Birds • Page 16

Found this one. It's a Black Phoebe.

 

There's such a huge variety of hawks in CA its hard to narrow down completely. I'd guess either a few of the buteo hawks (Red Tailed, Red Shouldered, Ferruginous, etc.) or a Northern Harrier based on your size description. These are all medium to large sized hawks with broader wings than a cooper's and they tend to have colorful beaks.

 

Yeah hard to say without a more specific idea of your area but the ones mentioned above (Red-tailed/shouldered, Cooper's) are your most common species for Los Angeles. Northern Harrier or Swainson's are possibilities but they're not as common.

Maybe a Peregrine Falcon? That would be cool. Falcons tend be smaller than hawks tho

 

Definitely not a Peregrine, I saw a bunch of those in Germany last year and this was probably 5x the size. I would say this bird was extremely uncommon for the area. It was huge. My office is in Long Beach on an a small channel like a mile from the ocean. I saw it hunting above the channel for about a week. The underside looked darker than the hawks I've been searching. Thought maybe a condor, but when I looked them up the head doesn't seem to match. I only saw it from underneath as it was over the channel though.

 

From all the pictures I've looked at I'm going to say it was a Turkey Vulture.

 

Nice! Vultures are actually pretty damn big. We get a TON of Black and Turkey Vultures in Texas and they always look huge floating way up there

 

Sadly I had to take my feeders down temporarily. A couple finches have come around with the avian pox and that contaminates everything. I'll keep them down for ten days and wash the feeders.

Meanwhile all the other finches are flying around my backyard wondering where the hell the free food went

 

Hopefully things are ok when they go back up.

 

It’s night time but I’m pretty sure I heard an eastern screech owl in my backyard. Can’t think of anything else that makes a similar sound.

 

Fearless

 

Every year we have a family of woodcocks in our back woods. I went in the field one day and there were probably a 6 or so fledglings on the ground still as can be trying to hide from me. It was surreal. We see one every now and again in the woods when we hike. Saw a ruffed grouse for the first time earlier in the summer.

 

Damn would love to see a woodcock and a screech owl!!

 

Glad I found this thread lol.

Recently found a really nice local Audubon Trail nearby and we are headed back this week. There were many snowy egrets as well as a great egret that we saw. I don't see many great egrets.

I live about 2 seconds from where a Steller's sea eagle was hanging out for a couple of winters but unfortunately was never able to go get a glimpse of it. The sheer amount of people congesting the area at the time really deterred me from going to look for it heh.

Aside from the woodcock I would say the bird that blew my mind when I finally saw one was a snowy owl in an industrial park just chilling on a huge pile of snow. Somewhere I have a potato quality image of it but I was trying to just leave it alone and give it its space as there was a highway nearby I feared scaring it into.

 

post the potato pic lol

 

Ha, I went to Maine a few years ago to see a Steller’s sea eagle! Fun experience, but yeah, it was pretty busy.

Ahh, I love woodcocks. One of my favorites.

Thank you for giving the owl its space! People who risk flushing a bird just so they can get closer for a photo make me very angry.

 

Something wild happened about 40 minutes from me this past weekend.

A bird native Mexico/Central Mexico/South America was seen on someone's property in Texas. It was the first time it's been seen in Texas since 1961, and supposedly only the second record ever of it being spotted in the US. Here is the typical range map of the species:



That one blot near Houston represents the recent Texas sighting. People from all over the state were driving down to see it. Here's an article about it:

Rare visitor seen in Texas again for the first time since 1961

Here's a photo someone took. No idea how they spotted it

 

yooooooooo that's a sick sighting