April 2-4 2010 - Coyote Creek Trail

Walked on the trail 4 times in the last 3 days.

Three of the 4 hawk nests are still occupied, but the most exposed red shouldered hawk nest appears to be abandoned these last few days.  This is the nest with the fairly small but very red hawk pair, and this is also the pair that was seen mating again a week ago.  This nest is so exposed that it is possible that it could not be defended, and we see a lot of larger raptors in this area regularly.

Yesterday we saw our first of season Bullock's Orioles.  They showed up as beautiful bursts of color against a very flat white day and mostly leafless pale branched sycamores. The Cornell page states that these birds like tall trees along rivers and streams, and these trees clearly qualify. I think that they should be named beatnik orioles - they look like they are wearing sunglasses and are sporting goatees.  We are also seeing many American finches in their breeding bright yellow feathers now.

I went back out on my own yesterday with my 400mm lens and a monopod.  I am checking out how able I will be to carry that lens around in Belize, and how well it performs with a monopod vs tripod.  It was a fairly quiet afternoon in terms of bird activity.  There was the usual contingent of mallards, mergansers, and wood ducks in the creek near the parking lot.  I got one decent shot of the mergansers, but no luck (again!) with the wood ducks.  I saw a lot of quail in the bushy undergrowth and did get a few shots of them.

I was sitting down by the creek near the oak rest area.  I usually see a lot of small birds in the trees there, but was seeing nothing.  In the far distance towards the south I saw a large raptor and snagged a picture of it, thinking that it really had the strong rectangular shape of an eagle.  With no binoculars, I had to wait until I got home to see that it was a bald eagle!  Very much a surprise from that vantage point.  It must be the Anderson Reservoir bald, but very unusual to be able to see it from where I was located.  We also saw an immature golden eagle on Friday afternoon, at the first of the Ogier ponds.  There is no doubt that my spotting skills are improving.  It helps that I read the south bay birding forum because I have a much better idea of what I might be likely to see at any given time or place, and this makes me more likely to see the birds for what they are.  I am sure that we have been seeing eagles for years and thinking that all of the large dark birds around here were turkey vultures, for example.