The winter in California, is the time of raptors.

Prairie falcon, merlin, rough-legged, and ferruginous hawk, bald eagle. These are exciting times to get out in the field, when raptors have replaced the neotropical migrants, who have headed south.

On a Saturday morning I headed east of Watsonville on the eastern edge of Santa Cruz County on Riverside Drive (Highway 129). Here was habitat like no other in Santa Cruz County, open rolling hills and pastureland. This was habitat like San Benito County, which was really just a mile down the highway. This was the perfect habitat for wintering raptors.

Recently a prairie falcon and a ferruginous hawk had been seen in the area. These are both birds that I look forward to seeing at this time of year. And a prairie falcon would be a county bird for me.

I pulled off Riverside Road at a dirt pullout. Across the road was perfect winter raptor territory. In the foreground was green pastureland with plenty of hunting perches and in the background where the green rolling hills, the realm of golden eagles. It is this view that is the featured field sketch.

To my left I saw some motion against the hillside. I put bins on the raptor and it was one of the prizes I had been looking for, our largest hawk: Buteo regalus! The hawk circled above the ground and then stooped down, landing of the ground. It returned to the air, a minute later, empty taloned. The ferruginous hawk crossed the road and flew above me, paralleling a line of eucalyptus trees. The hawk moved east and out of view.

I moved on down the road and a falcon being pursued by crows crossed the road in front of me. It could be the prairie falcon but I didn’t get a great look at the raptor. I tried to relocate the possible prairie but like most falcons they can be just seem to be passing through, very quickly. This was not enough to tick this bird off on my Santa Cruz County list.