This Saturday, the parking lot at the Rancho San Vicente entrance to Calero County Park stays out of play. With limited parking at the event site, Santa Clara County Parks and the Peninsula Open Space Trust are running Raptor Fest from an off-site lot, and a shuttle brings everyone up McKean Road. On every other day from now through February, anyone from Almaden Valley can park at the trailhead and get the same view of the hillside, with no registration needed.
The Golden Eagles on the power towers don't need a ticket, and neither does anyone who comes to look at them on a Tuesday morning.
How Saturday Works
Raptor Fest 2026 runs from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, November 14. It's free, but you need to register and get a ticket in advance. The featured presenter is Master Falconer Kenny Elvin of Full Circle Falconry. He'll cover the history of falconry and how raptors live and behave, and he may do a flight demonstration if conditions allow.
Here's the order of the day, based on POST's event page:
- Park at the Challenger School of Almaden lot on McKean Road. The free shuttle to the Rancho San Vicente event area leaves from there.
- Pick one show. Elvin presents from 10:00 to 11:15 a.m. and again from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. It's the same program both times, and POST asks people to register for only one.
- Bring a picnic blanket. Seating is on the ground. Chairs are fine as long as they go behind the people sitting on blankets.
- Leave pets at home, since a dog can startle the birds into flying off. Service dogs are welcome.
- Pack snacks with no meat, because meat can draw the raptors. Bring a reusable water bottle for the refill station.
- Check your email before you leave. The event can be canceled for bad weather.
Between shows, six organizations will have tables: Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance, Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA, San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, Wildlife Education & Rehabilitation Center, the Predatory Bird Research Group at UC Santa Cruz, and Talon Ecological Research Group.
POST is direct about the kind of program this is:
"Keep in mind that this event is less intended to entertain than to educate our community about the lives of our local birds of prey and how we can better take care of them as a community."
That line comes from POST's Raptor Fest listing. The same page describes each show as a 75-minute sit-and-listen program, probably best for kids 10 and older. Younger children are still welcome.
What the Falconer Will Be Talking About
The setting is part of the program. Both the County and POST describe Rancho San Vicente as a newer part of Calero County Park that is becoming a destination for watching raptors. The Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance publishes a self-guided fall and winter route for this entrance. It covers October through February and lists Golden Eagle and Prairie Falcon, which is uncommon, as key birds.
The guide is specific about where to look:
| Bird | Where the Bird Alliance guide says to look |
|---|---|
| Golden Eagle | Often perched on the power towers along the Lisa Killough Trail |
| Turkey Vulture | Circling in the thermals overhead |
| Prairie Falcon | Sometimes on the tops of distant oaks seen from the parking lot picnic tables, or hunting when ground squirrels call |
| American Kestrel | Treetops and raptor perches in the meadow by the lot |
| Cooper's Hawk, Sharp-shinned Hawk, White-tailed Kite, Northern Harrier | Along the rocky grassland farther up the trail |
The ground squirrels are the most useful clue in the guide. If you hear them yipping an alarm call, the guide says to scan for a Prairie Falcon or Golden Eagle hunting nearby. The guide also explains how to tell a Golden Eagle from a Turkey Vulture at a distance. The eagle flies steadily on rectangular wings because it balances with its tail. The vulture holds its wings in a slight V and teeters as it adjusts to the breeze.
The Two-Mile Version, Any Weekday
Because of that guide, a winter visit doesn't have to be a big outing. The Bird Alliance route is a two-mile out-and-back along the gently climbing Lisa Killough Trail. It starts with the picnic tables beside the parking lot, where the author often stops to scan the hillsides for raptors. This is working cattle land. You'll go through several cattle gates and should close each one behind you. The guide also asks walkers to stay off the marked rancher's road.
Partway up, serpentine rock, California's state rock, sticks out of the grass. Rock Wrens and Rufous-crowned Sparrows feed among the stones. The guide's turnaround point looks back toward the valley. A bench a little farther on has views of New Almaden and Casa Grande, home of the Quicksilver Mining Museum. If you know where to look, you can also pick out the cypress trees of Hidalgo Cemetery in Almaden Quicksilver County Park.
For a longer walk, POST's Lisa Killough Trail page describes a 2.7-mile climb to Lisa's Lookout. That makes a 5.4-mile out-and-back with 500 feet of elevation gain, rated moderate and taking three to four hours, with views over Calero Reservoir and toward Mt. Umunhum. The Bird Alliance guide also suggests stopping at Calero Reservoir, about two more miles south on McKean Road. You can look for Bald Eagles and wintering waterfowl right from the parking lot. Entry fees may apply there.
As of the County's closures page, last updated October 28, Calero County Park had no closures listed. The same page notes scheduled prescribed-burn piles for 2026, so check it before you go. To get there, POST says the Rancho San Vicente lot is on McKean Road, across from Rakstad Road.
Grassland That Was Once Slated for Houses
The raptors have this open grassland because of a purchase made 17 years ago. In 2009, POST bought the 966-acre Rancho San Vicente from private developers who had planned a luxury housing development there. POST's summer 2009 newsletter put the price at $16 million. The same issue described the serpentine grasslands and said eagles nesting at Calero soar over the property. POST sees the land as a key piece of a 15-mile greenbelt running from Los Gatos to near Highway 101 in Morgan Hill.
The land then went to the Santa Clara County Parks and Recreation Department so public trails could be built. The entrance opened to the public in 2018. So the trailhead is only about eight years old. It's recent enough that the Bird Alliance author describes it as a place that "quickly became one of my favorite places."
The Lot Is Set to Grow
The Rancho San Vicente parking area figures in a County proposal. An April 30, 2026 County environmental study for the Fortini Property describes a new trail connection between Calero and Santa Teresa County Parks. It calls for about 0.7 mile of main trail and 0.4 mile of seasonal pedestrian trails.
The proposal would change both ends of the walk:
- North end, San Vicente Avenue: a crushed-rock lot with about 28 standard spaces, two trailer spaces, and two ADA spaces, replacing the unimproved roadside parking there now. A raised crossing would link the trail to Santa Teresa County Park.
- South end, at Rancho San Vicente: a new lot directly east of the current one with about 59 standard spaces and three ADA spaces, reached through the existing lot.
- McKean Road: a full traffic signal at Fortini Road with three crosswalks, so trail users can cross safely.
The study expects construction to start as early as April 2027 and last about seven months. Work would happen on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with no nighttime or weekend work planned.
If the project goes ahead as described, the Rancho San Vicente trailhead would get a second lot of about 62 spaces next to the current one, a new trail north to Santa Teresa, and a signal on McKean Road. This winter, from now through February, the trailhead is still the one the Bird Alliance guide describes, with cattle gates on the trail and Lark Sparrows perched in the small trees by the picnic tables.
A big part of knowing the Los Gatos and Almaden area is knowing which trailheads off McKean Road are worth a morning. If you're out on the Lisa Killough Trail this season and want to talk about this corner of South San Jose, Mark Vantress would be glad to hear what you saw from the power towers. Let's Connect.
