[EBB Sightings] Nesting Kites, Harriers, Owls and Cormorants

This morning, Corinne Greenberg, Charle Paffenberger  and I took a walk throught the 'Berkeley Meadow' and around Cesar Chavez Park. Highlights: 

Two White-tailed Kite youngsters, obviously siblings, perched together on a Coyote Bush; Beautiful with chestnut breasts and marbled graphite gray backs.*

A Northern Harrier food exchange and nest visit: The male flew from Cesar Chavez Park towards the Meadow carrying a vole and the female flew in to meet him. There was a mid-air exchange, much calling, then the female descended to the ground in a couple of big loops ending with perhaps a 10 ft vertical drop into dense vegetation.**

We saw an adult and a young Barn Owl in the northeast-most box on the Cesar Chavez loop trail. 

The Pelagic Cormorants are at their nest on the concrete wall on the north side of the Marina. One bird was incubating.


 Some notes from Corinne:

  *  Harriers have been nesting in this area since 1994 but disappeared for a year or two when there was park and road construction a couple of years ago

 **  the Kites have hunted the area, probably have nested there, and have fed and trained juveniles there for about the past 5 years