A Long Distance Migrant...Swainson's Hawk at CSU Stanislaus

One of these days, there is something I would really like to see. I would like to stand in the migratory path of the Swainson's Hawk and watch them fly by the thousands on their way to and from Argentina. Their 6,000 mile twice yearly journey is pretty much the longest of any hawk species. In the meantime I'll have to be satisfied with their arrival in the region during the spring. I've several this year, but my photography success has been limited.

The other evening I was wandering around the campus of CSU Stanislaus when a large hawk flew over my head and into the trees up ahead of me. I didn't think I'd be able to see it again, but I saw a hint of gray in the distance, and the zoom confirmed that it was a Swainson's (well, actually Siera Nystrom assisted). I got a couple of shots, and then it took off again and I got a dark silhouette of the bird against the sky. With the help of some intense photoshop work I was able to bring out the wing markings and tail feathers.

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!

Swainson's Hawk on the Tuolumne River

I was out for one of my walks today, checking for any bird activity along the Tuolumne River bluffs in Waterford. There were some Magpies and Western Bluebirds here and there, but as I was staring off in the distance, some kind of hawk flew right overhead, so I pulled up the camera to try and get a decent close shot. I didn't, and while I was still fumbling with the camera, a second hawk flew overhead, and I didn't get a shot of it either!

After a few minutes I found them again flying over a cottonwood tree down on the Tuolumne River and I realized they were at a nest. I caught a few very long range shots with which I hoped to identify them, because I could see it was not one of the usual species I've been seeing. The white pattern on the wings was clearly different from a Red-tail or Red-shouldered Hawk.

I cropped and magnified the best one and identified it as a Swainson's Hawk (Buteo swainsoni). That would explain why I haven't seen them around much, as the Swainson's Hawks typically spend their winters in Argentina. They have one of the longest migrations of any raptor, from Argentina to as far north as Alaska and northern Canada. It is apparently an awesome sight to catch the migration, as they travel in flocks hundreds or thousands strong.

In any case, I figured out where the nest was, and took another very long range shot. One of these times I'll try and walk along the river and see if I can see any little ones as season progresses.

I didn't think I had any good pictures of a Swainson's Hawk, but I checked the archives and realized I had in fact caught a pretty clear shot of one over the cow pasture near my house last June, so that became the opening picture in today's post.