May 13, 2006

Baby hawks, for real!

We've been doing "BARNS" -- the Bay Area Raptor Nest Survey -- as volunteers for Golden Gate Raptor Observatory this spring as a sort of supplement to our usual fall Hawk Watch volunteer gig.

For several weeks we've been monitoring nests, sometimes seeing Red-tailed Hawks or Red-shouldered Hawks in or near the nest. But last week and this week we've gotten our first real treat -- baby raptors!

We have two Red-tailed nests for sure that have successfully hatched at least two young each. The first nest we found young in was pretty special -- we'd been watching the nest for weeks, with very little activity -- just an adult bird in the same tree once or twice during our rounds. While we were looking last week at an empty nest, Steve says, "Is that another nest lower in the tree?!" Sure enough it was, with an adult Red-tailed sitting proudly with two very cute downy young.

We're still trying to figure out the best way to take photos through our scope (and Aunt T managed to break her camera completely, which doesn't help!) But we have one photo of mom hawk with fuzzballs here and you can see the rest in Uncle Steve's April Archive.

Our other special nest is that of an almost albino male Red-tailed hawk, and we've found two nestlings in that one also. We're eager to see what they grow up to look like!

Posted by terrie at 09:31 PM

January 03, 2006

Weather Data

The weather station we installed on the roof at O'Reilly was quite busy in recent days. Check out our December data. Average rainfall for December is usually about 6 inches. We were over 19 inches for the month, and almost 6 inches on the December 30/31 storm alone!

You can view current conditions through either our Custom Report or thru our Citizen Weather Observer Program page which includes a current radar view. (If either of these pages haven't updated recently, it usually means that the power went off at O'Reilly and we need to restart the computer connected to our weather console).

Despite the area flooding and the rain keeping us indoors most of the time, we had a great visit with the Loughs. We are, sadly, deficient in photos because we were too busy having a fun time. Uncle Steve gave Peter one of his guitars, and Peter has been practicing (and sleeping with his guitar) ever since. We made and decorated Christmas cookies, and between that and the drawings and paintings we collected, it's clear that Juliana has great artistic talent. There are a couple of photos of the kids, and of the flooding, in Uncle Steve's Late December/Early January photo page.

Posted by terrie at 10:43 PM

May 21, 2005

Raptor Mania

I subscribe to the "North Bay Birds" email list where people report interesting bird sightings or news in the area. Recently, a Common Black Hawk has been spotted -- probably a new Sonoma County record. I went looking for the Common Black Hawk last night after work, and though I didn't see that, I did see an adult Bald Eagle, a couple of Osprey, and a White-tailed kite. All of this just a couple of miles from our house!

This morning I finally posted notes from a raptor talk we went to about a month ago. The talk was mostly about some of the more difficult raptor id's, and thanks to Steve's scanning, my notes even include my crummy sketches!

Posted by terrie at 03:24 PM