Local Hawks

Saw two hawks last week - one on our street and one on the way into town Friday night - and got good details about both of them, yet still can't identify either one. Hawks are so, so hard to identify unless you can look at them for a long time.

Great Blue Heron

Saw a great blue heron go gliding across the road, while I was on my way to the grocery store this morning. It was much lower than usual, low enough that I could see its widespread wing tips. It was beautiful.

Smokies

Just spent three days in the Smokies at a lodge for a teachers' convention. Unfortunately I didn't have much time to watch for new birds. Something different flew in the empty area between the two lodges we were using, but I didn't have the binoculars with me. This morning I came out onto this balcony, and saw a number of birds flying between the trees in open areas, so went to get the binoculars - and when I came back out they were gone. Of course. And I saw something blue/gray/white on the porch of the neighboring lodge, but since another group was using that building, felt like it would be intrusive to aim binoculars that direction.

I did at least hear a nuthatch of some sort; also heard a number of times a pileated woodpecker far out in the forest. And, on the way home this morning, I got a very brief glimpse of a woodpecker flying across the road - feel reasonably certain it was a red-headed, since there were large white wing patches. Maybe an immature, because I did not see a red head.

What We Saw in Southern California

We saw three new birds in southern California. These are NOT my pictures; I pulled them off the internet.

This is a Western Gull. It takes the place in the west of the eastern Great Black-backed Gull which we saw one time, in the winter at Kiawah Island (an unusual sighting), and which we saw a couple of last summer in Maine. It's the only black-winged gull of the west, and has pink legs and a yellow bill.

We had to turn around in a neighborhood, on our way to the tour of the GTY offices, and got a quick glance at a white-winged dove, which according to Mike takes the place of our eastern mourning dove. He immediately recognized it.

We also got a quick glance at a scrub jay, which takes the place of the eastern blue jay. Wish our brief look had been as good as this photo! We were riding up the long driveway to the Reagan Library when it flew past our car and landed in brush on our right. Would have stopped to watch it longer, but there was a car behind us. It's much easier to identify these birds when there are species that actually replace the ones we have in the east, and the ranges do not overlap.

It was somewhat of a surprise that we saw very few birds on our two trips to Ventura, on a much less busy road than the freeways. We hoped for a roadrunner, but it wasn't to be.

We did see ravens again, the first time for me since our 1997 trip to Washington/Montana/Canada. (Saw them in downtown Couer d'Alene on that trip.)

Another New Blog

I want to do a separate blog about birds.