Swainson's Hawks galore

So we had our field trip. It was pretty damn cool. We saw a ton of Swainson's Hawks. We were, after all, searching for Swainson's Hawks in Central Valley, California, and sure enough we found them. Ironically, if you're a birder, the 10% population of dark morphs and non-typical Sainson's seem to be located in California. Out of the hundreds of hawks we saw, only two or three were the typical Swainson's with light underremiges and brown caps. The rest were a mottled mess. There were many juvenile Swainson's and many variously morphed adults.

In addition to the Swainson's Hawks we saw several skeins of White-faced Ibis's, a Green Heron, Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks, American Kestrels, Great and Snowy Egrets, Great Blue Herons, and a skyful of Long-billed Curlews (many thousands). We also saw a couple of White-tailed Kites off in the distance near a high-school field towards the end of the day.

For me, we ran across a few species that were life birds, not so much that I had never seen them before , but that I had no reason to identify them before. They were the Western Kingbird, Loggerhead Shrike, Cattle Egret, Western Meadowlark, and a Yellow-billed Magpie. The Ibis's were also life birds.

I doubt I should count count them in my life list, but we found two Burrowing Owl corpses on the side of the road as we were leaving our last stop. We figured they were either burrowing too close to the road and got hit by a car. I don't know anything about these owls behavior, but I find it odd that two were killed. I wonder if they were hit at the same time. I suppose now I'll have to go to the Berkelely Marina to see a few live owls digging into the lawn.

But all in all, after 8 hours of sitting in a moving car, it was a great trip. I look forward to next year's, and I hope Erin comes along.