White Mountains: A Weekend With Fellow Birders

It is an annual event in Arizona and one that I always thoroughly enjoy and this year was no exception; the AZFO (Arizona Field Ornithologists) annual meeting.  A great place to meet new friends and touch base with some of the old friends that reside in other areas of the state and beyond.  This year the meeting was being held in Show Low, in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.

Early on Friday morning, birding pals, Tommy DeBardeleben and Mark Ochs, joined me in our weekend trek and we headed east and north to Show Low.  Once we arrived in Show Low, we picked up Brian Ison and from there we traveled to Lyman Lake.  It was on this stretch of road that we had a bit of misfortune; we got a flat tire.  Indicator on my dash was stating low tire pressure so we stopped and sure enough, we heard air leaking.  Once we dug out the spare after unloading the entire back to get to it, we got it on and proceeded the rest of the day on the donut tire.  It succeeded in our quest for birding.  For this Friday afternoon field trip, we met up with 4 others to scope out the birds at the lake.  We saw a lot of good birds, but most of the viewing was by scope at a distance, so photos were not going to be possible.  However, the pair of White-fronted Geese, that were flushed by a Northern Harrier on the far side of the lake, at least approached our location before heading north.

Greater White-fronted Geese

We did manage to find one bird that stumped me because I have never seen a juvenile of this species before and this is the time of the year that juveniles can appear to confuse a lot of birders.  As usually is the case, many of these birding adventures can turn into a learning experience as this one did.

Horned Lark - Juvenile

Have to throw in a photo of an American Coot while I am at it.  Yes, they are plentiful and can be seen just about anywhere, but they are not always shore line birds that are used to people and allow a close approach, so I always appreciate a chance at a good photo.  

American Coot

Saturday consisted of the all day meeting with many presentations of which some were awesome and very informative and one or 2 that I kind of lost interest in.  But before the meeting started, we had some time to kill, so we stopped at Woodland Lake Park in Pinetop.  This is one of the best places to find Lewis's Woodpeckers and I have sent many birders to this location to find this bird.  Once again, we were not disappointed as we found several of these unique looking woodpeckers.  

Lewis's Woodpecker

This place was swarming with Chipping Sparrows.  Even though they are much more striking in their breeding plumage, they still have some nice marking in their winter plumage.  The black line from the base of the bill through their eye and continuing beyond the eye, is one of the key identification marks for this species.

Chipping Sparrow

And who can resist of photo of a Pied-billed Grebe?  They are just too cool and their chicks really unique.  

Pied-billed Grebe

Sunday we took part in another field trip and that will be covered in my next post.

And for those that are interested in the tire situation, we got back to Show Low and pulled into a Discount Tire store that appeared to be open with several people around and inside.  But when checking the front door, it was locked and the sign indicated that they close at 6:00 pm and we arrived at 6:20.  As we were preparing to leave, one young man from the work bay area came running out and offered to repair the flat (the screw was very obvious in the tread).  He had it repaired and put back on my car in about 15 minutes and told me to go see the manager inside, so I did and had my credit card out to pay for the repair.  The manager printed up at receipt with 'NO CHARGE'.  That is amazing!!!  I did find the young man that repaired the tire and made sure he got a nice tip.  It is amazing that they cared enough to go the extra mile and helped me out when all of them probably wanted to get home on a Friday night.  If you are even in Show Low, AZ and need anything related to tires, I highly recommend going to Discount Tires!  

    

Apache County and the White Mountains

This past weekend, good birding friend, Tommy DeBardeleben and I headed to the White Mountains in Apache County of Arizona to do some exploration of the many awesome birding spots to be found here.  This county is unique in Arizona and has some unique habitats that are hard to be found elsewhere in the state.  Our hope was to maybe discover some vagrant migrating eastern birds and at the same time, try to add to our Apache County lists.  Tommy knows the area very well so we hit up some of these spots and also explored some spots that he had not been to.  

First stop on Saturday morning was Sipe White Mountain Wilderness Area.  This is an incredible place to visit and fairly easy to get around on the trails.  The trees in the parking lot were full of warblers including Townsend's, Wilson's, Nashville, and MacGillivray's Warblers.  By the time the weekend was over we found dozens of Wilson's and MacGillivray's Warblers; both species were very common and in high numbers.  Out in the grassland area we had a surprise sparrow, the Grasshopper Sparrow; not a bird that we had expected to see.  We actually found 2 of these birds in the massive numbers of Chipping, Brewer's, and Lark Sparrows.

