On the 'PROW'L for an Arizona Vagrant

Living in Arizona and being a fervent birder, I have been able to add most of all the Arizona regular bird species to my life list.  So it has become harder and harder to add a new life bird for me in Arizona.  There is still a handful of species that exist in the state, but are not easy to find, or they are located in some very remote areas that I have not yet visited.  Hopefully within the next year, I will be able to knock a couple of these species from my bucket list.  The other method of adding new birds to my life list is chasing down the vagrants that are passing through.  Such was the case on May 1st of this year.  For those that are curious about the headline of this post, 'PROW' is in quotes, as those 4 letters is the 4-letter banding code for this target bird.

One of North America's most beautiful 'eastern' warblers came to town in Tucson; a stunning Prothonotary Warbler (PROW).  I was figuring that I was going to only find and see this bird in the eastern part of the United States in a future trip back east.  Brian Johnson contacted me and asked if I was interested in chasing this beautiful bird.  Birding friend, Chris Rohrer, who lives in Tucson, headed to the location the day after it was reported and his photos really had my mind reeling.  There was no hesitation with my answer, and I said yes.  We headed out of Mesa very early in the morning and once we arrived at the location, we quickly found 5 more birders in the area also searching for it.  After about a 20 minute wait, the bird popped out and came out long enough to allow great looks and some photos for all that were there.  Life bird number 642 was a spectacular specimen!

PROW is the 4 letter banding code for Prothonotary Warbler.

 Prothonotary Warbler

While waiting for this bird to show itself, a few Western Tanagers were also making themselves quite obvious.  This is a bird that I will always try to photograph if possible as they are quite colorful.  They can sometimes be difficult to photograph as they can be a bit shy.

Western Tanager

Since we were fortunate enough to find this bird fairly early, we decided to make the most of our day and head to the southwestern part of Maricopa County to chase a county bird.  This was an area that I had never visited as it is quite a distance from the Phoenix metro area.  In trying to add birds to my Maricopa County list for the year, my target bird for this area was the Willet.  Not necessarily a rare bird for the county, but definitely not all that common in migration and there had been a couple reports of them in some of the ponds in the area around Gila Bend.  After checking out some of the ponds and coming up empty, our last stop was at the Gila Bend Sewage Ponds and we hit paydirt with a single Willet.

Willet

Since we were in the Gila Bend area, it made a lot of sense to make the route back to the Phoenix area via Highway 85 and make a stop at Glendale Recharge Ponds.  This stop also paid off with the result being a lone Forster's Tern hanging out in Pond 3, which was another new county bird for me for the year.  

 Forster's Tern

Also located 2 Killdeer chicks with parents.  4 days prior to this visit I found a pair with 4 chicks.  Can't be sure if it is the same pair or not, but since the chicks cannot fly at this age, there is a good chance it is the same pair.  What became of the other 2 chicks, I do not know, but they also could have been hiding somewhere and got overlooked.

Killdeer with 2 chicks

And here is a photo of one of the chicks only 4 days earlier  Note how much they grew in just four days!

It was nice to see the Semipalmated Plovers again and this time they appeared close to each other and I was able to get both of them in one frame.

Semipalmated Plovers

Another great day with some great birds, including a new lifer for me.  

  

Puerto Peñasco, Mexico: Third and Final Day

For our final day, Chris wanted to show me some areas south and east of Puerto Peñasco.  I had never been down that way, but the highway that lead to the town of Caborca was our route to an estuary.  It had been a while since Chris had been there, so turning off onto an incorrect road which lead to a dead end, was interesting to say the least.  However, I have no complaints because we found some birds along this road that were new to me in Mexico and added to my Mexico list; Gambel's Quail, Peregrine Falcon, and Western Meadowlark.

This estuary was totally awesome as it is remote with some incredible beaches that have not been scavenged by too many humans.  In one small arm of the estuary we had some amazing birds including a fly-over of a Reddish Egret.  It was so close, that we could see the bi-colored bill without binoculars!

