Other Raptors
Gray Hawk
Cooper’s Hawk
Golden Eagle
Kestrel
It’s going to take a while to recover …
Cold this morning with reports of light ice on backyard water features. The skies were satisfactory for our 8:30 opening with a mix of blue sky and clouds. It was in the low 60s by 9:30 when a light Broad-winged hawk went north. A second light Broadwing, exhibiting a full crop, turned south after reaching the waste water plant south of the park. Zonetails, Swaison’s and an Osprey joined the movement north. A lone Noetropic Cormorant tried to sneak north on the far east side.
After 10:00 activity slowed as clouds increased. A raven battled a second Osprey forcing it north on the east side of the park where the last channels of blue sky and sun offered an escape route.
A carpet of dark rain clouds approached from the southwest, stretching from the left slope of “Tall” peak diagonally toward the park. The imminent threat of rain from these stormy clouds chased everyone else from the place. The counters retreated under the tents, along with the chairs and equipment we hoped to keep dry. The lightest of rains sounded much stronger when it hit the canopy. We kept scanning from the edges of the tent, finding only a Merganser circling the park in the rain.
Each time the rain let up we tried to reestablish ourselves at the normal unprotected count point. We cycled back to the tents several times. Mid-afternoon there was a break in the clouds. Birders and Gray Hawks immediately reappeared out of nowhere. Temperatures bounced up and layers flew off the counters. Then stormy cloud cover again chased everyone else from the place, layers of jackets were reapplied, and we were again scanning a dreary gray sky.
As 4:00 approached, HWI#1 incredulously queried “Anyone see this huge kettle of Swainson’s”? HWI#2 and I angled our binoculars south southwest over the evergreens. Fourteen Swainson’s Hawks were milling about! We noted a variety of morphs as the Swainson’s passed by on the west side along the highway line. Dreariness resumed.
Four O’clock passed. HWI#1 calmly remarked “There’s another huger kettle”. Hanging in the cloud cover to the southeast was a loose, tall kettle of 28 Swainson’s. They feigned a move north, reversed course and flew southwest in front of us. Undaunted by this reversal we tracked the as yet uncounted group of not quite migrants west. I lost sight of them in the haze, but HWI#1&2 were locked on, following the birds to the west. Along the way other groups of Swainson’s were swallowed up. The growing huger huge group of Swainson’s hung over Tall Peak. They were such small specs. Binoculars were insufficient. In a first for the Tubac Hawk Watch, HWI#1&2 performed a Scope Count as the kettled streamed from Tall over the saddle to Flat Peak. This huger huge group of 68 Swainson’s proceed north and west along the mountains.
We had hardly entered the data when a huge swarm of Turkey Vultures appeared directly west. We each did quick kettle count estimates, uncertain which way this ball of flying road kill would go. After much deliberation, the Vultures reorganized. A long line of birds stretched across the west skyline of Tubac from Carmen to the Border Check Point. HWI#1 tracked the line of Vultures, informing me as each cluster of TVs approached the bright spot in the clouds I had selected as the count point. These were not fast flying falcons I was counting! I slowly clicked 91 Turkey Vultures as they proceeded north, single file, well spaced from each other. HWI #2 entertained a few visitors allowing the other counters to stay focused on what was surely every Turkey Vulture in Santa Cruz County.
Minutes before close a small kettle of 8 Swainson’s Hawks materialized. Some went south, others went north. We counted the northbound Hawks and then joined them on their journey out of the park.
