The small-headed yardhawk

Raptors are abundant in California. Lots of open space and lots of rodents, snakes, songbirds and the like to hunt. Hawks regularly visit our backyard, hoping to nab one of the birds that swarm our feeders. Cooper’s Hawks are the most frequent visitors, with Red-shouldered Hawks appearing now and then. We were recently treated to a visit by the rather rare (at least around here) Sharp-shinned Hawk.

An immature Cooper’s Hawk on our back fence. Cooper’s are accipiters—short-winged, long-tailed hawks that specialize in hunting birds through vegetative cover, as opposed to falcons, who excel at pursuing birds out in the open.

An immature Sharp-shinned Hawk on the same fence. Sharpies, as they’re called, are the smallest North American accipiter. They’re supposed to be difficult to distinguish from Cooper’s Hawks, especially for dilettante birders like Marla and me. The first thing that struck me when I saw this bird is how small it was compared to the Cooper’s we usually see. (Compare how big each is relative to the seven-inch fence boards they’re both perched on.) The Sharpie was about the size of a jay, while the Cooper’s was more like a crow. (Large female Sharp-shinned can be similar in size to male Cooper’s though.) There are some other differences, too. The Sharp-shinned has a smaller head relative to its body, and the appearance of a shorter neck. The barring on the breast has more of a reddish cast on the Sharp-shinned. And lastly, the characteristic for which the Sharp-shinned is named: look at how skinny this bird’s leg is. How can those legs even support the bird, let alone snag prey? The Cooper’s legs are considerably stouter. These photos accentuate the differences between the species. Differences that show so nicely in the photos are a lot more difficult to see in the field.

A splendid adult Cooper’s Hawk on our side fence.

Here’s an immature Cooper’s that has come down from the fence and landed in the backyard. These hawks usually ambush their prey, but in this case all the potential prey have spotted this guy and either fled or hidden in the undergrowth. The young Cooper’s is pretty sure there’s a little bird hiding somewhere down there.

A Red-shouldered Hawk in the avocado tree that lurches over our back fence. We have at least one breeding pair of this species within earshot of our house. They’re among the most vocal of hawks—we hear their unmistakeable call throughout the day. Red-shouldereds are buteos—broad-winged, short-tailed hawks that tend toward rodent and reptile prey, but sometimes go for birds.

This gorgeous little Kestrel was not in our yard, but in nearby Montaña de Oro State Park. The diminutive falcon—smallest of North American hawks—used to be called Sparrow Hawk, but it probably dines more on insects than birds. They’re quite common in open terrain around here.

Some birds for the new year

Winter, such as it is here on the mild, frost-free Central Coast, means birds, birds, birds. Migrants of all sorts are down from their breeding grounds up north, and even the year-round resident species seem more abundant than in the warmer months.

There’s also the upcoming weekend’s Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival. Not the kind where people dress up as birds and flap their arms, the other kind. This one involves four days of birding field trips and lectures. It’s a big deal, supposedly the largest such event in the country, with many of the nation’s top bird authorities in attendance. Marla and I plan to spend a lot of time there, including some volunteer organizing.

Anyway, I thought I’d post a few recent bird shots in recognition of the Festival and of the new year. None of these birds are rare, or even uncommon. Just beautiful.

A Song Sparrow proclaims his supremacy from a silver lupine at Montaña de Oro State Park. These guys are ubiquitous throughout much of the U.S. and Canada, but rather oddly we never see them at our backyard feeders. This in contrast to the White-crowned, Yellow-crowned, and White-throated Sparrows that swarm our feeders almost year round.

We ran into a small gang of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers foraging for insects at MDO. They’re more gray than blue to my geriatric eyes. Apparently they tend to be bluer in the eastern part of their range.

This one has spotted a bug (or maybe a spider) hanging near the base of the side branch.

A moment later, the gnatcatcher flies off with the bug in its beak. (Notice that the bug is now missing from the branch.)

A Bewick’s Wren, again at Montaña de Oro. These delightful, feisty little birds are the most common of four wren species found in this area. We see them in our backyard quite often, either dining at our suet feeders or looking for insects in the garden. To me, the eye bar and long, curved bill lends them a certain fierce look, and they are indeed fierce—from an insect’s perspective.

A Common Loon stretches its wings in Morro Bay, near Morro Rock. These big, robust birds breed far to the north, but some individuals apparently forgo breeding and remain in this area year round. Loons are so highly adapted to a watery life that they can barely walk on land—their legs are set too far back. They cannot take off from the land, requiring a substantial stretch of open water to take flight.