 Grasshopper Sparrow

Grasshopper Sparrow

Chipping Sparrow

Mountain Bluebirds were quite easily seen along with many Brewer's Blackbirds.

Mountain Bluebird

Brewer's Blackbird

A nice juvenile Townsend's Solitaire is always nice to see with their spotted plumage which differs greatly from the adults.  Western Wood-Pewee is another bird that is great to find and on this trip we were able to compare and note the differences between this bird and the Willow Flycatcher.

Townsend's Solitaire - Juvenile

Western Wood-Pewee

After about 3 hours at Sipe, we then headed to Becker Lake for a short visit and added several water birds to our list and a few more warblers, including this Yellow Warbler.

Yellow Warbler

Next stop was Wenima Wildlife Area along the Lower Colorado River.  We added Willow Flycatcher along with some raptors in this location including a nice Swainson's Hawk.  Also discovered a new snake species that I had not seen before; a Striped Whipsnake.  It was long and wanted nothing to do with us, so it quickly headed into the cover of the bushes, but then it proceeded to stick its head out to observe us a bit closer with the rest of its body totally hidden.

 Swainson's Hawk

 Striped Whipsnake

Striped Whipsnake

Our next stop was Lyman Lake State Park, a place that we had passed by on the highway back in July that appeared to have a lot of potential for some great water or shore birds.  At first, we got a feeling that this place might turn out to be a bust, but once we reached the southeastern shore and the mud flats and shore lines we discovered a juvenile Sanderling foraging along the shore line with Least, Western, and Baird's Sandpipers.  Not a new bird for me, but a new bird to add to my Arizona list.  Also found huge numbers of Killdeer and Spotted Sandpipers.

 Sanderling - Juvenile

Sanderling - With a grasshopper that did not get away

Once we had covered the mud flats fairly extensively, we then head back to the main part of the lake and Tommy quickly spied something different out on the lake, a juvenile Sabine's Gull.  This ended up being my one and only life bird on the trip when I was not expecting any, so it was a great find.  Although it was far out in the lake, once it took flight, the key field marks were clearly visible on the wings.  

 Sabine's Gull - Juvenile

 Sabine's Gull - Juvenile

Sabine's Gull - Juvenile

Tommy's scope came in real handy for viewing so many birds much better than binoculars and he also picked out 6 Black Terns flying low over the lake.  We also ended the lake visit with a fly over Caspian Tern.

Black Terns

By this time of the day, the monsoon rains had settled in the White Mountains and we visited a few more lakes, but with the threat of rain in many places, we left our cameras in the car for protection and enjoyed the birds we could see with our binoculars and the scope.  

At Lyman Lake

 At Wenima Wildlife Area

 At Greer Lakes checking out a Peregrine Falcon

 Luna Lake

 Wenima Wildlife Area

Wenima Wildlife Area

Day one came to a close and we headed back to Greer for the night and plan of day 2.

Day Two in Utah

On Tuesday night after checking in to the motel near Panguitch, Utah, I decided to take advantage of the remaining daylight and walk around checking out the birds.  We were staying a few miles from town and the opportunity to search for birds was too great to pass up.  And in that short amount of time I was able to photograph a few of the birds that were there.  Mountain Bluebirds, a Sage Thrasher, a Red-tailed Hawk, and a couple of Black-billed Magpies made their presence known. 

 Mountain Bluebird

 Sage Thrasher

 Red-tailed Hawk

Black-billed Magpie

The next morning we headed north and east and I had a couple spots in mind to stop for birding and one of them was Otter Creek Reservoir.  But on the way there we had to yield the right of way on the highway to a herd of sheep!  You know you are in the country when that happens!

Otter Creek Reservoir is almost 5 miles long and one could spend the whole day there birding and with a spotting scope I am quite sure I could have found a lot more birds.  Most certainly, I was not at all disappointed with what I found.  Many of the birds were too far out in the water for photos, such as the American White Pelicans, Double-crested Cormorants, Common Mergansers with young, and Clark's Grebes with young.  At least one of the Clark's Grebe was close enough to get some identifiable photos.  

Clark's Grebe

Birds were also plentiful along the shores and in the vegetation surrounding the shoreline. Chipping Sparrow juveniles were very common as well as Lazuli Buntings.  Also had a Yellow Warbler foraging in the short shrubs and some Black-billed Magpies scavenging around the picnic area.

