Isn’t he just lovely? He was feasting on my lemon blossoms and an Ice Plant I bought at a nursery on Saturday.

Ice Plant (Carpobrotus edulis)

I also bought another Yaupon Holly that is full of berries and put him right next to the holly we have next to our window. Earlier this fall when our holly was covered in red berries the mockingbird would sit in it, eat and then attack the window, probably thinking his reflection was another imposter mockingbird trying to steal all his berries! He would spend hours banging against the glass until I lowered the blinds and he stopped. Well he did a great job of clearing out all the berries from the tree so that not even the sweet cedar waxwings could get any. It’s been a rough dry year and the holly was probably stressed and did not make that many berries.  Once the berries were gone, so was the mockingbird. I was sad to see him go. I loved his melodies.

When I added the new Holly to the area on Saturday – all covered in berries – our little mockingbird friend was back, banging on the window. I just wish the cedar waxwings would come back to get some berries before the mockingbird eats them all!!

On Saturday we also spent the morning planting tree saplings in one of the many Austin parks. The city has allocated 2 million dollars to remove invasive plants, and plant native trees and shrubs in their place. These were: Texas Mountain Laurel, Pecan, Mexican Plum, Black Walnut and Sycamore along with many others. This will add to my volunteer time for the Capital Area Master Naturalist program.