californianbill's Identifications

I think this is a coot. I had barely begun my hike this morning, when I saw this little guy walking by himself. He seemed a little lost. The light was poor and he was moving quickly, so the photos aren’t ideal.

I counted at least six mule deer in the park this morning. There were males and females, adults and juveniles. The youngsters looked like they were having a great time chasing each other across the hills.

Young purple martin (the one stuck in the house in the first photo) was being attacked and chased by the other martins for whatever reason. To escape them, he went into the house sparrow’s nest, only to be attacked by the male sparrow inside. The sparrow grabs the martin by the head from inside the nest which is what you see happening in the first photo. The other martins weren’t sure what to do but eventually began attacking the young martin again until the sparrow let him go.