 Chipping Sparrow - Juvenile

 Lazuli Bnting

 Yellow Warbler

Black-billed Magpie

After about 2 hours at the park, we had to move on as our goal was to arrive in Torrey, Utah before noon.  Once we headed east on Highway 24 towards Torrey and Capital Reef National Park, at one point about 3 miles west of the small town of Loa, UT, I had to hit the brakes and turn around because of something that I noticed.  Common Ravens were quite common everywhere along the roads and at first glance I thought just another raven, but as I got closer, I knew it was definitely something different; it was too big to be a raven.  Perched in a short tree on the north side of the road was a majestic Golden Eagle.  I got turned around and was driving back towards it as I wanted a photo of this beautiful bird perched, but alas, my camera strap got tangled in the seat belt of the car and the bird took flight before I could get untangled.  So I had to settle for a couple of flight shots as it flew away.  But what a magnificent bird this is.  Was definitely the closest I have seen one in the wild.

 Golden Eagle

Golden Eagle

After that encounter, everything else seemed a little less significant.  But once I arrived in Torrey and found my relatives house, I had one more bird close out my amazing day of birds; a Pinyon Jay flew in to their property.  Always a fun bird to find and see and unfortunately, I don't always find them in Arizona as often as I would like.

 Pinyon Jay

Pinyon Jay

So ended day number 2 and some amazing birds.  

Seven Springs Wash - The Morning After

'There's got to be a morning after', or so goes the theme song from the Poseidon Adventure movie and such was the case after spending a pretty full day of birding the Santa Cruz Flats (see previous post).  I contacted another birding friend, Muriel Neddermeyer, to see if she might be interested in checking out the Seven Springs Wash area, north of Carefree, Arizona on Sunday morning.  She too had spent a full day on Saturday at the infamous Thrasher Spot, and we both decided to go for a couple of hours as there had been several reports of Bluebirds in this area and we thought it would be nice to see if we could get some photos of some of them. We were only going to spend a couple of hours and then get home.  Wrong!  We found the Bluebirds and more and had a very enjoyable day of birding. 

 

We started out by following some instructions by our friends, Scott and Fonda Christopher, and found FR 562 and drove up the road to the cattle guard and parked and started walking.  The grasses and trees were full of birds; several species of sparrows, Western Bluebirds, and American Robins.  Then Muriel noticed something a bit different and we quickly discovered it was a Sage Thrasher.  Not a rare bird by any means, but also not that common and not always easy to find.  This one decided it did not want to come out in the sun to show itself very well, so most of our photos had to contend with a lot of shade, but we did manage to obtain a couple of photos. 

 

 Sage Thrasher

 

Sage Thrasher

 

We returned to the turnoff at the bottom of the wash and discovered the various pools of water and at the same time, we discovered that was the attraction at this time of the day for the Bluebirds.  By far the most numerous were Mountain Bluebirds followed closely by Western Bluebirds.  The Mountain Bluebird male is stunning especially if you like the color blue.  I have seen these birds in higher elevations in the summer in pairs, but this was winter and they had migrated to lower elevations in vast numbers.  What a sight to behold as they would land in the trees, then survey the area around the water and once they felt safe, they went down to drink and bathe.

 

 Mountain Bluebirds

 

Mountain Bluebirds

 

 Mountain Bluebird

 

 Mountain Bluebirds

 

Mountain Bluebird

 

Now that you are tired of looking at this shade of blue, how about tossing in another shade of blue, along with a bit of orange, that of the Western Bluebird. 

 

Western Bluebird

 

Bluebirds were not the only visitors that stopped by for a visit.  We were also blessed to have a small group of Cedar Waxwings stop by to check us out.  This is one of my favorite birds as they have a very sleek appearance to them.  Their call is a very high pitched whistle that often goes undetected, but in this case we were hearing them quite well.

 

 Cedar Waxwing

 

 Cedar Waxwing

 

Cedar Waxwing

 

We had other birds visiting as well, but usually considered not quite as colorful as these first 3 species.  This included a Chipping Sparrow and a Rock Wren that was enjoying the water as much as the other birds. 

 

 Chipping Sparrow

 

 Rock Wren

 

Rock Wren

 

Well our couple of hours turned out to be a bit longer than we planned, but how can one leave a spot like this with all the great birds that we were seeing?  Just reminds me of how great Arizona is for birding, year round.