Cooper Hawk Family!!

Photos from John Mellin an IEUA staff member captured a rare moment last week of a Cooper Hawk Family outside the Agency's main headquarters just north of the Chino Creek Park.

Nest Description

Males typically build the nest over a period of about two weeks, with just the slightest help from the female. Nests are piles of sticks roughly 27 inches in diameter and 6-17 inches high with a cup-shaped depression in the middle, 8 inches across and 4 inches deep. The cup is lined with bark flakes and, sometimes, green twigs.

Nesting Placement

Cooper’s Hawks build nests in pines, oaks, Douglas-firs, beeches, spruces, and other tree species, often on flat ground rather than hillsides, and in dense woods. Nests are typically 25-50 feet high, often about two-thirds of the way up the tree in a crotch or on a horizontal branch.

Nesting Facts

Clutch Size

2–6 eggs

Number of Broods

1 broods

Egg Length

1.7–2 in
4.4–5.1 cm

Egg Width

1.4–1.6 in
3.5–4 cm

Incubation Period

30–36 days

Nestling Period

27–34 days

Egg Description

Pale blue to bluish white.

Condition at Hatching

Covered in white down and weighing just 28 grams or 1 ounce, but able to crawl around nest.

Information from allaboutbirds.org

Two Canvasbacks spotted in the Park.

Photo by John Mellin

Before the end of the year (2011) John Mellin the Agency avid bird watcher saw 2 canvasbacks in the Park ponds. Very excited since we get to add a new duck to our lists!!

Cool Facts

• The species name of the Canvasback, Aythya valisineria, comes from Vallisneria americana, or wild celery, whose winter buds and rhizomes are its preferred food during the nonbreeding period. (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/)  

Cedar Waxwing at the Park!

Photo by John Mellin

Cedar Waxwings have been spotted at the park!!! What birds have you seen at the park?

Cool Facts

• The name "waxwing" comes from the waxy red secretions found on the tips of the secondaries of some birds. The exact function of these tips is not known, but they may help attract mates.
• Cedar Waxwings with orange instead of yellow tail tips began appearing in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern Canada in the 1960s. The orange color is the result of a red pigment picked up from the berries of an introduced species of honeysuckle. If a waxwing eats enough of the berries while it is growing a tail feather, the tip of the feather will be orange.



Photo by John Mellin

• The Cedar Waxwing is one of the few North American birds that specializes in eating fruit. It can survive on fruit alone for several months. Brown-headed Cowbirds that are raised in Cedar Waxwing nests typically don’t survive, in part because the cowbird chicks can’t develop on such a high-fruit diet.
• Many birds that eat a lot of fruit separate out the seeds and regurgitate them, but the Cedar Waxwing lets them pass right through. Scientists have used this trait to estimate how fast waxwings can digest fruits.
• Because they eat so much fruit, Cedar Waxwings occasionally become intoxicated or even die when they run across overripe berries that have started to ferment and produce alcohol.
• Building a nest takes a female Cedar Waxwing 5 to 6 days and may require more than 2,500 individual trips to the nest. They occasionally save time by taking nest materials from other birds’ nests, including nests of Eastern Kingbirds, Yellow-throated Vireos, orioles, robins, and Yellow Warblers.
• The oldest known Cedar Waxwing was 8 years, 2 months old. (http://www.allaboutbirds.org/)

Fall Festival of Birds

Great Horned Owl: Wild Wings Booth

The 3rd Annual Fall Festival of Birds hosted by the Santa Ana Watershed Association was a huge success on Saturday.  Over 500 people visited the Chino Creek Wetlands and Educational Park to celebrate our feathered friends. Thank you to all of the SAWA staff who helped make this a wonderful experience for all of the visitors and participants.  We appreciate all of the following organizations for participating in this event:

• Santa Ana Watershed Association Biology and Education Departments
• Healthy Chino
• Orange County Water District
• Monte Vista 4-H
• Inside the Outdoors
• Inland Empire Utilities Agency
• Mary Vagle Nature Center
• Riverside-Corona Resource District
• Riverside County Parks
• Troop 2624
• West Valley Mosquito and Vector Control District
• Rancho Santa Ana Botanical Garden
• Pomona Valley Audubon
• Inland Empire Resource Conservation District 
• Wild Wings
• Loma Vista Middle School  

Bird Festival!!!!

Looking for a fun, educational and free event that will get you outside?

Come out to the Chino Creek Park on November 5th and experience

the Annual Bird Festival hosted by SAWA!!

