Swainson's Hawks along Milnes Road

There are many diverse habitats for birds in our region, from lakes and ponds, rivers, forests, oak woodlands, and marshes. But the Great Valley is, or was, most notable for the vast prairie that stretched for four hundred miles from Bakersfield to Redding. It once hosted huge herds of elk and pronghorn, and was the winter home for millions upon millions of migratory arctic birds. But of course the prairie was uprooted and replaced by millions of acres of agricultural fields. It's less of a rich habitat for most animals, but it is still a good place for raptors. The fields provide plenty of rodents and large bugs like grasshoppers for food, and there is a veritable forest of power lines and telephone poles providing roosting and nesting sites.

Red-tailed Hawks are the "go-to" answer to the question "what kind of hawk is that?", but there are a dozen species of raptors that have been observed in our area. I was driving home along Milnes Road east of Modesto yesterday when I saw a pair of Swainson's Hawks (Buteo swainsoni) feeding on the ground in a cow pasture.

The story of the Swainson's Hawk is fascinating. They are migratory to an extreme. They spend winters in Argentina, and in spring they flock together by the thousands to migrate north to North America as far as Alaska, a round-trip of 12,000 miles. I've not had the privilege of witnessing it, but they migrate in kettles (flocks) of thousands of birds at a time. It must be something to see!