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.  

  

Chiapas: La Sepultura, The Finale

As a reader, many of you are thinking I should be done with blog posts on this one day field trip!  Well, it was so special that if I tried to make it all one post, most would have gotten bored very quickly when reading it due to the shear length.  So this will be my third and final blog post on this remarkable day.

We left the pond and traveled just a short distance up the road where we stopped to try for another bird that had been located during scouting trips.  But along the way, I had the opportunity to view some Blue-black Grassquits.  This is a bird I had seen on the El Ocote trip, but since that day was probably my worst day of birding, this time I got to see them and enjoy them and actually get some photos of them.  They are definitely blue/black!!!

 Blue-black Grassquit

 Blue-black Grassquit

Blue-black Grassquit

Now back to the bird we were going to try finding, a Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl.  It was found before our gathering and was found on most of the other trips.  I think it was missed on one trip.  It took a while but it finally called from a distance and it eventually moved close to the road.  This is one of the rarest owls to find in Arizona, but they are fairly common in Chiapas.  A very limited range in Arizona, usually near the Organ Pipe National Monument and access to that area has been sketchy in the past.  I still want to try locating one in Arizona, but that will have to wait until my retirement becomes effective and when I have more time to devote to bird trips.  These owls are small at a little under 7" in length and can go undetected very easily.

 Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

From there, we moved up the road a few miles and then traveled down a dirt road that was lined with small ponds of water and trees that were covered in heavy vegetation.  We had to be near some open water as the sky was filled with many water birds including Magnificent Frigatebirds.  This is an unmistakable bird in flight with its long forked tail and long, thin wings.  They are sometimes known as pirates of the sea as they will often harass other birds in flight hoping the other birds will disgorge anything they have eaten, then the frigatebirds will swoop down and catch the regurgitated spoils in flight.  

 Magnificent Frigatebird - Male

 Magnificent Frigatebird - Female

Magnificent Frigatebird - most likely a juvenile male

At one point we actually witnessed one harassing a Great Egret.  Don't think it had any luck in its quest to get a meal, but it was really a neat experience to watch.  Unfortunately, it was a bit too far for great photos, but I had to try and capture some of the action.

 Magnificent Frigatebird & Great Egret

Another life bird that I got to add to my list was the Wood Stork as one was flying over.  I really want to see this bird better than a fly-over and will probably have to make trip to the Gulf Coast to do so.  We also had a fly over Anhinga but it was a bit further away and I had trouble getting it into focus on my camera.

Wood Stork

Finally our day was drawing to an end and as we walked up the dirt road to our van, I heard a chip note in the roadside bushes that sounded a lot like the single chip note of the Verdin that is so common in Arizona, but I knew it was not.  Kind of an unexpected last minute new life bird for us was the Stripe-headed Sparrow.  A rather large sparrow with a large bill and quite attractive at that.

Stripe-headed Sparrow

With this last planned trip, our tours had come to an end, but Chris and I had extended our stay for 2 additional days while most of the crowd headed home.  And I am very glad we did (it was Chris's idea in the first place) as we got more photos and a few more birds on our own.  I have a couple more blog posts planned and they will have some more cool birds included.