January Birding: Great Plains to Desert

For those that read my previous blog post, you are probably aware of the emergency trip that I made to Nebraska in the middle part of January for about 10 days.  My return to Arizona was very much anticipated.  The climate difference between these two states is very evident during winter.  Nebraska was very cold, while Arizona is pretty pleasant with probably a bit more sunshine.  Therefore, the birding was much kinder in Arizona with the milder temperatures.  This blog post will cover some of the highlights of my birding in the last half of January in Arizona.

A couple of trips to the Sunflower area northeast of Mesa, Arizona, provided some different habitat than the regular Sornoran Desert habitat that I usually visit.  One of the birds was a Juniper Titmouse which is a species often requested from out of town visitors.  It is usually seen in a habitat with Juniper trees and would be very rare in an urban area.  Most people will see it as just a boring gray little bird, but to a birder they are rather cute and far from boring  .  

 Juniper Titmouse

 Cedar Waxwing - I never get tired of seeing this bird!

 Phainopepla - Females

Western Bluebird - Male

I still made a few trips to my favorite hiking spot in South Mountain Park near Phoenix to enjoy some of the regular desert birds.  The following photos depict some of those birds.

 Curve-billed Thrasher

 Orange-crowned Warbler

 White-crowned Sparrow

Western Screech-Owl - Number 1

Western Screech-Owl - Number 2 (yes, this is a second WESO)

 Costa's Hummingbird - Male

 Costa's Hummingbird - Female

 Greater Roadrunner

Lesser Goldfinch - Male

A few trips to the Gilbert Riparian Preserve rounded out the rest of my outings an looking for birds.  This place is always amazing and can result in a fairly large list of species if a person really gets serious on trying to identify any and all birds that can be found there. 

 Abert's Towhee - Caught in the middle of stretching.

 American Avocet - Winter non-breeding plumage.

American White Pelican

 Gamble's Quail - Male

 Snowy Egret

Spotted Towhee

The biggest surprise for the month took place on January 21st.  I was outside in my front yard and glanced up to see a weirdly shaped bird fly from across the street to a tree in my neighbor's yard.  Ran into the house and grabbed my binoculars and camera and ran back out and found it high in a tree.  It was a Rose-ringed Parakeet, or Indian Ring-necked Parakeet as it is called in the pet trade.  And it was a blue color morph which is not the normal color of green found in the wild in Asia. This was obviously an escapee, or someone's pet that got loose.  Beautiful bird and one that I had thought many years ago that I wanted as a pet, but the prices back then for this new blue color mutation was beyond my budget.  

Rose-ringed Parakeet - (blue morph)

Now it is time to start focusing on a couple of future trips.  Have a 3 day trip panned to Sonora, Mexico in May and a fairly long trip planned for Panama in July with 3 of my birding friends.  And there is another international trip planned for later in the year.  However, all the details are not quite finalized.  This promises to be an exciting year for birding and naturalizing.