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Category Archives: other birds
Over the last few weeks…
I’ve been away from the notebook and pen for some time tying up some loose ends. I’ll try to get you up to speed. Over the last few weeks things have been slow. The adults have chased off all of their young on both sides of “the rock.” Yesterday there were five Red-tailed Hawks circling the rock up high. Both pairs of falcons were busy chasing them with a lot of vocalizing and high speed stoops.
A young female Kestrel circled the rock from seaward passing right in front of the male and female resident falcons and they did not give chase. The Kestrel, previously known as a sparrow hawk, landed in a bare willow at the top of a rock sprawl and spent twenty minutes just looking around still in plain sight of the falcons and they still did not give chase. The Kestrel left by way of the sand spit, probably a juvenile looking for a home.
The first of the migrating birds of prey have started to arrive along the Central Coast of California. White-tailed Kites, Ferruginous Hawks, Merlins, Cooper’s and Sharp-shinned Hawks. A few flocks of ducks, but no geese yet in the estuary.
Heather has been supporting the eye surgeons from here to UCLA with her fourth lens replacement to come next week. We all wish her the best of luck.
Happy trails, Bob
Posted in falcon, invaders, juvenile, Morro Rock, other birds
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A fisherman of another kind…
Photo by Cleve Nash
This is the fourth in a series of tales about the “famous and not-so-famous birds of Morro Rock.”
The bird I am speaking of is our resident osprey, a magnificent and colorful large bird of prey. He does not make his home on the rock but he visits there frequently. Most of the time, he is in and around the bay. Perching on sailboats, fishing vessels, lamp posts, etc. Morro Bay, you might say, is his home. In the five or six years I’ve watched him, he has never had a mate or nest site. I don’t know if he is male or female.
The nearest thing to a home was a tree at the west end of the Morro Bay Museum/marina parking lot. There you would find him in the tree and Cleve Nash on the ground with camera in hand. The water was very shallow there even at high tide. This explains why he was able to take the flounder and diving ducks such as the Bufflehead, in the photo below, although he is able to catch prey at three meters in depth.
One day I asked Cleve if he ever got a shot of him entering the water with his talons stretched straight out in front. This he does at the very last second before hitting the water. Cleve responded at that time that he had taken over 900 photos and hadn’t gotten that one yet. When it comes to photography, Cleve is relentless and stubborn with his subjects. One time while shooting White-tailed Kites near San Simeon, Cleve stood for a long period of time with a camouflage drape over himself. A Cooper’s Hawk landed on the lens of his 500 mm camera eighteen inches from his face. This is dedication!
The osprey’s favorite tree fell down last year. Now he and a great egret fuss over a tree nearby. I tried to get some people interested in putting up a tall pole with a tire on top to attract a mate, but I’m not a politician and nothing came of it. He’s still here and roams the bay and if you walk the waterfront to look at the bay or sunset and see scales falling from the sky. It’s just the osprey on the lamp post above your head enjoying his evening repast.
Happy trails, Bob
P.S. The fish is a Starry Flounder.
Posted in hunting, Morro Rock, other birds
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Welcome “Spec” to Morro Rock!
On one of my previous postings, dated July 5th, titled “Pure speculation” I had a good idea that the black turkey vultures might be nesting in an old eyrie they had used a few years back. Earlier that month I thought I saw vultures copulating near the nest site.
Well, yesterday all my speculations came to fruition. “Welcome Spec to Morro Rock.” One big beautiful ugly baby vulture! Most people thought I was full of you-know-what, but there he was at 12:12PM standing on the rock that hides the nest site. A lot of white on the chest and a downy head. I hurried to get a shot with my Canon SX35. I fumbled and stumbled, then buck fever set in, but I got one at 200 yards. The image was fair so I got on the horn to Cleve Nash, our resident long range specialist. I begged and pleaded with him to meet the next day with all of his large artillery, close to 5000mm fully armed. Well, for the first three hours, nothing. And to think I pulled him away on the first bright sunny day that we’ve had in a week. A photo of a vulture! No dignity at all. Cleve was a great sport all the time I was apologizing and groveling about the vulture not showing up. We watched several pairs of adult vultures circle the nest site. We would get excited on thinking one would land to feed the young, but nothing came of it. After they left, the chick came out and Cleve got the shot, in fact he got many shots of him hopping to another rock and flapping his wings. Cleve was not entirely happy because of the lighting and the wind. So tired, hungry and happy, we left the rock and the young vulture in the warm sun and cool ocean breeze.
