MONTHLY SPEAKERS
FEBRUARY 2022 - "IDENTIFICATION & BIOLOGY OF CALIFORNIA'S DAYTIME RAPTORS"
Speaker: Alvaro Jaramillo
Date: February 8, 2022
Program Summary: The hawks, eagles, kites, harriers, and falcons are a fantastic group of birds. They are not all closely related, but are instantly recognizable due to their hooked beaks, and strong talons they use to capture prey. Some eat rodents, others eat insects, birds or even fish. They are quite diverse in how and what they hunt, and this explains their very different shapes, sizes, and flight styles. Ecology and identification go hand in hand, and this is no clearer than in looking at the diurnal raptors. We have many species in California, but here we will concentrate more time on the more widespread species and talk not only about what they look like and how to differentiate them from other similar species, but also what they do, eat, and even a bit about their migration. So if you are keen on hawks, eagles, the Osprey, the Peregrine – this should be a talk that will hopefully give you more insight into how to look at raptors, how to tell them apart, and also to understand how they fit into their environment.
Speaker Bio: Alvaro Jaramillo, owner of birding tour company Alvaro’s Adventures, was born in Chile but began birding in Toronto, where he lived as a youth. He was trained in ecology and evolution with a particular interest in bird behavior. Research forays and backpacking trips introduced Alvaro to the riches of the Neotropics, where he has traveled extensively. He is the author of the Birds of Chile, an authoritative yet portable field guide to Chile’s birds. Alvaro writes the Identify Yourself column in Bird Watcher’s Digest magazine. Alvaro recently wrote part of the sparrow chapter for the Handbook of Birds of the World, and the new ABA Field Guide Birds of California.
He was recently granted the Eisenmann Medal by the Linnaean Society of New York, it is awarded occasionally for excellence in ornithology and encouragement of the amateur. He organizes and leads international birding tours, as well as a full schedule of pelagic trips in central California. Alvaro lives with his family in Half Moon Bay, California.
