mt macdonald

hike up the draw

on Wednesday I hiked up Mt Macdonald. I took the straight up trail to the top through the draw that had the golden eagle nest in it. At the top it was nice and sunny with only a few little clouds around and very little breeze. There was a sharp-shinned hawk circling below me, it circled up past me and within a couple of minutes it was over 1000 feet above me.

Vaux's Swift 

It staggered abit in its soaring, and I noticed another one diving at it, it then folded its wings and dove like a rock, unable to keep up with it with my binoculars I lost it in the sky above. A few minutes after that a flock of Vaux's Swifts skimmed by me with one of them shooting by me so close I could hear its wing beats. They were all heading north , about 10 minutes later they did the same thing in the opposite direction. Next, a group of yellow-rumped warbler dropped in and landed in the dead pines nearby, they spent quite a few minutes feeding in the trees and looking at me as I pished at them. A red-tailed hawk I could hear somewhere but could not locate it. a few minutes later I saw a Red-tailed diving out of the clouds above doing a mimic of a golden eagle , swooping and diving. Another Sharp-shinned showed up high above me before I had to head down  to go back to work.