Bird Festival 2011 Flier

Virginia Rail and Green Heron on the same day!



Photo taken by John Mellin

On September 2, 2011 one of IEUA's avid bird watchers, John Mellin saw a Virginia Rail in the late afternoon from the covered bridge looking south at the cattail island. This was a life bird for him!! That same day he saw a Green Heron. http://www.allaboutbirds.org/

Virginia Rail

 A secretive bird of freshwater marshes, the Virginia Rail most often remains hidden in dense vegetation. It possesses many adaptations for moving through its habitat, including a laterally compressed body, long toes, and flexible vertebrae.



Photo taken by John Mellin

Cool Facts


• The forehead feathers of the Virginia Rail are adapted to withstand wear from pushing through dense marsh vegetation.
• The Virginia Rail can swim under water, propelling itself with its wings. It swims in this way probably only to flee predators.
• The Virginia Rail and other rail species have the highest ratio of leg muscles to flight muscles of any birds.
• The Virginia Rail builds numerous "dummy nests" in addition to the one where eggs are actually laid.

Green Heron

A small, stocky wading bird, the Green Heron is common in wet spots across much of North America. It can be difficult to see as it stands motionless waiting for small fish to approach within striking range, but it frequently announces its presence by its loud squawking.

Cool Facts

• The Green Heron is one of the few tool-using birds. It commonly drops bait onto the surface of the water and grabs the small fish that are attracted. It uses a variety of baits and lures, including crusts of bread, insects, earthworms, twigs, or feathers.
• The Green Heron is part of a complex of small herons that sometimes are considered one species. When lumped, they are called Green-backed Heron. When split, they are the Green Heron, the widespread Striated Heron, and the Galapagos Heron.
• As is typical for many herons, the Green Heron tends to wander after the breeding season is over. Most wanderers probably seek more favorable foraging areas and do not travel far, but occasionally some travel greater distances, with individuals turning up as far as England and France.

Cooper's Hawk

Photo by John Mellin

In our Backyard...

In late February a pair of Cooper's Hawks made their home at the north end of the Inland Empire Utilities Agency (IEUA) campus. Staff had found that the Hawks produced 2 eggs in their nest. Around early May staff had noted that the two young hawks started peaking over the nest. Since the nest was in close proximity to the Agency’s parking lot a warning needed to be sent to staff to be aware of the aggressive female hawk protecting her young.

Photo by John Mellin

Cooper's Hawks

Among the bird world’s most skillful fliers, Cooper’s Hawks are common woodland hawks that tear through cluttered tree canopies in high speed pursuit of other birds. You’re most likely to see one prowling above a forest edge or field using just a few stiff wingbeats followed by a glide. With their smaller lookalike, the Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawks make for famously tricky identifications. Both species are sometimes unwanted guests at bird feeders, looking for an easy meal (but not one of sunflower seeds).

Cool Facts

• Dashing through vegetation to catch birds is a dangerous lifestyle. In a study of more than 300 Cooper’s Hawk skeletons, 23 percent showed old, healed-over fractures in the bones of the chest, especially of the furcula, or wishbone.
• A Cooper's Hawk captures a bird with its feet and kills it by repeated squeezing. Falcons tend to kill their prey by biting it, but Cooper’s Hawks hold their catch away from the body until it dies. They’ve even been known to drown their prey, holding a bird underwater until it stopped moving.
• Once thought averse to towns and cities, Cooper’s Hawks are now fairly common urban and suburban birds. Some studies show their numbers are actually higher in towns than in their natural habitat, forests. Cities provide plenty of Rock Pigeon and Mourning Dove prey. Though one study in Arizona found a downside to the high-dove diet: Cooper’s Hawk nestlings suffered from a parasitic disease they acquired from eating dove meat.
• Life is tricky for male Cooper’s Hawks. As in most hawks, males are significantly smaller than their mates. The danger is that female Cooper’s Hawks specialize in eating medium-sized birds. Males tend to be submissive to females and to listen out for reassuring call notes the females make when they’re willing to be approached. Males build the nest, then provide nearly all the food to females and young over the next 90 days before the young fledge.
• The oldest known Cooper's Hawk was 20 years, 4 months old. (allaboutbirds.org)http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Coopers_Hawk/lifehistory

Phot by John Mellin

In the Park

Last week one of the Agency's staff members, who is an avid bird watcher came across some Redheaded ducks dancing in the wetlands and spotted this Bushtit eating lunch.

Male and female Redhead ducks appear to be dancing

Bushtit eating lunch

What birds have you seen recently in the park?