Springtime in Arizona

Springtime in Arizona is much different than many other parts of the United States.  With the mild winter weather, many resident birds might start breeding as early as January leading one to think that Spring has arrived.  Migrating birds are a bit different and some species can start showing up in late February and into March.  And for some species some only start arriving in June such as the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.  The months of March through May is peak springtime arrival for most migrants and birding is at its best during that time frame.  Of course, the weather is most generally pretty mild and wonderful during this time which makes birding very enjoyable.

This blog post highlights some of the birding that I enjoyed during the month of April of 2018.  Photos include a lot of our regulars interspersed with a few rarities that were encountered along the way. Towards the end of the post are some butterflies that I enjoyed and a really pretty cool reptile that not many people get to see.

Black-throated Gray Warbler

 Grace's Warbler

Turkey Vulture

 Summer Tanager - Female

Summer Tanager - Male

House Wren

Palm Warbler - A rarity for Arizona

White-faced Ibis - Breeding Plumage

 Buff-breasted Flycatcher - An Arizona specialty

 Northern Pygmy-Owl

Red-faced Warbler

 Cooper's Hawk

 Rufous-backed Robin

Streak-backed Oriole - A rarity in the US.

Band-tailed Pigeons - Not an easy bird to find in Maricopa County, Arizona.

One of my days in April was spent on a Butterfly Field Trip which resulted in 3 new species of butterfly for me.

 California Patch

 Common Streaky-Skipper - A new species for me.

 Common Streaky-Skipper

 Elada Checkerspot

Great Purple Hairstreak - Another new species for me.

Mourning Cloak

 Desert Ironwood blossoms.  Very colorful and show why they are related to legumes. 

Filigree Skimmer

Greater Short-Horned Lizard - This one was a juvenile.

 The first of 2 Arizona Black Rattlesnakes

The second of 2 Arizona Black Rattlesnakes.

   

Amazing Arizona

It was great to return to Arizona after the rainy weather in the Pacific Northwest.  Oregon and Washington definitely have some great birds that cannot be found in Arizona and have even more that I was not able to add to my life list.  However, Arizona just happens to be an awesome state for birds and one never knows what might show up.  Such was the case of a White Wagtail that was discovered at the small southern Arizona town of Ajo.  Some sharp birders had found it on one of the 2 small sewage ponds that are enclosed by a chain link fence.  This species had only been reported once before in the state of Arizona back in 1985 in the Grand Canyon area.  In the United States, this Eurasian species breeds in western Alaska and most generally spends its winters in Southeast Asia.  They do show up on occasion in the United States, but are more common on the west coast and are usually near water.  To have one show up in Arizona is just plain weird.  But there it was and since Ajo is only about 2 hours away, I took off to look for it the day it was reported.  When I arrived, I was not disappointed and neither were the rest of the birders that had beat me to the location.  The only disappointment was that it favored the back pond and the best views were with a scope set up in the back of a pickup.  But long distance photos are better than none when it come to adding a new life bird to my list!

White Wagtail

Guess I am not the only 'bird nerd'.  Rarities can draw a crowd!

But even without these extreme rarities, Arizona has some species of birds that are hard to find in the rest of the US and are limited to very small isolated spots in Arizona.  In 2015, a pair of Tufted Flycatchers were found in Ramsey Canyon of the Huachuca Mountains and I joined forces with 3 other friends to search for this bird and we found it which made it a lifer for me at that time.  This year, not only are there reports from Ramsey Canyon again, making it 3 years in a row for this bird in Arizona, but another pair was discovered higher up in elevation at the Carr Canyon Reef Campsite.  So this year, I joined up with Barb Meding and we headed up the winding, twisting road filled with many switchbacks with some narrow sections and drop offs to the campsite.  This time the views were incredible and this bird was generally very accommodating to us.  This is another amazing bird for Arizona.  

 Tufted Flycatcher

While we were enjoying the Tufted Flycatcher the Buff-breasted Flycatchers were everywhere and very vocal as well.  This is a bird that can usually only be reliably be found in Arizona in the United States, although some can also be found in the Big Bend area of Texas.  So the Buff-breasted Flycatcher is another great bird for Arizona and there is no doubt that it is my most favorite of all the Empxidonax flycatchers that can be found in the United States.

