Are these merlins, or peregrine falcons? After looking at images on Google, I think maybe female harrier hawks? Here is a close up of the same photo.
Beautiful day at Peck Park in San Pedro, overlooking the Port of Los Angeles.
Of course, once these birds took off--one at a time--the ever-present crows that populate that park swarmed and chased them away.
Here is another picture. My guess is that the birds were 14-15 inches long.
And below right is a picture of a black phoebe--birds that I cannot ever remember seeing until recently, but which now seem to be all over.
Those two raptors could be juvenile red tails. Their tails seem too short to be Cooper's hawks.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the tail--but having just seen a fledgling red tail that was almost twice the size of these two, and who couldn't yet fly, I don't think these two are red-tail hawks. But then, I don't know how much variation there is in size.
ReplyDeletePrairie hawk is another possibility.