Birds of prey of Coyote Valley

I am currently in a Wildlife Science field study program in which teams of students work in the field, looking for the fauna in a certain area in Santa Clara County. In the class that I am in right now, we are looking for birds migrating through and wintering Coyote Valley. We saw some pretty incredible creatures on our first day in the field, including a golden eagle pair, two peregrine falcons hunting, probably 20 red-tailed hawks, a ferruginous hawk, two harriers, a few kestrels, a very hungry little loggerhead shrike, a white-tailed kite and a few western bluebirds. Although I was not able to get shots of everything, a few of the birds managed to find themselves in the way of my camera lense.

red-tailed hawk

male golden eagle

female golden eagle

loggerhead shrike, or the butcher bird, hunting for fat caterpillars in an abandoned agg field

Gorgeous red-tail, perched on a cedar

Sorry if you think it’s gross, I think it’s cool. It’s a gopher head that one of the raptors dropped as they flew overhead.