The crew welcomes you to...

Common Nighthawks roost on fenceposts and on any horizontal limb without too many branhes.  For the past 10 years, birders who run breeding bird survey routes have been saying that this species is declining.  I didn't think it to be true on the Chico, but this year numbers around Holmes are way down with only a couple birds easily seen. 

This male is easy to I.D. because of its white chin and broad white subterminal tail band.  If this bird was a female it would show a buff throat patch and no white subterminal tail band.  Nighthawks are crepuscular, feeding at dawn and dusk and also on cloudy days.  A few can be seen flying over the larger ponds on the Chico.  Thier mouth can expand to an incredible size and surrounding their mouths are specialized feathers called rictal bristles that help funnel flying insects into their mouths as nighthawks circle through clouds of insects.

As the song says, "summertime and the livin' is easy..." Many of Chico's resident and summer-only birds are now feeding young.  I saw a single juvenile Scaled Quail with a female today. Hopefully other species are doing much better.  A Burrowing Owl flew over me, neverous because I was near their nesting burrow, a giveaway because of the amount of whitewash on the rim.  In another few weeks babies should be poking their heads out for their first real look at their new world.  Finding Burrowing Owl pellets is always fun becuase it is another reminder to me of the food  these owls consume.  Much of the pellets are full of the hard beetle carpaces but there are often some small rodent bones in them too.