Happy trails, Bob.
P.S. This was written yesterday. “Spec” fledged today.
Posted in chicks, juvenile, other birds, vultures
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8-6-12 21699
Posted in juvenile, other birds, vultures
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8-6-12 21722
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8-6-12 21727
Posted in juvenile, other birds, vultures
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Then there were none…
Photo by Cleve Nash.
This is the second in a series of tales about the “famous and not-so-famous birds of Morro Rock
The chimney is the home of “Heathcliff and Gertrude.”* It is a free-standing spire about 60 feet in height with many holes and crevices. It has one large dominant hole with two vertical ridges at the back giving the appearance of a throat with a smaller hole underneath. It is separate from the main rock by about five feet. Every year the large hole is occupied by a pair of Western Gulls at nesting time. You just kind of took them for granted; they were a fixture.
About four years ago, the female peregrine took an interest in the chimney and would fly by the face of the hole. That year, the falcon had three young just out of the nest. The gulls had three downy chicks in the large hole on the chimney. The male falcon would land on top of the chimney frequently with prey to pluck and then deliver to the young. Then one day I no longer took the gulls for granted; they got my full attention. When the female falcon swooped in and grabbed one of the chicks and flew over to one of her young not far away and proceeded to open up the chest cavity for the chick. Within minutes she came back and took a second chick, but not without the parent gull giving chase. She killed the young gull on the wing by severing the neck behind the head and gave it to her second chick. She returned one more time and landed in the small hole beneath the larger nest site hole. When the adult gull flew from the nest to see where she went, the falcon jumped up and grabbed the third gull chick and took it to a perch alive. I watched the falcon with the chick in her talons through my spotting scope for three or four minutes. The young gull sat there looking around in the falcon’s talons. The falcon was looking around for her third chick. She spotted it on a distant dune a half mile away. Then she proceeded to bend down and dispatch the gull, then flew it out to her young on the dune. No one occupied the chimney hole this year, but I am sure in the future there will be another “Heathcliff and Gertrude.”
Happy trails, Bob
* Heathcliff and Gertrude – Some of you will remember the “Red Skelton Show” of the 60s and 70s and his skit of the two seagulls “Heathcliff and Gertrude.”
Posted in chicks, falcon, gulls, hunting, juvenile, other birds, peregrines, survival
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Kitten in the willows…
This is the first in a series of tales of “famous and not-so-famous birds” in and around Morro Rock, Morro Bay, California.
On a fall morning, a couple of the local birders led by Tom Edell* heard a sound of a kitten in the willows at the base of the Morro Rock. One of them knew it wasn’t a cat because he was familiar with the sound of a catbird. This is not something you hear if you are born and raised in California. There have been sightings in California, but this is only the second in San Luis Obispo County. He arrived on November 10, 2008.
Within days, word got around and we were inundated by bird nuts of every description from four states that I know of. They would walk up and down the parking lot, ears and eyes attuned for this elusive prey. The third day some were able to catch a glimpse of the bird. He acts very much like a thrasher on the ground most of the time going through the underbrush and occasionally popping up for a short flight to another thicket. The fourth day was very windy and a little lady named Ida rode the bus from San Luis Obispo to Morro Bay to enjoy the sun and pick cactus apples, also known as prickly pears. She would peel them, put them in a bag to take home and juice. It was so windy, she pulled her little shopping cart into the willows to sit down and peel apples. After she had left, I saw the catbird plain as day eating the cactus apple skins. I got a pair of gloves and walked 100 yards to pick some apples. I cut one in half and laid it open where I had seen the bird in an opening about a few feet from the underbrush. Within ten minutes, he came out to the feast to eat and stayed there for the next two weeks.
Hundreds of people came to see and photograph the bird. The “Rare Bird Alert” did too good of a job. The bird would appear about every thirty minutes like clockwork. People would yell at me to get more apples. Pretty soon someone put a water dish there. This is getting to be too much; it’s a zoo with animals, with strange hats, who have things hanging around their necks and looking through glass tubes and all at a four ounce bird fifteen feet away. They brought beach chairs and sat around the little clearing hoping to add to their life list, a poor little critter that got blown off course. Sometimes, I wish I had never put out the apple. He left before the Christmas Bird Count! Happy trails, Bob.
Tom Edell- One of San Luis Obispo’s foremost birders and wildlife enthusiasts.
Kevin L. Cole – Photo by local photographer in Morro Bay.
Posted in other birds
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Pacific Coast Peregrine Watch 