- Date: 01/16/2010
- Time: 08:00:00 AM
Winter Hawks & Mountain Plovers
Field Trip
This trip will focus on wintering raptors in agricultural and rangeland habitats in Solano County. We will leave Davis and head south through the alfalfa and row crop fields that give way to pastures and rangeland on the way to the Robinson/Flannery Road area. We will pay some attention to the species we see in the areas dominated by crops and see how this changes as we move into a grassland-dominated landscape around the Jepson Prairie. If we have time we will head into the Montezuma Hills Wind Resource Area to see what birds we can find among the wind turbines. There can be locally dense congregations of Red-tailed hawks and some of the grazed fields support Horned Lark and pipit flocks that might hold longspurs. Additional species we should find include Rough-legged and Ferruginous Hawks, Prairie Falcons, Merlin, Golden Eagle, Burrowing Owl, Mountain Plover, Long-billed Curlew and Mountain Bluebird. Also Lark Sparrows are common in the osage orange tree line along Robinson.
Meet at the Marketplace Shopping Center in Davis (near Big 5 Sporting Goods, 1301 W. Covell just east of Hwy. 113) at 8:00. We should be back in Davis by 2 or 3 pm. All skill levels are welcome. Bring water, snacks and binoculars.
PLEASE email or call leader, Zach Smith (zsgavilan@gmail.com 619-672-0685) if you are coming so he can inform participants of a later meeting time depending on weather (morning fog, etc.).