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We wanted to go on the Hawk Watch at 8:30 so got up at 7 (it was still dark) and enjoyed deluxe showers. We WALKED 1/4 mile to the birding park.
We caught the tram to the hawk watch. It featured an impressive wheel-chair accessible Hawk Tower
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John Kaye spends 8:30 am to 12 every day in March and April counting the raptors that fly by. The day before they had lots of hawks including a huge kettle of Swainson's Hawks.
Today the raptor traffic was light. John generously gave us lots of tips on identifying hawks and showed us any that appeared in his scope. One tip for identifying flying hawks is to learn to compare body length with head and tail length and shapes.
Even though we did not see large numbers of hawks, the ones we saw were choice! Life birds: Harris Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk and Zone-tailed Hawk, plus raptors we have seen before Swainson's and Gray Hawks and White-tailed Kite.
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Gray Hawk from Hawk Tower; Great Blue Heron from Hawk Tower.
Only a few dead trees rose above the sea of green trees, and birds flying by zeroed in on the waiting branch. We saw many different species enjoying the same branch throughout the morning! We also saw a Neo-tropic Cormorant flying over (no photo)
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A level bird's-eye view of the spectacular Altamira Oriole from the hawk tower and a Couch's Kingbird.
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A group of cute girl scouts posed for a photo, while enjoying the outing and studying a dove.
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The entrance to our beautiful home away from home--Hooray! After a hot morning on the hawk tower, we decided today is a no-driving day and catch-up-on-blog day. We spent the afternoon at a picnic table in our park computing. Unfortunately, our van AC just cannot keep up with the 90 degree sun and heat.
Luckily, there is always a breeze, so if we leave the doors open it is more comfortable.
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| Paul got this cool photo of the Golden-fronted Woodpecker in our park while I was blogging. |
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That, however, was not the end of our day!
The park naturalist had showed us the whereabouts of an Elf Owl nest and told us it came out of a hole in the telephone pole when it gets dark at about 8 pm. We walked over at about 7:15. On the way we met a couple of local birders who showed us the Mississippi Kites flying in to roost and a small tarantula on the path beside us. They said tarantulas are mild-mannered. I did not test out the theory.
We made it to the Elf pole shortly after 7:30 and eleven people were already gathered--scopes, long-lens cameras ready. The elf owl hole is below the crossbars. How could they fit in there? We waited. We began to notice mosquitos--BIG FAT GREEDY ONES! We had neglected to put repellant although we did have on our "anti-bug" socks. Apparently everyone else had also forgotten repellant. It became wait, slap, slap, wait, slap, slap, wait. . . and so on. I can categorically say 137 mosquitos did not live after biting me.
At 5 minutes to 8 the English tour group (we had met the English birding tour group at the park earlier that day) arrived to see the owl. This increased our number to 21. All the pleasant chit-chat stopped so as not to discourage the owl from appearing. More wait, slap, slap, wait!
At 8:55, the English tour group quietly walked away. Gradually the others did as well. It left only Paul and I and we gave it up at about 9:20. The person who left right before us said no one could prove we did not see the owl if we wanted to count it! But we didn't see it. We still will be here 2 more nights, so will try again.
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Today Our Eyes Were On:
Hawks (and more) flying over and perching on dead trees
A lot of patient birders who eventually gave up on the elf owls
No busy roads, no traffic, no driving. . . peace and blissful quiet in a beautiful spot!
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