Red-tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk on a fly by

9.17.22 - Just as Coby and I were finishing up a 5-mile hike out on the San Francisco Bay; I noticed a large bird perched on top of a tree about 100 yards from the trail. As we got closer, I could tell it was a hawk.

The most common hawk at Coyote Hills is the Red-tailed hawk, but there are a couple more that visit here. The Northern Harrier and Sharp-shinned hawks appear frequently, and the Coopers Hawk can be seen occasionally. In fact, I only seen one Coopers Hawk in 34 years of hiking at Coyote Hills.

As we got within about 20 yards of the hawk in the tree, it must have seen a vole or a ground squirrel, because it leapt from its perch in the tree and did a dive-bomb to the ground about 20 feet away from where we were standing. Of course, by this time, I had my camera set with a fairly high shutter speed so as not to get a blurry photo, and while trying to keep Coby still with one hand, I raised the camera in hopes of getting a good shot.

I could tell it was a Red-tailed Hawk as it darted out of the bushes, apparently missing its prey. It turned and flew by about 15 feet away and I fired off about 50 photos of the beautiful and powerful raptor.

On our walk we also saw a lot of shore birds, most of which I can now identify without having to resort to my app. There were Marbled Godwits (yes, that’s really a name), gulls (I occasionally make the mistake of calling these seagulls but found out that there actually is no such thing as a seagull, just different classed of gulls), great egrets, snowy egrets, pelicans, sandpipers, and of course, great blue herons.

I was complaining the other day about my feet and my back hurting, especially after a few miles out on the trails. I discovered that when I was taking photographs, it took my mind off of the pain, and I got some temporary relief. So, I just keep shooting!

Have a great day, and I’ll see you down on the trail!