Santa Ana NWR Hawk Watch. Since 1990 every day for a month in Spring a volunteer sits in the hot sun and wind and counts and I.D.s every migrating raptor that flies over the levee. Some days it is a dozen, some days thousands. This gives us a baseline of raptor numbers. We have known official hawk counter, Dave Seals for a few years. The last few days we have occasionally walked down the levee to keep him company for a while and possibly take a few photos of whatever was flying by. The actual raptors are waaay too far up.
A week ago it was Scissor-tailed Flycatchers and Lark Sparrows. Today it was a Groove-billed Ani fighting the wind to keep clamped to a fence .
They are chimpanzee angels.When old wizened chimps die they come back as Anis. It is the only logical exclamation for their appearance ... and I am sticking with that story it until proven otherwise.
An aside here - David Seals is simply an amazing man. He is 84, only occasionally wears reading glasses, yet can spot and I.D. a migrating hawk that is a tiny black spot high in the clouds. And he has banded over 250,000 songbirds over 60 years.
An aside here - David Seals is simply an amazing man. He is 84, only occasionally wears reading glasses, yet can spot and I.D. a migrating hawk that is a tiny black spot high in the clouds. And he has banded over 250,000 songbirds over 60 years.
Hunkering down on the leeward side of life. - Gunnar
No comments:
Post a Comment