Agricultural Land Birding

Between Christmas and New Year's, I had the pleasure of being a part time birding guide.  What made it more pleasurable was the fact that I had gone birding with them before and it is more of a birding adventure with friends; definitely not strangers and not ax murders!  (Inside joke!)   Brian and Larry DeAtley Ellyson had come to visit Arizona for the holidays.  They were escaping the cold of Ohio and had sent me a list of some of the life birds they were hoping for.  After perusing the list, I quickly told them that a trip to the Santa Cruz Flats in Pinal County would be be a good place to start.  

Early in the morning on December 27th, we departed south and met up with Judith Ellyson in Eloy.  We then headed south into the area known as the Santa Cruz Flats as it is known among all the birders in Arizona.  The target birds that were on the list were:  Ferruginous Hawk, Prairie Falcon, Mountain Plover, Lark Bunting, and Sprague's Pipit, which had all recently been reported from there.  That, plus the fact that a couple Rufous-backed Robins and a Ruddy Ground-Dove had been reported there recently as well. We spent the day traversing the many roads that link this area together and in the end we were able to check off 3 life species for them; Lark Bunting, Mountain Plover, and the best find of the day was a Sprague's Pipit.  The SPPI was a bird that I had only seen once before and never photographed.  They are loners and amazingly difficult to spot and get good looks most of the time.  This one was foraging in some dry grassy fields and would pop up to show itself to us for great scope and binocular views.  Then it would duck down in the grass and disappear and stick its head up again several feet from where we last saw it.

Sprague's Pipit

Obviously, I was not on the ball and taking photos of the other lifers we saw.  However, I did capture a few photos of some of the other birds we were seeing on our rounds.

 Black Vulture

 Cooper's Hawk

 Crested Caracara

 Crested Caracara

Red-tailed Hawk - dark morph

Since we had failed to get the Ferruginous Hawk and Prairie Falcon, Brian and Larry joined me on another trip a couple of days later, but this one to the Buckeye/Arlington areas west of Phoenix.  This time we were much more successful as we found a Prairie Falcon and had good scope view of it.  We also found 2 Ferruginous Hawks; one was the normal light colored hawk and one was a dark morph.  According to Sibley's Guide, the dark morph make up less than 10% of the total population.  The photos below were not taken on that day, but were instead taken on January 8, 2017. when I visited that area again with birding friend Muriel Neddermeyer.  The photos of the dark morph is quite likely the same bird and is was found in the same general area.  The light morph might not be since it is much more common and there might be several of the light morph out in that vicinity.  

 Ferruginous Hawk - dark morph

 Ferruginous Hawk - light morph

We also came upon a fairly large flock of Mountain Bluebirds foraging in an alfalfa field which yielded them another new life bird for them.  If I remember correctly, they got about 6 new life birds on this trip to Arizona.  Next visit will result in harder to find birds, whenever that might be. 

  

More of Sonora - Chapter 2

Day 2 quickly turned into the day of the Sinaloa Wren.  This is a bird whose range is predominantly in Mexico, but occasionally a few stray into southeastern Arizona.  In fact there is currently one in Arizona that has been reported for almost 2 years.  They can be a very secretive wren, but their loud song is unmistakable.  The bird in Arizona was quite cooperative for photos back in February when I visited and my blog post for that trip can be found Here.

This trip to Aribabi was an eye opener for all of us.  Sinaloa Wrens were quite numerous and their singing was quite loud.  We even had the fortune of finding a pair in the process of constructing a nest.

Sinaloa Wrens and nest

And as a bit of an experiment, I tried my luck at making a video of this process. (Quickly realized that I definitely need to improve my video skills!)  Right at the end of the video, you will see the wren emerge from the bottom of the nest and fly off and shortly thereafter, you will hear its very loud call. 

Sinaloa Wren in nest and its song is recorded at the tail end of the video.

 Black Vulture

 Gray Hawk

 Gray Hawk pair

 Crappy photo of a Violet-crowned Hummingbird

 Western Wood-Pewee

Yellow-breasted Chat

This is just part of the fine group of avian experts embarking on their early morning adventure that morning.

Some of the other non-avian finds for the day included some damselflies and a butterfly.

 American Rubyspot - Female

American Rubyspot - Male

 Unidentified Damselflies

Texan Crescent Butterfly

Common Checkered Skipper or perhaps a White Checkered Skipper

Siesta time.

At dusk on Saturday evening, the bats began to emerge from the rafters of the hacienda.

 Bat emergence

And finally after darkness overtook the area, a few of us managed to find a pair of Western Screech Owls.  (Found an Elf Owl the night before, but it did not allow any photos.)  Even the Western Screech Owls were difficult to photograph due to the low light and trying to hold a flashlight and take photos at the same time.

