Saturday, October 13, 2007

Google Me a Turkey Hawk

Soetimes Google can be so dumb. You ask about "hawks" and it refers you to the Seattle Hawks, a basketball team, or books about hawks, or catalogues of pictures of birds, some of which may be hawks.

My search started because Joan, (see comments in in entry, "Envy", below) asked what kind of hawk I had seen circling in the California sky. She said >>  It is a great sight to see hawks soaring like that in big numbers we last saw something like that in Majorca during a rain storm we had about 40 hawks Black Kite, Short Toed Eagle and Booted Eagle amonst them it was a great sight  for us as we are very keen bird watchers. Do you know what hawks you saw?

Well, no, Joan, I have heard them called Turkey Hawks. They nest in the Eucalyptus trees on our street a few blocks north, and are considered a big nuisance. The city trimmed the trees, but that only deterred them from their nesting sites a short time.  Soon they were back, squawking and messing and being generally annoying to residents.

They are large and dark, somewhat bigger than crows. They seem to fly by magic, since I have never seen them flap a wing. The simply soar on unseen air currents. The flock together; I saw about twenty in one flight. The seem to like the "buddy system" for there are usually sub-groups of two.

But I don't know if they are really Turkey Hawks or not.  Google could show me no "Turkey Hawks". It showed me Turkey Vultures though, except they were huge and live in the Eastern part of the country, not California.  Google showed me pictures of Black Hawks, but they were brown, not black. (White Rhinos are black incidentally.)

I am not much of a bird watcher. I love to see the hawks soaring over, and I have seen hawks perched on fence posts as I drove along a country road, and once or twice in my lifetime I have seen eagles. I saw a couple of eagles nests in Alaska.

I am more of a bird listener than watcher.  I love to listen to the mocking bird who lives nearby.  I have tried to record and chart his songs.  He seems to have a special sequence of notes that he repeats. At first it sounds random, but later you can hear repeats of certain trills. He seems to be saying something, and I  am trying to figure it out.

 

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've only heard them called Turkey VULTURES...never hawks.  LOL

Anonymous said...

here in pa. they are called turkey hawks, could the hawks you were looking at be falcons?

Anonymous said...

We have those old Turkey Vultures that circle when they spot a road ill or something else that has died. They glide around instead of flapping their wings and they are black. I have never seen a flock of any kind of hawks. I was trying to picture a flock of hawks in your last entry. Helen

Anonymous said...

PS That was supposed to be road kill instead of ill LOL. Helen

Anonymous said...

Hi thanks for trying to answer my question about the hawks I seem to have started something. Oh by the way its Joan not Jean.  Love Joan.

Anonymous said...

Chuck, sometimes you have to be real creative on google, LOL.  For instance, google hawks California and see what comes up.  I think I will go try to do that, as I have loads and loads of time on my hands, LOL.

Krissy :)
http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink

Anonymous said...

I put in "turkey hawk California" and got this page:

http://natureali.org/TVcount.htm

Does that look like the hawks you saw, Chuck?  The page lists both turkey vultures and hawks, what do you think?

Krissy :)
http://journals.aol.com/fisherkristina/SometimesIThink

Anonymous said...

WE HAVE A LOT OF GEESE GOING BY AT THIS TIME OF YEAR AND ONE DECIDED TO DROP HIS DO DO ON MY HUSBANDS CAR TODAY WHILE HE WAS STANDING NEXT TO IT.... IT WAS VERY LARGE. i TOLD HIM GOOD THING IT WASN'T HIS HEAD THAT GOT IT ...LOL  HE CLEANED IT QUICK OR IT COULD HAVE RUINED THE PAINT ON HIS CAR.....DO YOU GET FLOCKS OF GEESE FLYING IN FORMATION AT THIS TIME OF YEAR TOO?
SANDRA

Anonymous said...

I would say almost certainly turkey vultures. They cover southern California and the Pacific coast of the state. - Karen