On our recent stay on a ranch near, well sort of near, Ojai , North of LA we met Albert. He’s from Texas. The owner of the ranch: Richard, made our stay interesting and our grandsons loved all the animals and Albert in particular. You could say that Albert was rescued, but normally a rescued animal is free, they paid to rescue Albert. He lives on the ranch amongst dozens of goats and in perfect harmony. He doesn’t bite you, having only one decent set of teeth, but probably wouldn’t if he had them all. He really was quite lovely.

So apart from Albert and the goats, there were alpaca, sheep, horses and finches. Yes a whole collection of finches that Richard bought from a pet store and released into his huge greenhouse, where they could thrive and survive. In the greenhouse they can eat the bugs on the plants and be free to fly around in relative safety.

They used to have cattle but on an area where hardly a blade of grass will survive, they had to buy in feed. It made no sense so they found new homes for them. Whilst we are on about birds I came across this one with a few others perched on a tree. About the size of a blackbird, strangely eerie eye markings. It was out in the wild on the trek we made to the top of the ridge. Not a lot of bird life in the area, it is incredibly dry, this one made a pleasant change.

Anyone who knows what it might be? I’m searching for possibilities but with no luck yet.

Post script: Looks like it may be an American Robin which unlike the UK version is part of the Thrush Family, there were about 5 of them on the tree, so they are a little more sociable than our own one.