Species flash cards from e-nature

These are the 19 species of raptors regularly seen at the Golden Gate, grouped by the number typically seen each year per species:

Group 1 (1000's per autumn)

• 
  Cooper's Hawk (full description)
  
• 
  Red-tailed Hawk(full description)
  
• 
  Sharp-shinned Hawk (full description)
  
• 
  Turkey Vulture (full description)
  

Group 2 (50-100's per autumn)

• 
  American Kestrel (full description)
  
• 
  Broad-winged Hawk (full description)
  
• 
  Merlin (full description)
  
• 
  Northern Harrier (full description)
  
• 
  Osprey (full description)
  
• 
  Peregrine Falcon (full description)
  
• 
  Red-shouldered Hawk (full description)
  
• 
  White-tailed Kite (full description)
  

Group 3 (<50 per autumn)

• 
  Golden Eagle (full description)
  
• 
  Ferruginous Hawk (full description)
  
• 
  Prairie Falcon (full description)
  
• 
  Rough-legged Hawk (full description)
  

Group 4 (<10 per autumn)

• 
  Bald Eagle (full description)
  
• 
  Northern Goshawk (full description)
  
• 
  Swainson's Hawk (full description)
  

We walked the Laguna trail again, and saw two kites again. They sat in the top of a particular tree the whole time, but for about 20 seconds when both flew upwards briefly and displayed full wing-spreads with the wrist spots and all. One is noticeably larger than the other - could we have a breeding pair?

While the motionless kites gave us a zen lesson, a great blue heron swooped past them on a long shallow glide that ended beneath our view in the main stream of the Laguna... nice.

Also saw what we thought was a kestrel.

Also saw a bunch of trash where homeless people have squatted... I understand that one might be driven (or might fall) to the extreme of living outdoors, in a preserve -- it's a nice place; if/when *I* hit that bottom, *I* might find a cozy cubby there too -- but I don't understand theirt trashing of it. I mean, you gotta sleep there, and besides the plain *ugliness* of sitting in a pile of your own trash, you're attracting critters you may not want to attract.

Today, we went up to the headlands north of Hawk Hill, just for a little exercise and a look around.

Ended up getting about five miles' walk and significant elevation, on a totally clear (though smoggy in the distance still) and quite hot (95 in San Rafael - felt like 100 on the hills with no shade) day.

We took the Spencer Ave exit on 101 and parked by the freeway, and then took the Morning Sun Trail up to the Alta Trail, which we then followed to Bobcat, and up to Marincello. With binocs, we could see the hawkwatchers over on Hawk Hill about a mile distant.

I should mention somewhere that, after our first stint on Hawk Hill with binocs on a neck strap, we bought "Slide and Flex Bino-System" harnesses, and they are FANTASTIC. The binocs hang against my chest/stomach while I'm hiking, and I can have 'em up at my eyes in a second. Since they hang on two elastic bands instead of one plastic/leather band, they cause no neck strain, and are virtually unnoticeable most of the time. If you do any kind of birding, or for that matter anything where you need to be mobile but still need to be able to use binocs (or camera) frequently, GET the harness.

Today we saw lots of the usual Turkey Vultures (TVs, in hawkwatch shorthand), several red-tails, a possible Northern Harrier or two, and in a lovely moment, made our first positive independent ID of a Cooper's Hawk, the first of the three accipiters we might see in the Hawk Hill area this year - we hope to get the other accipiters - Sharp-Shinned Hawk and maybe a Northern Goshawk - before the year is over...

In general, in this area, when you see a raptor in the sky, you start out trying to find any reason that it is not a Red-Tailed Hawk.

We are supposed to be able to identify red-tails by the patagial marks between "shoulder" and "wrist" - I've seen the marks, but not on a bird in flight a mile away...

A lot of the trick to identifying these birds is simple practice. A lot of it is in recognizing flight behaviors, because more often than not, that's all you get. I often feel completely stupid about IDing these birds, but I *do* feel that I've improved, having worked at it quite a bit.

We walked around the Laguna (PDF) a few days ago, and for the second time there, spotted small hovering raptors some distance to the north. There are (at least) two birds that fit this description: the American Kestrel and the White-Tailed (formerly Black-Shouldered -- though to be fair, they have both attributes) Kite. This most recent time, we determined they were Kites, but I think they might've been Kestrels the previous time.

These two birds are quite different if you see them close up, but it's amazing how hard it can be to make a positive ID from a few hundred yards away, when they neither sit still nor give you the full spread-winged view-rom-below you see in the books (and in most of our early ID class materials).

Kestrels and Kites both hunt in a stationary-fluttering mode, where they can stay in one spot above their prey and then suddenly drop into a dive. (Attenborough's BBC "Life of Birds," among other great stuff, shows some great footage of a Kestrel doing this and repeatedly dropping five-ten feet closer to the ground to hover again and get a better look).

The Kite has a distinctive falcon-like shape, with very long pointed wings (white to grey, with a roughly 3" black spot at the "wrist"), and white tail. The Kestrel is somewhat rusty-colored, the males having bluish wings. If you get a good look at the face, they have prominent "moustache" and "sideburns."

We are pleased, at any rate, to have the Laguna within walking distance, and to be able to take our binocs over there and get a nice 2-3 mile walk AND a chance to work on our raptor ID skills.