The Davis trip was amazing -- no way did I believe we'd see "flocks" of Swainson's hawks -- I just couldn't get my mind around the idea of a flock of hawks. But they were indeed there. Raptor tornados.

The driving tour we took was based on an article by Julia Camp in the Winter 1997 "Pacific Raptor Report", which is published by GGRO -- you might be able to ask them for a copy, or let me know you want one and I might try to fax or snail mail it to you. Some of the distances seemed a little off (sometimes 3 miles were really two), but other than that it seemed to be spot-on. As stated in the article, we did in fact see Swainson's following behind farm equipment, ready to grab anything the combines or tractors might stir up. We also got great views of juvenile and adult red tails, kestrels, and harriers during the day. And only one other car blew their horn at me for absent-mindedly stopping our vehicle to sit and watch hawks (and we didn't go off the road anywhere either!). (And, wherever you are Julia, thanks for such a helpful article!)

We've completed our three raptor-identification classes and other preliminaries
in preparation for this year's hawk watch with the Golden Gate Raptor
Observatory (GGRO: http://www.ggro.org).

We learned about the 19 species of raptor that usually pass through the Golden
Gate. These raptors were classified into four groups: buteos (long-winged
soaring hawks), accipiters (short-winged/long-tailed "chasing" hawks), falcons
(smallish, super-fast birds of prey), and others (eagles, vultures, osprey,
kites). Ultimately, we will be expected to identify all 19 species, as well as
male-female and/or juvenile-adult variations and "morphs" for some of those
species. They consider the first year to be training-time, and there's no real
time limit on when we are expected to know all of these birds, but the ultimate
goal is to be able to identify some 26 different birds.

The hawk-watch takes place on "Hawk Hill," one of the highest points in the
headlands just north of the Golden Gate Bridge. This area happens to be ideal
for watching the hawk "migrations" because the land narrows to a point at the
Gate and hawks tend to stay over the land on their north-south flights. I put
"migrations" in quotation marks because some of the raptors live here
year-round, and for most of them, it's not a simple straight flight south for
the winter/north for the summer; they may dawdle in this area awhile. Thus the
"count" is not a strict counting of individuals as much as a counting of
"passes."

Saturday 8/10, we had our first (unofficial) hawk-watch day. It was a perfectly
beautiful clear day with visibility as far as 40 miles. Thus we had the Golden
Gate and the city of San Francsico pretty much at our feet all day. Click for Pics

We are assigned to four quadrants each manned by two or more volunteers. We
keep track of a raptor by "calling it in" to a volunteer at the center who ticks
it off on a form, and if a raptor leaves our quadrant we "pass it" to the other
quadrant so it isn't counted twice. As a group, over a three-hour period, we
counted some 130 raptors. The high point was a Prairie Falcon - quite rare in
this area. (To give some idea of the rarity, note that of some 36,000 birds
counted in 1999, *5* were Prairie Falcons, and the most counted in any year
since 1990 was 12.)

We will participate every other Saturday through December, spending six hours on
each hawk-watch.

Yesterday (8/17), we decided to take an advertised "tour" of an area near Davis,
CA (a few miles west of Sacramento) where we would supposedly see large numbers
of Swainson's Hawks (these are even rarer than the Prairie Falcon at Hawk Hill -
3 counted in 1999). I expected to see three or four Swainson's in the course of
the day. As it turned out, we saw hundreds. Unlike the hawks we've seen around
here so far, the Swainson's are prone to "kettling" - they find a good updraft
and wheel around in it, sort of a spiral escalator they use to gain altitude.
We saw this a couple of times, with "kettles" containing at least 50 birds and
others standing around on the ground nearby. We were stunned by the sheer
numbers of these birds. We saw enough Swainson's Hawks in this one day to "get
a feel" for the bird and to have some confidence that we'd be able to identify
one if we saw it on Hawk Hill.

Right at the beginning of the first "tour," US Davis has a Raptor Center, which
we were able to visit. They have a large number of raptors in cages where you
can see them perching and flying.

Some of the hawk-watch volunteers set a goal of spotting all 19 species each
year. We're well on our way:

Species We've Spotted (*) 1999 GGRO Counts
Turkey Vulture * 9357
Osprey * 81
White-Tailed Kite * 69
Bald Eagle 7
Northern Harrier * 1369
Sharp-Shinned Hawk 6348
Cooper's Hawk * 3015
Northern Goshawk 1
Red-Shouldered Hawk * 424
Broad-Winged Hawk 235
Swainson's Hawk * 3
Red-Tailed Hawk * 12520
Ferruginous Hawk 22
Rough-Legged Hawk 19
Golden Eagle 20
American Kestrel * 694
Merlin 147
Peregrine Falcon 95
Prairie Falcon * 5
Unidentified 2151

Total (*10 of 19) 36573

(Note: we've seen more of the above birds in captivity, including both Eagle
species.)