Estero Americano (SLT) Property, Estero Americano Sonoma Land Trust section 9.25.2022

 Sonoma Land Trust, Raptor Hike, 9.25.2022 Estero Americano.

Heavily fogged out day, overcast, cool, Day

A few Red-tailed Hawks, A Kestrel or two, and distant Harriers, from 10am to roughly noon, then we a had a Sharp-shined hawk down by the water as things started clearing, 12:30  A coyote, King Fisher, Snowy and Great Egrets, Great-blue Heron...  not seeing a lot of hawks! 

Then we headed back about 1pm, as we stared the hiking back up the service road and the sky's cleared up a bit, just enough to see a close Harrier, a Red-tailed Hawk and a Kestrel.... Then off on the eastern flank of the coastal hill, we noticed a Coopers Hawk tussling with a Harrier and the Kestrel flew over to strafe them both, suddenly another Harrier appeared, a Peregrine showed up an adult Red-tailed Hawk flew over us, A juvenile Red-tailed hawk appeared on the coastal hill, as all this was going on the fog started getting thick again... and then obscured and almost colorless, a interesting buteo appeared. photos below at very bottom of this post  (juvenile Swainson Hawk) we studied its form and were 90% sure of the SWHA ID, photos later would confirm ..

below some of the raptors we saw.... 

Photographs Alan Wilson and Greg Lavaty.

Northern Harriers 

Examples of two of the accipiter's we saw on the day. 

Sharp-shinned Hawk left, Coopers Hawk right 

(internet photos used here for example, education and non-profit use only)

American Kestrels, we saw a half dozen through out the day

(random internet photos of American Kestrels)

Above photos of read-tailed hawks, Adult, juvenile, adult, juvenile.

Notice the brick red tail of adults and the fine barred tail of the juveniles 

Red-tailed Hawk ID help

Peregrine Falcon, juvenile 1st photo above and silhouette 2nd photo

and .... here is the actual Swainson Hawk we saw, a bit out of season. 

These are foggy photos of the Swainson's Hawk we saw, buteo form, light leading edge of wing, dark trailing edge of wing, correct tail barring.