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!!