Western Screech-Owl

Sunday morning meant for an early departure but it did allow for a couple of hours of further exploration and a few more photos.

 Backside of a Rufous-winged Sparrow

 Another Sinaloa Wren

Vermilion Flycatcher

Flame Skimmer Dragonfly

This was one more very enjoyable weekend.  I have plans to return for a couple of nights in July and maybe someday in the far off future, I might even consider taking a small group of new people to this remote place where one can just enjoy nature without lots of humans.

The Diversity of Maricopa County - Part 1

Finally, a full weekend of birding where I felt good and I had some awesome company to go birding with me.  Saturday, Muriel Neddermeyer joined me by heading out to some spots west of the Phoenix metro area.  We ended up having an incredible day of birding with some very nice birds.

 

We started out by heading to Friendship Park in Avondale; a very unlikely spot for birds, but I had read a couple of eBird reports that Lawrence's Goldfinches had been reported there recently.  Definitely want to get there early to avoid the crowds of soccer teams playing.  After getting a feel for the park, we quickly decided that the southwest corner of this park would be the mostly likely habitat.  After a few minutes we caught a glimpse of a few in a small cottonwood tree and they quickly took off. So we meandered down to the dry stream bed and found a tree full of Lesser Goldfinches, but upon closer inspection, we found some of the elusive Lawrence's Goldfinches also a bit lower in the tree and of course harder to photograph.  No matter, because finding this bird is rather special as they are definitely not as common as the other finches.

 

Lawrence's Goldfinch

 

From there we traveled a little bit further south to Baseline and Meridian a place that Muriel had not yet been to.  A great place with lot of different habitat, including running water in the river and desert scrub on the hill sides nearby.  At one time we came across a group of very active warblers and we were checking out several Yellow-rumped Warblers and Orange-crowned Warblers and we both zeroed in on a bird that was different.  Luckily Muriel had just seen one of these birds about a week before at Granite Reef and she knew immediately that it was a female American Redstart.  As soon as she said that, I immediately knew she was right.  It is not a bird that I have seen very often as they are rare to uncommon in Arizona, but it seems like about a dozen or so get reported every winter.  It is really cool to find a rare or unusual bird without chasing someone else's find. Wish I could have gotten a bit better focus on it, but at least the photos are good enough for an ID.

 

American Redstart - Female

 



American Redstart - Female

 

We also had the privilege of watching a Peregrine Falcon fly over and take a dive at some Eurasian-collared Doves, but it missed this time.  Also had a small flock of 4 American White Pelicans fly over.  This day was overcast all day and photos leave a lot to be desired when the sun is not shining as all my photos from that day are definitely not the best.

 

American White Pelican

 

From here we headed further west to the Buckeye/Arlington area where we were treated to a vary wide array of raptors.  We had 5 Ferruginous Hawks, including a rare 'dark-morph' of this species.  Lots of Red-tailed Hawks, which included a 'light-morph' "Harlan's" Red-tailed Hawk.  Also had a Prairie Falcon that was very wary of humans and did not allow any close approaches for photos.

 

American Kestrel

 



 American Kestrel

 

The next two birds are both Ferruginous Hawks.  The first one is the normal Ferruginous Hawk and by far the most common one.  The second one is the much scarcer 'dark-morph' Ferruginous Hawk.  I had not seen this color morph of this species before, so this was a real treat.  While the birds do look very different from each other, one thing they do have in common is the extended yellow gape which gives one the impressions of a yellow 'grin'.

 

Ferruginous Hawk

 



Ferruginous Hawk

 



Ferruginous Hawk - Dark morph

 



Ferruginous Hawk - Dark morph

 



 Ferruginous Hawk - Dark morph

 

The next couple of photos is  light-morph 'Harlan's' Red-tailed Hawk which is another rare color morph.  I have actually seen one of these once before in a fly over in my neighborhood in Mesa a couple of years ago.  This bird also comes in a dark-morph phase and it is a bit more common than the light-morph.

 

'Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk - light morph

 



 'Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk - light morph

 

We also had a field with over 70 Black Vultures in it; another field with over 300 Yellow-headed Blackbirds mixed in with a few Red-winged and Brewer's Blackbirds.

 

 Black Vultures

Black Vultures

 



Yellow-headed Blackbirds

 

And in one of the freshly flooded fields we found a couple of Long-billed Curlews, an extraordinary bird with a very long curved bill.

 

Long-billed Curlew

 

Before we knew it, this day was drawing to a close.  It is amazing at how time flies when one is having a great day of birding.  I want to thank Muriel for joining me on this trek, just wish the weather would not have been quite so overcast and cloudy.  Photos might have been a bit better, but just seeing these remarkable birds made the day a great day.