[EBB Sightings] Mountain Plover, Northern Shrike, Short-eared Owl

Finally sending this out after figuring out how to
switch from HTML to text.

Saturday, Feb. 27.

Bruce Mast and I went on a day long road trip to find
rare and special birds with a fair amount of success.
Following is a recap of the highlights.

Solano County:

Northern Shrike (juvinile) found on Cook Lane, just
off of Hastings.  Further south on Cook we had a great
look at an adult Ferruginous Hawk, perched.  Then at
the Jepson Prarie Preserve we watched while a Great
Horned Owl was being harrassed by a pair of Ravens.
This went on for some time before the owl fled to a
grove of Eucaliptus for cover.
Then over to Robinson Road where we found a large
flock (approx. 114) of Mountain Plover.  They were
midway in the second east-west stretch of Robinson
heading east from Hwy 113, approx. 150 north from the
edge of the road.  If we hadn't of flushed them as we
approached we may not have seen them, as they were
very cryptic in the surrounding grass.
The Burrowing Owl was found further south/east at the
corner of Flanery and Robinson.
We had a great look at a female Rough-legged Hawk as
we made our way south back on 113.  She was perched
facing east so that we could observe her back and tail
plumage, she then did a little hop and turned to face
us, balancing herself by extending her wings to show
her carpal patches.  Quit a show.

San Joaquin County:

At Stanton Island we had the usual suspects, Snow
Geese, thousands of Greater White-fronted geese,
Cackling geese, Whooping Crane, Tundra Swan, one
Ross's goose, etc.
Further down the road at the water tower was another
Great Horned Owl tucked inside of the tank.
Back to Walnut Grove Road and over to the Woodbridge
Road preserve we found a lone Eurasian Widgeon.

Contra Costa County:

Last but not least over to the Byron airport where we
watched three Short-eared Owls foraging along with
Harriers, and Kites hovering above.
A Barn owl sighting on the way home made it a four owl
day.
Other raptors included Redtail, two Ferruginous,
Rough-legged, White-tailed Kite, Northern Harrier,
Kestral and a probable Prarie Falcon (it was distant
with bad lighting so id is not positive).