 Buff-breasted Flycatcher

Yellow-eyed Juncos were also quite common at the campsite.  They are a bird of the higher elevations in the Sky Islands of the southwest.  

Yellow-eyed Junco

A very relaxing stop at Ash Canyon B & B, gave us great looks of many birds including several stunning male Scott's Orioles.

Scott's Oriole

Some butterflies that we enjoyed included a Mylitta Crescent, which was a new species for me and a Gulf Fritillary, both of which are pretty good looking if you ask me.

 Mylitta Crescent

Gulf Fritillary

A few hikes near home gave me some more butterflies and some cool reptiles.

Checkered White

Marine Blue

 Echo Azure

 Empress Leilia

 Western Diamondback Rattlesnake

Western Patch-nosed Snake

The natural world is full of some amazing and awesome creatures and being able to observe so much of it in the amazing state of Arizona is a blessing.  It truly is an amazing place and hopefully it will continue to be amazing.  I do have concerns with what the future holds with climate change taking place and what politics might do to the nature around us.  Hopefully a 'wall' will not be built that will isolate and fragment some of our natural resources and flora and fauna.  Wall will isolate populations of animals for gene pool diversity and will also cut off some from their water and/or food sources.  Lets hope that mankind can prevail and help preserve this natural world around us.   

  

  

AAAA+ - An Amazing Arizona Adventure

This past week, I had the pleasure of birding once again with Tommy DeBardeleben and joining forces with a birder from the great state of Minnesota, Josh Wallestad.  Josh was visiting Arizona and wanted to add a few new birds to his life list and Tommy offered to show him around for a couple of days and invited me to join them.  So a two day bird trip to southeastern AZ was planned in the middle of the week.  Josh's main two target birds were the Painted Redstart and the Elegant Trogon.  Tommy and I knew the Painted Redstart would be easy, but the Elegant Trogon has the potential of being a hit or miss. And of course there were several other birds that could be added to his list as well. 

 

On Tuesday, Tommy and I picked up Josh on the way to Tucson and our first destination was Mt Lemmon just on the east and north side of Tucson. We made our way to Rose Canyon Lake and it did not take long to start piling up on the life birds for Josh.  Painted Redstarts were everywhere and success was quickly in the books and crossing off the first of his two target birds.

 

 Painted Redstart

 

Painted Redstart

 

Buff-breasted Flycatcher and Olive Warbler were a couple more that we added for assurance.

 

 Buff-breasted Flycatcher

 

 Olive Warbler - Female

 

Olive Warbler - Male

 

After finding about 8 new life birds on Mt Lemmon for Josh, we then ventured further south to Florida Canyon which is not far from Madera Canyon.  This location has been a spot for Elegant Trogons this past winter, so this was going to be our first try for this bird.  Alas, it was not meant to be, as we did not have any luck in locating that bird at this location.  However, we did have some rather cool birds to add to our list.

 

Broad-billed Hummingbirds were plentiful at many stops in the lower elevations and in Florida Canyon we had some stunning males, and also an attentive female tending to her nest.

 

 Broad-billed Hummingbird - Male

 

 Broad-billed Hummingbird - Female on nest

 

  Broad-billed Hummingbird - Female on nest

 

 Broad-billed Hummingbird - Female on nest

 

Another stunning bird was a male Rufous Hummingbird.

 

 Rufous Hummingbird on left - (photobombed by a Broad-billed Hummingbird on the right).

 

 Rufous Hummingbird - Male

 

Rufous Hummingbird - Male

 

A Hooded Oriole was another nice addition.

 

Hooded Oriole

 

But the bird that stole the show in Florida Canyon were a couple of Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets.  At only 4½ inches in length, this is the smallest flycatcher in the United States.  It is so small that it can go undetected very easily if it does not move.  I had only seen this bird once before on a trip to Graham County in July of 2014 with Tommy.  So this sighting and viewing was really awesome as they really stole the show and allowed a lot of photos. 

 

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 

  Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 

After Florida Canyon, we made a brief stop at the Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon before taking Josh to meet his family in Green Valley.   Tommy and I had plans to camp out in Madera Canyon and then meet up with Josh again the next morning.  Once darkness fell, our evening turned into some more great birding.  More to come in the second part of this 2 day adventure.