Driving home last night from the city, I saw my first and second owls in the wild (in the Victoria yuppie ghetto of west Petaluma and out on Spring Hill Road near the Coast Guard station). Cool.

Bravely brought my bike down to the Headlands with a vague plan of riding up the Miwok Trail and down the Bobcat Trail.

I have lost all bike-legs I built in April, May, and June. Made it (with many stops) to within about a half-mile of the Vortec, but when I saw a long down-and-up ahead, I just turned around and coasted back to the car (fun!), ready to count this as practice. Wouldn't *really* want to do the whole thing first time out!

Fog was breaking up when I arrived (~1:00). I could see the hawkwatchers up on the Hill, but wasn't gonna leave my bike unprotected.

Lots of birds; definite TVs, red-tails, and accipiters (one was pretty definitely a Cooper's); one possible Broad-Winged (white wings with black "fringe," and a particular shape of wing that's hard to describe. Also a strong bit of white on the head - not sure if that jibes with my diagnostics).

At any rate, no binoculars and no pressure to identify. Sometimes, it's nice to just appreciate things without trying to analyze.

Laguna walk yesterday morning was quite productive - five species (the resident Kites and Red-Shouldered Hawk; also a couple of Red-Tails, a Northern Harrier, and of course many Turkey Vultures). Kestrels conspicuous by their absence. Maybe they saw us first. :-)

I posted some snap shots from the our two September hawk watch days -- 9/7/2002 and 9/21/2002 -- here. You can click on any of the photos to open a larger view.

Yesterday on the hill we got to meet Greg Gothard, who does the buteo.com site. I found Greg's hawk photos on the web years ago, and they inspired me to find out more about GGRO. Explore his site for lots of wonderful wildlife photos.