One little, two little, three little hawkies . . . and a White-tailed Kite

On my way to work on Friday, I saw the Red-shouldered Hawk again. He was on a hay bale behind a chain link fence — at the airport. Risking looking like a terrorist scoping out a attack at Watsonville Airport, I pulled over and hopped out of my car to get a shot. I got this one by sticking my camera lens through the chainlink. Pretty cool, huh? As I walked back to my car, across the street and in someone’s yard, I saw

I love that he’s just sitting on their pop-out as if it’s a perfectly natural place for hawks to hang out. Then, as I got in my car, I looked up and saw . . .

A third Red-shouldered Hawk sitting on the lines above my head. Amazing, huh? I’m guessing a mama and two recently fledged youngsters. Pretty gorgeous birds.

In other news, I’ve seen a White-tailed Kite on my commute as well. I’ve seen them before at Elkhorn Slough. They are gorgeous birds and they love to hover — kite-like. I had read on the local mailing list that there was one spotted in Felton and I was lucky enough to see it. As I drove by at 45 mph, it was hovering over a tree and then landed in the treetop. I saw it at about 6:50am. The next day, I saw it in the same tree at around 8:40pm. Guess it likes that tree. And a big white bird at the top of a tree is certainly easy to spot when doing 45 mph birding.

This is a shot I took at Elkhorn Slough — not the WTKI in Felton

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