Fauna: Urban wildlife viewing in San Diego.....

Living at the center of a bustling neighborhood in San Diego does not provide much opportunity to view wildlife...yet, I go for walks with determination to spot a t least a handful of them..

Amble by the banks of San Diego river,  Mission San Diego campus, even our apartment offer with myriad scopes...

BIRDS...
An oriole on a tree tobacco plant....

This Anna's humming lingered on the pomegranate twig long enough to grant me ample shots...

This great blue heron sunning itself was a surprise spotting...If only I could have gone closer...

This red-shouldered hawk comes regularly to the sycamore grove near our San Diego house, sits and suns itself for hours, giving me  numerous opportunities to hone my photography skill ...

A warbler...

Finch....

A munia with a strand of grass possibly to decorate its nest...

Saw this song sparrow on a willow....

BUGS....

This monarch on a lantana umbel...

The bee was busy gathering pollen from the aeonium flowers...

ANIMALS....

The falling pine cone flakes from the tree made me look up and discover this guy..

I never thought racoons can be living in the middle of San Diego city, in a patch of land crisscrossed by freeways....the other day, as I went to dump trash, these bandit guys approached me fearlessly......

I was delighted to see a never-seen-before animal...but, knowing that they carry plague pathogen is quite scary!!

Then I spotted this skunk from my bedroom window as it was foraging on the front lawn...

MOLLUSC...
Finally, this slug munching away the mushroom reminded me of "Alice in Wonderland" story...