Great horned owl rescue

 How ironic it was that i was just talking about wanting to get a photo of an owl on one of my camera traps when the phone rang.

Just another night sittin on the couch getting ready to put my son to bed and the call comes in "big owl stuck in the fence", i'll be right there. loaded the family in the car and split. From the looks of it the owl was swooping down to get some prey and overlooked the barbed wire fence.  

the scene upon arrival

 There were so many tiny feathers right at the base of the wing that it was hard to locate the source of the problem it took awhile to find the punture to be able to free it. the photo above shows the owl turning its head up to try and see what was going on, it was suprisingly docile during the whole thing. the owl had its talons locked onto the towel and the fence most of the time it was cool being able to see them that close.

 When i freed up the pucture i gave the owl an opportunity to fly away but its wing feathers were hooked around the fence so i wrapped the towel around it and lifted it off then the owl had its talons loocked onto the towel and was hanging from it so i slowly lowered it to the ground so it could get its footing then the owl rushed underneath the fence and flew away looking quite spry. 

The best part besides saving a life was getting to look at those big yellow eyes close up.

Royal Terns and Curlew

 On a recent trip to show my son the elephant seals in san simeon ca we were lucky to come across a few unexpected birds as well. the first thing i noticed was the bright bills of the terns in the fog. Using the zoom lens through the fog doesn't exactly leave a crisp image but it's identifiable. the terns are not completely uncommon in our area but i dont always see them especially with a camera handy.

 Then in the foreground the movement breaks the camoulflage and i see a curlew searching for some sand crabs. both the terns and the curlews nest on the ground leaving their eggs exposed and it's hard to imagine their eggs laying around with all the hundreds of seals rolling around everywhere.

diggin for some fresh crab

hangin with the terns

 

American kestrel

    I often see these kestrels around our area but they are usually so skiddish that getting close enough to get a photo never pans out these two were on fence posts on highway 1 in san simeon, zoomed in through the fog then cropped. The kestrel is the smallest of all falcons and by far has the coolest patterns and colors. Like the pergrines that nest at morro rock to the south these kestrels dont build nests either but instead locate cavities to inhabit often taking up abandoned holes of woodpeckers.

Red tail hawks

red tail in flight over shores of lake nacimiento

 Red tail hawks are a constant in our area, hardly a day goes by when you dont see one. on a recent drive from morro bay to san simeon we easily seen over forty of them perched on telephone poles, road signs, and fence poles along the way. we've sat in our kayaks at lake nacimiento and watched red tails go at it with the bald eagles each of them swooping within talon strike of each other unfortunately i didn't have a camera at the time but plan to return. one of the funnier points of a redtail is in movies featuring bald eagles they always substitute the eagles chirps with the shreak of the redtail i always laugh a little when i hear it. I often launch my kayak in cayucos california which is prime redtail habitat its along the bluffs with lots of open fields on the west side of the hwy 1 and open grazing land all along the east side. I always see the redtails hunting in the early morning when i'm on the trail to the cove, one day i was fortunate enough to see a pair in their courtship behaviour. locking talons and spinning downward toward the ground within a few feet before they seperated and landed. I've watched them carry a ground squirrel to the top of a telephone pole and start tearing it apart, both along the coast and inland.  

buteo jamaicensis



flock in cayucos ca



red tail meal, fresh ground squirrel



juvenile in flight

white tailed kite

 This will be the first post of many in a series involving birds of our area here on the central coast of california. hopefully i will continue to get photos of more and be able to continue editing and adding to this subject. on a foggy misty day along the coast we were able to spot a handful of birds including some of my favorite raptors. these kites were taking advantage of the foggy day to hunt in the cattle fields along the highway sometimes sharing the ground just a few feet from the cows. these kites are less common than other raptors in our area due to the overabundance of red tail hawks along the same stretch of coast line. also like a lot of the animals of the time period during the 1920's and 30's the kites population was decimated from hunting, shooting, and egg collecting. the california department of fish and game initiated a hawk rehabilitation project in which they set aside grazing areas as protected habitat for the raptors and now the kite is listed under the least concern status due to there flourishing existance now.

antlers in autumn

tule elk

   On the central coast area of california we have mule deer in the sub species form of black tail. They are abundant, you can see them off pretty much any side road and country highway even in the towns in most areas a lot of us have had issues with them eating the landscaping so many of the nurserys have deer resistant sections of native plants. This species of mule deer are smaller than others but can still produce some beefy bucks. One of the lesser known species in our area are the reintroduced tule elk, in 1978 in a collaborative effort, the department of fish and game planted several herds of tule elk in different areas of california. Here on the central coast and the surrounding area they were planted on camp roberts army camp, fort hunter ligget, and carrizo plains elk preserve. elk used to number a presumed 500,000 in california and along with grizzly bear were hunted to near non existance in our state by the early 1900's. with a goal of two thousand elk in mind the D.F.G.'s elk reinroduction seems to be still going strong. we spotted these elk along the highway bordering the camp roberts fenceline in paso robles. I have caught many of these elk on my camera traps in the same area (see older posts).


buck in rut

black tailed mule deer