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.  

  

Birding with Brits

In February, I had the pleasure to take a couple of Brits birding in Arizona.  Being from the UK, they were enthused seeing just about any birds in Arizona.  It is always fun to show and share our native birds to people from across the big pond.  This gives me a chance to hit the road a bit in the wonderful birding state of Arizona.  Below are some of my favorite photos from these trips.

First set of photos came from a day trip to southeast Arizona including visits to Madera Canyon and Patagonia.  You can never go wrong in starting off a blog post with a male elegant Trogon.  

 Elegant Trogon

 Caught it with a snack it had captured. 

 Acorn Woodpecker - Male

 Painted Redstart

 Violet-crowned Hummingbird

White-nosed Coati - This was a nice surprise in Madera Canyon

Back in the Phoenix area, we made stops at several places including the Gilbert Water Ranch Preserve, Freestone Park, Zanjero Park, and Papago Park. Here is a sampling. 

 Black-crowned Night Heron - Juvenile

 Burrowing Owls

 Calliope Hummingbird

 Canvasback - Drake

 Cinnamon Teal - Drake

 Green Heron

 Hooded Mergansers

 Pied-billed Gebe

Pied-billed Grebe - with chicks

We also made a stop at the Desert Botanical Gardens with both gentlemen.  

 Gambel's Quail - Male

 Gila Woodpecker - Male

Rufous Hummingbird 

 Greater Roadrunner

  Greater Roadrunner

Rufous Hummingbird

 Rufous Hummingbird

A stop at the butterfly display at the Desert Botanical Gardens gave us a few Arizona native butterflies to enjoy as well.

 White Peacock

Great Southern White

It is always great to get out in nature and enjoy what this world has to offer.   

Let's Go South!

So far, it has been a very nice winter in Arizona with a more-than-normal abundance of rainfall in the lower elevations and snowfall in the higher elevations.  Hopefully this moisture will result in some incredible wildflower displays come springtime.  All this precipitation sometimes brings on some challenges to the birding.  Decided to head south to the Tucson area to spend a couple days of birding with good friend Chris Rohrer.  The first day was spent at various sites in and around Tucson itself and this is where the rain was a bit of a challenge.  It rained off and on all day.  We still got in some great birding, but photographs were a bit limited as we left cameras in the car for protection from the rain, while we birded with umbrellas.  

 Cooper's Hawk in the rain

 Snowy Egret in the rain

Female Vermilion Flycatcher in the rain

On Monday, we headed to Patagonia Lake State Park which is a great spot for birding and about an hour from Tucson.  The first surprise came when we drove up to the pay booth to pay our day fare for visiting.  Today it was FREE!  It just happened to be Martin Luther King holiday and all the state parks in Arizona were designated as free admission on that holiday.  I even made a comment in the car, 'This is going to be a great day of birding!'.  That statement turned out to be so true.  We had an incredible time at this location with some incredible birds. We even ran into some familiar faces from the Phoenix area that were birding there as well; Caleb Strand, Joshua Smith, and Laura Ellis and her husband.  So we got to share all of these incredible birds with them.

One of the reasons for coming to this place was to look for the Green Kingfisher, a species that I have seen in Sonora, Mexico, a few times, but never in the United States. Adding it to my Arizona list is pretty sweet.

 Green Kingfisher

Also on the radar was the wintering male Elegant Trogon which is always a thrill to observe.  Incredibly, when we originally saw him he had his back to us on a tree branch which allowed the chance to get a photo of its coppery colored tail.  Then it swooped down to the ground and into the grass and came up with a katydid in its beak.  It then proceeded to perch on a log facing us, and gave us quite a show as we watched it devour its morsel.  What an incredible moment to share with this elegant bird that gave me a chance to capture a pretty neat sequence of photos!

 Elegant Trogon with a katydid

We knew a Gray Catbird had also been reported in this spot and sure enough, we were able to find it when it flew into a brushy tangle in front of us and then laid low in hiding.  Finally it worked its way up into the tree and made itself visible to all of us.

 Gray Catbird

A Hermit Thrush was a nice bird to find as well, although they are not at all rare in Arizona.  But a bird that I always enjoy seeing.

 Hermit Thrush

Caleb was quick to point out a couple of Swamp Sparrows as well.  Not a rare bird by any means, but not super common and sometimes hard to locate.

 Swamp Sparrow

We were also lucky to locate the Winter Wren that had been reported by many in the past couple of weeks.

Winter Wren

This visit was an awesome visit with lots of special birds and with very good company.  A place I relish the thought of returning to.