I appreciate that perspective Norm, but alternatively you could imagine that at some point what are now "weeds" will have to adapt and specialize as well, as climate and crustal plate locations (plate tectonics) change on earth. perhaps we (all life) are all derived from "weeds" and we are just in our little window observing our short time frame.......oh oh, i think i better stop and get another evening cocktail
speaking of nesting raptors and other birds of prey, my wife and i enjoyed watching a pair of great horned owls raise their brood in a large cavity of an old digger pine near the pond a couple years ago. the baby great horned owls are huge white/gray noisy fluff balls the size of a basketball. it was really fun to watch em through binoculars. we generally have western screech owls, great horned, barn, and a special rare one called a pygmy owl which we only saw once, but can hear them on summer evenings.
our property is riddled with a rodent called a vole. their population density is cyclical, and this is a big vole year. they are hugely destructive to anything you plant, anywhere you till a little soil and add water, the voles go crazy....there are thousands of em, they've even destroyed some of my cactus, most of the time i feel like bill murray out there on the caddyshack golf course, i cant get rid of em.....the controls besides me and my poison include all manner of predatory birds in addition to rattlers, fox and coyote. this year in particular our pond, the neighboring ranch pond, and nearby pasteur areas have been quite the oasis.
