After peering through a pair of high-powered binoculars for only a few minutes from a grassy embankment, slowly scanning the sky over the lower-lying flat green land sprawling below, I see a majestic bird sweep into view and soar upward, its impressive wingspan silhouetted against the backdrop mesa of the near and distant Santa Maria Mountains.
It banks toward me and soars higher, the binoculars’ zoom feature making it seem so close that I could reach out and touch its impressive black-tipped white-and-tan-speckled wingspan. I watch it suddenly arc high in fast flight, then hover for a moment before dive-bombing at great speed into some short scrub, the ochre-red namesake tail feathers of this red-tailed hawk quivering vibrantly in the midmorning sun.
I’m at Hawk Watch, held annually every Saturday in January and February on the Ramona Grasslands Preserve, just a 45-minute scenic drive from downtown San Diego and this stretch of Southern California’s coastal vacation spots into San Diego’s East County backcountry.
Hawk Watch is a popular free event for both locals and visitors, where you’re all but guaranteed to see a variety of the wintering and resident 19 species of birds of prey that have been recorded in this natural raptor hotspot by the event’s host, the Wildlife Research Institute.
It’s nirvana for twitchers, the affectionate nickname for amateur and professional bird-spotters who live to check off as many as they can of the world’s estimated 18,000 bird species (per the most recent research led by the American Museum of Natural History).
On any given day, chances are high that you'll witness the balletlike air show of a red-tailed hawk, a prairie falcon, a ferruginous hawk or a red-shouldered hawk in their wild habitat at the Ramona Grasslands, especially in their wintering season here in January and February. But at Hawk Watch you can also get up close and personal with them, perched on the leather glove of one of the institute’s falconer volunteers as they signal the raptors to take flight to demonstrate their fast reactions soaring and circling to catch prey in midair—a tempting feast of raw meat swung at the end of a rope by a partner volunteer farther away.
Interspersed with a sportscasterlike play-by-play of the raptors’ movements, the WRI’s bird-nerd biologists educate their audience, sharing the life history of these magnificent avian creatures and the importance of the Ramona Grasslands ecosystem to the raptors’ survival. The nonprofit WRI and its members are also pushing an anti-rodenticides narrative, campaigning for bans on rodent poisons due to their devastating impact on the food chain and in particular birds of prey: wildlife eats poison, raptor eats wildlife, raptor dies.
Listening intently, seated on folding chairs on the grassy knoll at the beautiful Begent Ranch location of Hawk Watch overlooking the grasslands, the audience is mesmerized by this magnificent and memorable bird show, eyes skyward, many glued to binoculars or a long zoom camera lens.
If you’re extremely lucky, one of the American bald eagles that have nested here for years in a stand of trees just a short, straight line as the crow flies across the grasslands valley, may just make an appearance—or a native golden eagle. If not, at least you can climb into a life-size replica golden eagle nest at Hawk Watch to have your picture taken—a unique and humorous memento from your day with the birds of prey.
