Weekend Walk Report: Birds of Prey Day

 Walks for Saturday, November 18th and Sunday, November 19th. However, there wasn't really any worthwhile picture taking on Saturday. Despite my checking on events at the local college campus where I do my weekend walking I neglected to probe deep enough so I didn't see that the California Interscholastic Federation, City Section, Cross Country run finals were taking place. The hillside was jammed with cars, school buses and, of course, people. That was just part of the deal though, I simply wasn't seeing anything I cared to take pictures of. Even though it was a beautiful day after receiving a reasonable amount of rain over the past few days. Total for the month of November so far, .68". Right now, as I type on a late Sunday afternoon, winds are back and relative humidity is dropping. 

This is the only picture I saved from Saturday's walk and don't ask me why.

Later in the afternoon, I took this picture for Docken from my front yard with my phone. Docken joined me over the phone for both walks. Thank you, Docky.

Sunday, November 19th.

Yay! Birds of prey! 

First, right out of the car in the parking lot I heard a raven making all sorts of noisy fuss about something. I only had to take a few steps and then I spotted this Corvus corax shouting.

It was pretty upset by the presence of this immature prairie falcon (Falco mexicanus).

Down below and right in front of me this mockingbird wasn't the least bit camera shy.

After that it was pretty much walking and talking. I went to the garden but the garden was especially quiet so I kept moving. However, after looping around and heading back to the parking lot I decided to stretch the lower level walk out a little more before driving up the hillside and detoured back into the botanical garden. I only saw one hummingbird. I think this may have again been the young male Calypte anna that's been hanging out in Dusty's territory. 

Almost up the hill, I pulled over for this red-tailed hawk.

It flew...

and I followed.

After the red-tailed I decided to walk a lap around the hilltop. Thank you Docken for encouraging me. She said there's gonna be another hawk and sure enough. About 100 meters in I saw this cooper's hawk. 

Now playing...

This day will pass
This world moves on
In its solitary way
Day after day