Preface:  As the burrowing owl activities continue behind the scenes, I thought I’d lighten the mood just a little and share what nature does right as opposed to what we are doing wrong.  More Antioch burrowing owl information to come.

Watching raptors never gets old.  And for 9 years it has been a ‘who can spot the hawk?’ game as we cross the bridge that separates the far reaches of the east S.F. Bay Area from the rest of my world.  It is a trek that we happen to find ourselves on somewhat frequently as we attempt to satisfy family get-together obligations and trips to wildlife preserves for instance.  It is a corridor of farmland and pastures that is intertwined with the delta system and divided by thousands of fence posts sufficiently deteriorated to complement the rustic scene. 

There are a few places to park and escape the confines of a vehicle, numerous areas to stop that perhaps straddle legal code, miles and miles of mostly empty roadway conducive to middle of the street pauses, and plenty of opportunities to miss a great photograph or capture a winning shot.  It is never a dull trip.

Although the birding is quite varied, the most prominent feature of this secret landscape are the raptors.  Balancing on a leaning fence post, observing from telephone poles, sitting idle on the ground, and posing on the limb of a tree are all common scenarios whether the sun is shining or the fog is masking long distance visibility.

So enjoy a few of the many raptors we encountered on our last drive, see if you can identify them, and thanks for all the recent support with my struggle to protect burrowing owls.

Tags: birding, hawks, kestrels, Raptors, white-wing kites

This entry was posted by Scott on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Photos, Raptors, Wildlife, birds. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.