Sonoma Valley residents are seeing birds they never did before

It’s a wild world out there: Bird lovers off Calle de Monte in the Fetters neighborhood off Calle de Monte were chirping at a fever pitch recently, when the nocturnal hooting of two great horned owls confirmed rumored sighting of the magnificent birds atop a power pole just a few blocks from Sonoma Highway.

First reported by Fetters resident Daniel Levitis on a neighborhood social media network, the post drew over 50 responses, not only reinforcing his sighting but adding other neighborhood bird sightings as well: screech owls, hawks, even a possible eagle.

Many neighbors on the Nextdoor network weighed in with their own bird stories, of barn owls in barns – natch – and even an eagle by the side of the road in Kenwood.

“Owls, hawks, eagles – how lucky we are to have amazing wildlife around us,” enthused Michelle Jeffries, who formerly managed the sea otter exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Tom Rusert, Sonoma’s leading bird authority and co-creator of the Christmas Bird Count for Kids, confirmed that the season is right for owl sightings: “Tis the time for owls hooting, mating and set up nesting now,” he told the Index-Tribune. He sent a photo he took of a great horned owl in a tree at the Viansa Winery during the Christmas Bird Count, and confirmed the rare bald eagle sighting.

“That was a bald eagle in Kenwood,” said Rusert. “Very big surprise. Folks sent us pictures.”

Not only pictures, but a video on Facebook clearly showed a majestic, yet uneasy bald eagle by the side of the road in Kenwood, feeding on roadkill while a committee of turkey vultures skulked nearby and traffic sped along the highway.

While Rusert was blasé about the owl sightings, he was considerably more enthusiastic about a species sighted during the Christmas Bird count in late December. “We recorded a very rare zone-tailed hawk on Dec. 28. Big surprise to the west coast birding community,” he said.

The typical range of the zone-tailed hawk rarely extends out of Mexico into California, though during breeding season it nests in Arizona, New Mexico and west Texas, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. So, yes, a zone-tailed hawk in the Valley is big news.

Speaking of birds of prey, Jeannette Farrell of El Verano had a particularly interesting story. “I just watched a huge hawk try to get to my neighbors’ chickens,” said Farrell. “It was unsuccessful, but it is amazing to see just how huge they are. I thought it was a vulture until it flapped around enough for me to see it better.”

Could this have been the zone-tailed hawk that Rusert reported? According to the Cornell Lab, “The zone-tailed hawk looks very similar in flight to turkey vultures, and it often flies with them.”

The whole big-news-about-birds conversation came about a month after a wounded red-shouldered hawk was found on the Fryer Creek Bike Path – unable to fly, evidently shot by a pellet gun the day after Christmas. The bird was taken to Santa Rosa’s Bird Rescue Center and nursed back to heath, then released on Jan. 29 near where it had been found.

The rescue generated a lot of interest, especially since it came just as the county gave the 38-year-old Bird Rescue Center notice to vacate its acre of land at the Chanate property. The nonprofit faces a Feb. 11 expiration date of a license agreement that allows it to exist rent-free on the county’s former hospital complex near Fountaingrove, which the county has been trying to sell off for housing.

The Bird Rescue Center claims to rehabilitate and release around 3,000 birds of over 100 species annually, using the program to “educate thousands of children and adults about the essential roles birds play in our environment,” according to its website.

Great horned owls are one of three owl species commonly found in the Valley – Western screech owls and barn owls are also seen. As a fairly large and common bird, the great horned owl has often been sighted, but more often heard in Sonoma residential neighborhoods.

With his original post about the owls in Fetters, Levitis mentioned a neighbor’s chihuahuas were barking at the birds. “The owl must not have been hungry because the snack walked away unharmed,” he added wryly.

A couple days later, Levitis posted that the chihuahuas had not been seen or heard since. “Pets are certainly safest indoors, especially at night,” he cautioned.

Still, there are other predators out there – and some are more silent. On Jan. 23, Agua Caliente resident Celeste Winders reported on a social media network that she found her Rottweiler “cowering in the corner (of the backyard) under a bush terrified,” following a strange “whooshing” noise in a nearby tree.

While some speculated that it might be an owl or a fox or a hawk, the notion that a Rottweiler would cower in fear from an animal he could eat for lunch suggested to some residents it could have been a mountain lion.

As far reaching as it might seem, it wouldn’t have been the first time a feline interloper from the wild came into the neighborhoods of Sonoma Valley – the Index-Tribune reported in 2016 a number of mountain lion sightings on Lomita Avenue, about a mile way, off Verano Avenue. Those earlier sightings were made about the time that Audubon Canyon Ranch wildlife ecologist Quinton Martins launched a mountain lion tagging research project in the Mayacamas Mountains, a project now known as Living with Lions.

Just as people are redefining their properties and redesigning their houses in the wake of the October 2017 fires, it looks like the local animals are redefining their own ranges – and perhaps the line between the two is becoming more permeable.

Contact christian.kallen@sonomanews.com.