Thanks to the wonderful Marilyn from https://teepee12.com/, I learned that what I thought were House Finches were really American Robins.
I didn’t even know they called Southern California home, but I saw a note from our local Audubon Society that confirms it: “Have you read about the abundance of Robins in San Diego County this year?”
I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and looked out at an amazing sight. There were literally dozens of chirpy birds invading my garden, SO MANY I couldn’t even count them all.
At first I thought they were finches, which are plentiful here, but as I learned, was incorrect. All those birds were American Robins!!
I no longer have feeders because of my arch nemeses, RATS, so what they’re feasting on here is actually an invasive species, a Brazilian Pepper tree that somehow sprouted into the neighbor’s yard and they didn’t get rid of it like we did.
There’s no way I could capture as many as there are, but I’d say definitely more than fifty of these lovely red breasted birds are visiting Casa de Enchanted Seashells.
This makes sense because they’re eating red berries from the pepper tree.
They stayed for about an hour, saturating my world with their most delightful song and chirpy calls to friends and family. Every tree in the garden is full of these guys as well the rosemary and lavender bushes.
I’ve never seen anything like this. For me, It’s as exciting as spotting a pod of whales or dolphin. I’m grateful they chose my garden to visit. Pure joy!
Enchanted Seashells by Princess Rosebud 
We have house finches too, but those pictures are Robins, not a House Finches. See my post today for a good shot of a house finch — a mature one. They are red on top, not underneath.
It’s the second picture after the Goldfinch at the top.
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But we don’t have robins here! I could be wrong, doing some research now!
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Those birds appear to be female robins. The boys are probably around too. The males have stronger colors — which is true with most birds.
https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/american-robin#photo2
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LOLZ, that’s the source I went to, too.
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Also, see: https://www.audubon.org/field-guide/bird/house-finch
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These are among my favorite birds. We have a flock of them nesting right behind our backyard. We also see a lot of the very young ones (really cute) and the females, who are not red and speckled, but ONLY speckled. I have dozens of pictures of these birds. They only showed up around here about five years ago, but since they showed up, they’ve established a big presence. There are almost as many of them as goldfinches which are actually native to these parts (the house finches are charming invaders).
I thought I would mention that a bad mitral valve is often inherited. Mine was. I hope you are getting very good medical care.
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Climate change has changed the range of MANY birds. We are not seeing birds we’ve seen for years, but seeing birds that never lived here.
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I haven’t seen any cedar waxwings in the garden in a long time!
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The grackles vanished this year. Robins are oddly scarce probably due to too many people using pesticides on weeds.
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They were so delightful and I’m happy to know who they are!
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One year, we had a huge invasion of grubs in our lawn. Suddenly about 100 robins appeared. In a couple of days, they GORGED on grubs. When they were done eating, there was not a single grub left. They ate every last one and the lawn came back perfectly.
Then the neighbors started using “Round Up” weed killer and the robins dropped dead — LITERALLY — in their nests. We always had one of their nests on the deck until weed killer murdered them. I have NEVER forgiven our neighbors for doing that. Now they’ve taken that poison off the market. It turns out it was killing people, too — just slower. Trust the birds.
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That’s absolutely horrible! I wouldn’t forgive them either.
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We were always careful with poison — no matter what it said on the can or bottle. Chemical companies LIE. I actually watched a robin mother fall over dead in her nest. She must have eaten something that had been poisoned. NOW there a big lawsuit about Roundup, but it was supposed to be “safe.” It was NOT safe and we never used it.
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How sad to watch that happen! As much as I love weed free lawns and insect free veggies, I’d rather not kill others.
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And there are natural ways to cut down on insects, witness a flock of robins killing all the grubs in the lawn. No poison would have done that.
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I hope they at least felt badly????
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One neighbor did, the other is a real asshole. Nothing makes him feel bad. I think he hates the whole world.
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Oh, one of THOSE kinds of people, I stay away from their negative drain!
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Us too. We ALL avoid him. His wife left him and if he ever had kids, they don’t visit. Not one of the good guys.
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Update: Just got this notice from my local Audubon center: “Have you read about the abundance of Robins in San Diego County this year?” Not only were you correct, but lots of people are being visited!
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That’s heartening to hear. At least ONE bird isn’t dying.
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