfisher sporting iridescent blues shimmering on its wings. At least not to my knowledge.

My friend Carrie’s son refers to the ubiquitous little brown birds that do frequent my space as LBBs.

A small gathering - three LBBs, two stone birds

The Banker’s Hill Birds outside my kitchen window are an ordinary collection of small-ish brown birds. LBBs. Occasionally a yellow belly or an orange head. But nothing spectacular. No rare-specimens like the birds dedicated birdwatchers travel continent to continent to traipse through brush, jungle, and wilderness to see and photograph with unwieldy camera equipment.

Just ordinary.

I did spot one with royal purple and periwinkle blu-ish tinges on his feathers. Plain brown body though. And one time, a single red-headed birdie, (also plain brown body) solo in the pond. Obviously, a loner.

Occasionally, the crows come. Dominant. Ominous. And threatening. It has become my job to storm out the front door and do my best to make them feel unwelcome.

The best bird sightings at 215 happen when they come in droves - usually in sunshine - swooping in like a Met Gala entrance. Wings flapping, beaks yapping. In community like that, although they’re small, brown, and quite plain, they flutter and preen rimming the edge of the quietly moving water pool.

I am finding I spend more time at my kitchen sink as the whole world of the Banker’s Hill Birds unfolds in front of my very eyes.

Perhaps I’m becoming a bird-watcher?

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 It's also the glorious Jacaranda time in Banker's Hill, my charming and eclectic neighborhood located between the San Diego International Airport to the west and the iconic Balboa Park to the east. Lavender blossoms everywhere!

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Apparently, I AM becoming a bird watcher.

Recent birthday gift from Connie, my walking buddy who introduced me to the Ospreys...