Field Notes Doug Bell Location: Pine Canyon, Contra Costa Co., Calif. Date: April 16, 1989 John Dain, Marcia & I arrived at Castle Rock Park (foot of Diablo Mt.) at approx. 16:00. We hiked up the canyon to the rocks. Lots of Redwings, Black-headed Grosbeaks, and Northern Orioles. Turkey Vultures, Red-tailed Hawks, couple Kestrels. Fewer people on the rocks today. At the meadow we set the scope up probably within 5 min. the Prairie Falcons could be heard screeching. Day quickly exchanged incubation duties (it looked like the I went off, I came on). We then hiked up Pine Ridge to get a better view of the falcon pothole. Could see the falcon incubating eggs. She seemed a bit restless, getting off the eggs twice, once to leave the pothole altogether, then return within a minute. She did several settling moves on eggs, often reaching down with her bill to move them (or are they hatching?). Quite the mother hen. When she left the nest once, she flew to another rock north of this's, sat for a minute, then returned to the hole from the south (I lost sight of her when she landed on north rock). As we were hiking out, mess around 18:30, the tiercel came in to chase off about 5 Turkey Vultures which had landed on their rock. Very nice - he really looks small. Up on Pine Ridge: large flock of Lesser Goldfinches (20-30), singing Lark Sparrow, White-breasted Nuthatch, Downy Woodpeckers (pair); Calif. Quail.