Thank you! I had tried searching online, but had MILLIONS of results for things like "birds with crest" "Southern California crested birds" and so on! Until just a few days ago I had never seen this particular type of bird, but now there are entire flocks of them in and over my yard every day. I think they're beautiful! Thanks again.

@norm1977, wow, I hadn’t expected a response or comment anymore at this late stage, but it’s always nice when someone checks in! On the whole, the lawn is holding up great. One of my dogs passed away in 2019, 😢 so it’s only taking abuse from one instead of two now, and there are definitely places along the edges where it has died because those are regular pee spots for my boy. But I expected that, and they’re not big areas. Right now a good portion of the lawn is dormant for winter, especially where it’s more exposed when there’s the occasional frost like we got last week. It is one of the best garden investments I made!

With 7-10 trees, you are either going to have to take out some of the trees at some stage prior to maturity, or plan to have some of the trees be understory growers. [middle would give roughly 12' x 12' per, and that is not sufficient space for 25' trees without having them shade each other--columnar types excepted, of course]. I have planted that way, but a lack of willingness to cull isn't one of my traits. Understory shrubs can be useful in helping to provide the "showy" and erosion control. Wildlife will appreciate them, too. But it takes some designing to coordinate species by season and visual compatibility. (A local park has tipu beside pink crepe myrtles--they are both in bloom now, but the yellow and pink are not attractive together.) Don't forget the plants you have already planted, and the influence of any neighbors' immediate landscapes. Foliage is also something to think about; it is usually good to have some base foliage plants to make the specimens more visually effective. It is best not to plant during the heat of summer. Design now, and plant when cooler months return.

The very best way is to hire a tractor (and driver) with a box blade. If it is a traditional SoCal yard, it will take about 30 minutes. Or you can DIY with some effort. Probably the hardest part is to figure out whether you need to remove soil that's already there. I'm going out on a limb here, because I see a lot more (LOT MORE) yards needing to remove soil, but I'm going to suggest you should remove soil. If the soil is higher than the surrounding hardscape, it should be removed down to, more or less, level with a slight crown in the middle for drainage. Once that is done you can deal with high and low spots. Assuming the grass is gone, then look for low spots to fill with sand. Smooth that off with a long 2x4 board with some weight on it. Or you can drag a piece of wire fencing around. I made a chain link drag with rope, wood, bag of sand (for weight), and fencing. It worked great for a small area. So with the drag you drag that around until it looks perfect. Then spray it all down with a mist of water to encourage the sand to settle without washing it away. Let that dry and fill the new low spots with more sand. Drag, water, and evaluate again. After about 3 cycles of that you should have a relatively perfect surface. Don't walk on that until the grass is down. Sand works better than topsoil for this because topsoil always has little clods in it. Even a 1/4-inch clod will make you scream as it creates a furrow in the sand. You can make it putting-green smooth, which is a great goal. After the sod is down, then use a roller to press the bottom of the sod down onto the surface of the soil/sand. Roots will not grow through the air to reach the ground. Of if it is a small area, you can achieve the same result by walking on every square inch of sod to press it down. Your weight is perfect for this. You might want the sand to be moist/firm when you do this. Dry sand might push around and defeat the purpose of leveling.