One way California shows its roots is its place names. I live in San Francisco, named for noted bird lover St. Francis, and work in Tiburon among the sharks (mostly metaphorical these days). Point Reyes (the King's Point) and Bolinas Lagoon (how you'd get a whale in there, I don't know...) are two places I love to visit this time of year; another is the area around the Gavilan Range. It's aptly named - the area does support a whole range of hawks. On the eastern flank of the range, there's a great little road out of the town of Tres Pinos (three pines), and what's the name? Who knows?
I've been itching to go for weeks. We usually visit this area at the start of our trips to Panoche Valley, so I already knew it was a great birding area. Reports from the past month or so have been over the top, though. Literally dozens of golden eagles seen, plus abundant ferruginous hawks and prairie falcons, harriers and kites, and a bazillion kestrels and redtails. I'm taking advantage of the long weekend to do a household painting project, and decided to reward myself for completing the first coat by taking a little afternoon trip. I left San Francisco at noon, stopped to pick up a friend along the way, and we were at Quien Sabe by 2.
It did not disappoint.
As soon as we got there, we looked up and saw someone soaring above:
Of greater interest was a Golden Eagle soaring over the hills in the background. Time to move on from paragliders and get to the real masters of the skies. We headed down Quien Sabe Road, stopping to check out some favorite pullouts. One oak-covered hillside gave us a good reason to stop - an adult golden eagle perched in a tree near the top of the ridge.
We hung out admiring the bird for a little bit, giving me a chance to try some digiscoping with my new-ish camera. Another birder came by - a local guy whose name I recognized from reading the Monterey Bay Birds list - it's always fun to put a face to a name. He'd come from the other direction and said things were kind of slow - he'd only seen about half a dozen goldens and a couple of ferruginous hawks. We were able to add another golden right after he arrived - a juvenile bird flew over from the opposite hillside and soared overhead for a bit. Another little cluster of birds turned out to be ravens, a redtail and a rather aggressive harrier. Watching them near the ridge, we spotted another perched raptor - this one a White-tailed Kite.
As our bird count grew, so did the birder count. Another car stopped, and this time was Debi Shearwater with a friend. Debi runs a well-known pelagic birding operation in Monterey Bay (and elsewhere in Northern California) - she's been at it for 35 years now. She also birds the Monterey/San Benito area extensively, and knows the area like the back of her hand. A fortunate encounter for us, indeed - she gave us some helpful pointers.
The first rains of the season started about a month ago, and the hills are just starting sprout some green shoots among the dried stalks of last season's grass. The rolling hills are mostly rangeland (note the cattle trails criss-crossing the hillside) and, in addition to cattle, they support a huge number of ground squirrels, who, in turn, support a huge number of raptors. There are also large flocks of blackbirds meadowlarks, along with bluebirds, sparrows and phoebes along every fenceline. It's by no means pristine wilderness, but it supports a lot of wildlife.
So we were 20 minutes into the the birding portion of our trip, and we'd already seen three golden eagles and a nice assortment of other birds... and we weren't even to "the good spot" yet. The reports that have been appearing over the past few months keep mentioning the intersection of Santa Ana Valley Road and John Smith Road, about a mile to the north of us. Debi and her friend were headed there, and she offered to show us a Burrowing Owl location along the way - a good thing, since our Quien Sabe burrowing owl wasn't in its usual spot. Before we me up with her, we had to stop and admire two luscious ferruginous hawks perched in a tree near the intersection of Quien Sabe and Santa Ana Valley. Unfortunately, they took off just when I remembered to grab my camera from the car. Onward to the Promised Land...
We had spotted one more eagle while we stopped for the ferrugs, and then when we met up with Debi to look for the owl, four more soared into view, doubling our total. We ran into another familiar-named Monterey birder (more faces to go with names!) who had a camera lens that could have doubled as a barstool. More birds, too - more harriers, more kites, more kestrels, more redtails... We had only been in the area for about an hour at this point.
A little falcon zipped overhead and landed in the field across from the intersection. It was the size of kestrel, but the color of a Prairie Falcon - a Richardson's Merlin! Very uncommon here on the west coast. The sandy little bird did a great job of blending in with bare ground. (We never did see a prairie falcon - our one big miss of the day - but this guy more than made up for the disappointment.)
Another Ferruginous against a distant hillside, another handful of golden eagles (we stopped counting at this point), and probably a dozen redtails between the hillsides, fields and power poles. One pair of 'tails sat side-by-sde on the high-voltage towers, others harassed the eagles intermittently, and a glance down the wires in any direction would turn up a few perched birds.
A bald eagle joined the crowd and circled up briefly, then moved on. Debi told us about a pair who'd been nesting there for several years now, the first recorded in San Benito. The bird appeared to be one of the pair as it headed in the direction of their nest territory.
If we were to make it back to the bay area in time for dinner, it meant we had to hit the road soon. Besides, the sun was getting low and the shadows of the hills were starting to fill the valley. There was enough light left for another Ferruginous Hawk sighting, though.
I dropped my friend off, and as she opened the car door we heard an unmistakable sound... Barn Owls, making their 'tinkling glass" call. We looked up to see a pair circling overhead. A few loops, and then they disappeared into the trees. What a perfect way to end the day.