Caught an interesting post on the listservs from Allen Fish, director of the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory in the Marin Headlands. Hawk-counters at the GGRO yesterday apparently recorded 295 sightings of Broad-winged Hawks from Hawk Hill during a 4-hour count period. This is a higher one-day Broad-wing count by a factor of five than has ever [...]

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We’ve all seen the movie. Our hero, lost in the desert, unscrews the cap from his canteen and pours his last drop of water into his parched mouth. He stumbles on under a relentless sun. Ominous shadows on the ground prompt him to look skyward. Circling overhead are one, then two, then three vultures. We [...]

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We know this, but the Desert Sun provides a nice reminder of how important the Salton Sea remains for birds along the Pacific Flyway: It’s one of the last rest stops and breeding grounds left for millions of migrating birds, representing more than 400 species, that travel the Pacific Flyway — a bird superhighway that [...]

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We saw some reports today of Red Crossbills making a surprising appearance over the last few days at Montana del Oro State Park near Morro Bay. They typically  live in coniferous forests, but wander widely in some years looking for a good cone crop.  They happened to find just a couple trees here, and have been [...]

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Jeff Chapman, who runs the Audubon Center at Debs Park in Los Angeles, snapped this cool photo of about 5,000 Vaux’s Swifts diving into the brick chimney of the Chester Building on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles last night. Bigger photo below the fold. Share on Facebook

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As we’ve already noted elsewhere on this blog, fall migration is underway. A really good example of are the Greater Sandhill Cranes which, after a long spring and summer in Alaska, have already been spotted at their wintering grounds in Central California. Beth Peluso of Audubon Alaska recently videotaped Sandhill Cranes staging at the Cramer’s Field [...]

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We talk a lot about songbirds and seabirds when we talk about migration, but many raptors also migrate. One raptor migrant that should be flying south along the Pacific Flyway is the Rough-legged Hawk. In Spring, the hawk breeds in the Arctic Tundra. Their nests are usually found in Trees or on cliffs. The nest’s [...]

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