CITY HAWKS

We did a great walk to the library (I feel so great on days when I get long walks in!). It's at least 25 minutes walk each way and to make it pretty it's a lot longer. We took the shorter way with more trash and traffic on the way there and a combo-way on the way back (mix of nice neighborhood and busy street).

On the busiest street I looked up to see a huge hawk gliding onto the top of a tall conifer that was about several blocks from us. This hawk was giant and even though it was far away I could make out a light belly and darker back. I pointed it out to kiddo and he could see it.

Lots of traffic flew past us as we stopped in the sidewalk to watch this hawk. We watched it turn its head and eventually it flew off. At first, gliding right towards us before turning sharply west over the busy street towards some other tall trees. On this flight we noticed black leading edges on the wings. I couldn't remember which hawk this denotes until I looked it up back here at home and I think red tail?

As the hawk flew toward us kiddo said he wanted it to land on his hand!

Earlier on this walk we saw a Western Bluebird fly from a large lot to a telephone wire. Until this I’ve only seen Western Bluebirds in the parks around the neighborhood.

I've been grateful for our walks and city-birding! And this harkens back to the original intent of this blog to explore our closest urban creek and see what kind of life we could find there!

While I've yet to master photographing a bird, here's some blooms happening now on these warm (highs of 70!) February days: fascinating pipevine, cheery oxalis, almost-done, soft, pink manzanita.