Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

As I mentioned already this past weekend was a mostly stay-at-home weekend. I hate just being a homebody, though, so we mixed it up with having a friend over on Sunday— and going on an easy hike together. "Easy" was the speed because Hawk is still recovering from foot surgery a few weeks ago.

We picked Byxbee Park in Palo Alto for an easy hike. Byxbee is local spot we've visited at least a few times a year recently. The views it offers across the southern end of the San Francisco Bay aren't super awesome, particularly as the park is built atop covered landfill, though they are still bay views. And it's interesting how wilderness-y feeling it gets here on the edge of high tech-y Palo Alto. Plus, the park has a network of trails that make it easy to stitch together a shorter or longer trek. We chose a meandering route over the top of the hill and back around the sloughs that added up to almost 3 miles. Along the way we saw a few white pelicans and a red-tail hawk.



Here's a slough view with a white pelican in the foreground. Yes, the pelican is the big bird. You can see how it towers over the ducks in the water. White pelicans have a 9' wingspan. Yes, they're huge. And I was fascinated to see not just one but 3 or 4 on our walk as I don't think I've seen white pelicans before in this area. Brown pelicans, yes, but not white. From a distance I thought the first one I saw was a great heron. Then I saw the pelican's scoop-like beak.

Another interesting bird appeared as we rounded the last corner to the home stretch of our hike. We spotted a red-tail hawk perching atop a wood post.



As we approached the bird from behind we weren't sure what type of hawk it was. Once even partway around the bend we could see its features and colors, and it was obvious it's a red-tail hawk. Some other hikers who'd stopped to look were wondering if maybe it's a Cooper's hawk or a sharp-shin falcon.

I explained that size alone could rule out either of those species. The hawk was perched only about 10' above the ground, so we could make out its size fairly well. The brown and white checkered pattern across the bird's underside is typical of a red-tail, as are the darker brown color across its back and on its head. It's probably a juvenile as it doesn't yet have the characteristic red tail; the tail feathers come in red at about age 2 years. The shape and color of the beak (gray) also indicate for this being a red-tail.

It was cool that the bird was patient with a bunch of us hairless apes gawking at it from 25' away. Wild animals all have a threat radius at which they'll flee potential danger. Predators like hawks may have a smaller threat radius. Plus, this hawk is a flyer and was already perched 10' off the ground, so it was probably less afraid for that reason, too.

BTW, I made this close-up picture with my new iPhone. The iPhone 16 Pro has a 3 lens/camera system. One of them is a 5x telephoto (120mm equivalent) with a 12MP imager. That's what I used for this photo.

I'm pleased with how this photo turned out. It's vastly better than I was able to capture with the single lens on my iPhone SE 3rd gen. It's the kind of result I was looking for as I reconsider how often to carry around my dedicated interchangeable lens camera. Would I have gotten a better picture with my dedicated camera and my "bird shooter" telephoto lens? Yes. Was the iPhone in my pocket way easier to carry than that dedicate camera with my "bird shooter" telephone lens? Also Yes.

Last weekend we went walking in Byxbee Park. It's along the edge of the San Francisco Bay in Palo Alto. We've been there numerous times before. One reason we like it is that it has a slight hill. Of course, that hill is man-made— it covers an old dump. Yes, sadly, for many decades Bay Areans were like, "Let's take all our trash and just pile it up next to the water." But the sins of the past are now, if not atoned for, at least out of sight. Grasses and wildflowers cover the hill.



The hill isn't huge. It's a rise of 10-15 meters. I hesitate even to call this hiking; it seems closer to walking. But even from atop this hill's modest change in elevation, there are very different views of the surrounding marshland and bay than you'd get from sea level.



The photo above shows Fremont Peak in Fremont in the distance. It may not look high in this picture because of the distance but it's 3,171'. Below it, with kind of a brown color, is the southern tip of the San Francisco Bay. In the middle are some of the sloughs and marshes that make up much of the bay's edge down here.



Back down closer to water's edge on the far side of the hill I enjoyed this view looking south. It's hard to tell what's in the distance beyond the slough and marshland— and that's the point. In this photo you're looking at NASA Ames and Google's corporate headquarters in Mountain View. And hey, there's actually a mountain view.



