A Numbers Game

Birding for many people, is a numbers game.  Keeping track of the birds that one can tick off in a county, a state, or the ABA Area, various countries, and finally life birds, is what many of us do while we are observing birds.  The game is sort of like a scavenger hunt with moving targets.  Some birders can recite how many species they have in every county, every state, ABA, and life birds.  For me, I do good remembering my life list number.  I can easily look up my county, state, and life list numbers, but I don't focus on memorizing them as those numbers are constantly changing. 

Since my trip to Ecuador last July, my birding has been relatively curtailed to Arizona.  Yes, I have been making plans for some future trips, but in the meantime, I have been exploring Arizona a bit more and learning more about the birds of Arizona and their distribution.  In the process I have picked up one new life bird, which was last August in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona.  Alas, no photos, but I was quite stoked and pleased to see my first Black Swift.  I have also added 8 new species of birds to my Arizona list, of which one of them was the Black Swift.  Adding birds to my Arizona list gets harder every year.  Most are rarities, and require a chase of one kind or another.  And some of these new Arizona birds are birds that I have seen in other US states and 3 of them were birds that I have seen outside of the United States.  New Arizona birds that I have added include Fulvous Whistling Duck (Texas), Ringed Kingfisher (Costa Rica), Short-eared Owl (Washington), Black Rosy-Finch (New Mexico), Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch (Oregon), White-throated Thrush (Mexico and Costa Rica), and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl (Mexico).  {The places in parenthesis, are the locations where I have seen them before seeing them in the United States or Arizona.} 

The only species that I was able to photograph in Arizona during my recent chases, are displayed below and even some of these photos are less than stellar. Lots of reasons for the mediocre photos and for some, why photos are absent. I could probably write a whole blog post on why photography can be so fickle.  But for me, the nature of birding does not always allow for great photos.  It is more about observing the bird and enjoying the moment.  Sometimes we get lucky and sometimes we fail.

Black Rosy-Finch

Black Rosy-Finch

Black Rosy-Finch

White-throated Thrush

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

Obviously, when chasing some of the rarities, other birds are seen as well.  When one is birding in a location that is not your normal spot, you also take time to enjoy the new habitat and what might be waiting in the trees, grasses, or water.  For instance, the White-throated Thrush was being seen in Madera Canyon, and when I get to Madera Canyon, I never fail to stop at the Santa Rita Lodge to enjoy their birds.  For the second year in a row, a male Elegant Trogon has taken up its winter residence in the lower areas of the canyon.  I never get tired of this bird.  At one time this was called the Coppery-tailed Trogon and the second photo definitely puts credence to that name.  

 Elegant Trogon

Elegant Trogon

That trip also took in some of Patagonia and Santa Cruz Flats as well.  Always great to visit southeastern Arizona.  

 Acorn Woodpecker - Female

 Broad-billed Hummingbird - Male

 'Red' Fox Sparrow

 Western Meadowlark

White-nosed Coati - Santa Rita Lodge

When the trip for the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl took place, I was lucky enough to be accompanied by birding friends, Tommy DeBardeleben, Josh Wallestad, and Caleb Strand.  And true to form, we explored more areas, including another trip to Madera Canyon.  Once again that male Elegant Trogon was just irresistible.  

 Elegant Trogon

 Whiskered Screech-Owl - Can you see it?  (See next photo)

Now this is great camouflage!

Whiskered Screech-Owl - Cropped close of preceding photo.  

2019 will a bit different for birding.  I am currently not planning any international trips for this year, but do have some trips within the United States in the plans.  I hope to increase my numbers of life birds and also ABA birds in the process.  

  

New Mexico Adventure - Part 1

Have to go back to the fall of 2013 to start this post, as that was when I mentioned to a few birding friends about the thought of taking a road trip in the winter to Sandia Crest in New Mexico in the search of the 3 Rosy Finch species.  After much enthusiasm and agreement, we set a date for February 2014 to make the trek eastward from Arizona.  By the time the date arrived, we were down to just 2 of us, Chris Rohrer and myself.  Due to other obligations a couple of the original 4 was not able to attend.  So Chris and I made our plans and headed out early on a Thursday morning with plans to stop in Whiteriver, AZ to try for a couple of other specialties along the way.  Although we dipped on the American Dipper, we did find a new life bird for both of us, the Cassin's Finch.  Along the rushing water of the White River, the Cassin's Finch arrived and perched in the trees and surveyed the area for a long time before finally dropping down to the stream to take a drink.

Cassin's Finch - Male



 Cassin's Finch - Male and 3 Females

A couple of Townsend's Solitaires were also in the vicinity and gave us great looks and fairly decent photo shots.

 Townsend's Solitaire

Since we missed the American Dipper on this trip, we decided they will have to wait until a possible summer trip to the White Mountains.  So from here we headed north and took some back roads towards Albuquerque making some short stops along the way to admire all the Mountain and Western Bluebirds that were found in various spots along the way. 

 Mountain Bluebird

Thursday night we arrived in the Albuquerque area and we were treated to a fabulous meal and offered wonderful accommodations with a new birding friend, Linda Rockwell. The next day we headed out early to our destination, Sandia Crest just east of Albuquerque and along the way, we had to make a brief stop to try and locate a Juniper Titmouse for Chris.  Linda was not able to ride with us on Friday, but gave us a sure fire place to locate this bird and as soon as we parked the car, we heard them and it took us less than 5 minutes to locate them and get photos.  They might be an all gray bird, but they are just about as cute as it gets.

 Juniper Titmouse

After a long drive to the top of Sandia Crest, we arrived at the summit and we quickly discovered how cold it was at the top with that brisk high altitude wind.  We quickly determined that the bird of the day was the Mountain Chickadee; they were everywhere and as usual very much on the move.  Always a lot of fun to watch these small bundles of energy.

Mountain Chickadee

We also had visits by a Red-breasted Nuthatch and a Stellar's Jay.

 Red-breasted Nuthatch

Steller's Jay

After spending time outside we went inside of the Sandia Crest store and warmed up with some hot chocolate and coffee and watched for the Rosy Finches from inside and it was not long until the feeder had a visit from a Black Rosy Finch and a Brown-capped Rosy Finch.  We were taking photos through the windows, so it was not the best conditions for photography.  But adding two new life birds to our lists was an incredible rush.  We had succeeded in our quest.  The Gray-crowned Rosy Finch had not been seen this year, so we felt that our chances of seeing all 3 species were not that great. 

 Brown-capped Rosy Finch

Black Rosy Finch

Mission accomplished, at least for now.  We started the trek back down the mountain and our next goal was the Rio Grande Nature Center along the Rio Grande River in Albuquerque.  And that visit turned into quite an awesome ending for the rest of the day and will need to be covered in my next blog post.