“We’ve got bush tits, northern flickers
, white and red-breasted nuthatches!” exclaims ten-year-old Marieva O’Neil. Her list of local fowl sounds foul, even pornographic, but it’s simply a small sampling of the birds she’s spotted in her backyard.
“There’s a brown creeper,” she adds. “It’s invisible to adults, but I’m able to see it, especially when it moves to grab a bug.”
O’Neil and her mother live in the Hilltop neighborhood, on what they’d thought was a busy cross street until the pandemic slowed life down. “I’m just surprised that there are so many different birds all around that we’ve never noticed,” admits Marieva’s mother, Lani O’Neil. “The spring blue jays are quite friendly this season, and it’s only our second year we’ve spotted them!”