Once down the far side of the hill we walked the low trail back around to the trailhead. That's another thing we enjoy about Byxbee Park: the ability to take walks of widely varying lengths by choosing from among the network of paths. That, and having something nice to see in every direction— especially at this time of year, when flowers are in bloom.

Last weekend we managed to get out for hiking both days. After Saturday's slightly more ambitious tromp at Edgewood Park I felt like taking it a bit easier on Sunday, especially because one of my feet was still hurting from pushing a bit too hard at Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge the weekend before. We ruled out the more strenuous, more vertical hikes on our short list and came up with an old favorite. Well, not an old favorite; we only started making it a regular hiking haunt a few years ago. It's Byxbee Park, in the baylands of Palo Alto less than 10 miles away.

Byxbee Park is a curious location on the edge of town where land meets water. There are sloughs and ponds on three sides of it. In the middle is a slight hill. It's actually man-made... it covers up an old landfill! Oh, and also next to the park is a sewage treatment plant. Does this sound like some kind of joke, putting a city park next to the dump and the sewer? Well, partly it is, and partly it isn't— because it's actually nice.



The dump hill is actually fun to climb up because with even its 25' or so elevation above water level of the bay, you gain a completely different perspective on the bay than you see at 5' elevation atop the levees.

On this hike I made a point of bringing all the lenses for my nice camera; particularly my "bird shooter" telephoto lens. "Maybe we'll see some cool birds this time," Hawk and I agreed... meaning things other than the various kinds of ducks, rails, and geese we always see at Byxbee. And sure enough, as soon as I stepped onto the trail I saw what looked like a bird of prey swooping back and forth, low over the hillside.

The predator kept working the area as we hiked along the first levee and then up the hill. For a moment we wondered if it might be a turkey vulture, as it had a similar wing shape. But it showed itself to be a capable flyer, not a clumsy one, as it swooped so close to the ground in long power glides.



I took several pictures of the hawk with my telephoto lens but it would take until I got home and had time to look up this fast-moving bird that I could identify it. It's a northern harrier.

The main giveaway for norther harriers— the thing that differentiates them from other hawks— is that white patch at the base of the tail. Aside from that, other indicators are the way it holds its wings up in a slight "V" shape when gliding and its flat face. Its face is actually similar to an owl's.

When a northern harrier is gliding close to the ground like this, it's both looking and listening for prey in the tall grass. Its prey are generally small ground mammals: voles, rats, squirrels. It'll catch songbirds, shorebirds, and small waterfowl, too. Generally it won't catch one of these...



...though on occasion northern harriers do kill jackrabbits. They'd have to be kind of desperate— or maybe striving to feed a nest of growing young— because it's bigger prey than they usually take. They really can't even kill it with their talons. So they drag it to water and drown it. This guy (or gal) above is taking a chance with that harrier on patrol overhead. That's probably why s/he is running so fast.

Spotting the northern harrier was cool. This is habitat, marshland, is home to these birds; but we've never seen one before in many, many trips to this and other nearby bayland parks. Better yet, it wasn't the only unusual hawk sighting.



Up atop a "sculpture" (above) we spotted another bird that looks hawkish. Yes, it's a tiny bird all the way up there; yet we looked at it and right away asked ourselves, "Is that a kestrel?"

The birdshooter made answering that question easy:



YES, that's TOTALLY an American kestrel. We could tell even without the telephoto lens because of the bird's shape, its orange back, and the way it flew fast. I mean, when this bird flew from one perch to another, its wings flapped 3x as fast as you'd expect for a bird its size.

Kestrels are falcons. They're the smallest of the falco genus. They don't have the great speed of peregrine falcons, the fastest animal in the world; nor the strength of even a merlin. But their small size and rapid wing movements give them considerable maneuverability. The way this bird surprised us with how fast it could leap off a perch (the phrase "like a bat out of hell" comes to mind) and fly 100m away is how it surprises its prey. Kestrels prey on a variety of species from insects to small mammals and reptiles to small birds. You don't want to be a sparrow when this guy's around. His nickname, after all, is sparrowhawk.

Update: Keep reading with the next entry, Wildflowers in Byxbee Park.