 Reddish Egret

In the mud flats a Whimbrel was probing the mud and shallow water for tidbits of food.

Whimbrel

Probably one of the most exciting birds were some Red-breasted Mergansers; males and females.  It was only about a month ago that I got to see my first male of this species from a distance at Lake Mohave in Arizona.  This time we had males and females right under the bridge.

 Red-breasted Merganser-Male

 Red-breasted Merganser-Female

Red-breasted Merganser & 2 Bufflehead-All Females

At one point, I was following a male Red-breasted Merganser as it swam away from us, and we were treated to a view of a 'Creature from the Estuary Lagoon'!  We have no clue as to what this underwater creature was, but it swam towards us and then swam into deeper water and out of sight.  Possibly just a fish of some sort, but it was interesting to say the least.

 The "Creature" in the water behind the merganser.

More shorebirds that we encountered included the American Golden-Plover and another Semipalmated Plover, and this time I got a photo of this bird.

 American Golden-Plover

Semipalmated Plover

Forster's Terns were active at the mouth of the estuary where it meets the ocean.

Forster's Tern

There is a spot out in the Sea of Cortez called Bird Island.  Actually, it consist of a couple of small islands that are just rocks, but it is used as a breeding site for Blue-footed and Brown Boobys.  Rocky Point does have boats that will take people out there.  There is no access point on the island, so all viewing has to be done from the boat.  We checked into it, but the costs were too prohibitive.  So we did not get to visit the place.  On the beach by the estuary we were able to see the rocky outcrops of the islands, so the photos below were my views of Bird Island from the coast.  

 Bird Island with a bird flying in the front.

The beach covered in sea shells.

 Hermit Thrush found hiding in mesquites near a hotel.

I believe this is a Zebra-tailed Lizard.

A small sand crab found on the beach.

A very interesting succulent growing in the sand dunes above the beach.

This pretty much wrapped up our third and final day in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico.  Always a great place to get away and enjoy a bit of beach life for those who live in Arizona.

California Rainin' (Dreaming?)

Several months ago, birding buddy, Tommy DeBardeleben and I talked about doing a pelagic birding trip out of San Diego.  Tommy had never been on one before, but it was not due to the lack of trying.  He and another birding friend of his, Dominic Sherony planned a pelagic trip out of San Diego in 2014 and unfortunately, bad weather canceled that pelagic for them.  I have actually taken a pelagic trip once before and that was in the fall of 2013 out of Half Moon Bay, California.  While I participated in that trip, I did succumb to seasickness and although I did get some life birds out of it, I was not able to enjoy it as I would have liked.  So we made plans to take a pelagic out of San Diego, which would a first for Tommy and for me hopefully a reprieve with a much better ending. 

We had our spots reserved well in advance and decided to add a couple of days of land birding while were there.  At the beginning of the week the weather looked like it might have an effect on our trip, but since Saturday was the main event, the forecast was indicating that the storm will be moving out on Friday night.  We had plans to bird all day on Friday so we departed on Thursday so we could be get in as much as we could.  With the approaching storm on Thursday night, we made one stop along Kitchen Creek Road on the way into the mountains approaching San Diego.  We quickly found out how the temps had dropped and the rain had started along with the wind.  About the only thing of interest was seeing a 'coastal' Western Scrub-Jay. They look very different than the Western Scrub-Jays we have in Arizona.

Western Scrub-Jay

 

We spent the night in El Cajon and early the next morning with a steady rain coming down, we opted to purchase some umbrellas for the day.  We were not so worried about getting wet ourselves, after all it is just water, but we wanted to protect our binoculars, cameras and scopes as much as possible.

 

Our first stop on Friday was Mission Trails Regional Park a spot where Tommy had found California Gnatcatcher a year ago.  This would be a new life bird for me and complete my list of all 4 gnatcatchers in the United States.  It did not take long and we found a family of 5 of them and the male would pop up from time to time and Tommy was kind enough to hold the umbrella for me while I got some photos.  We then switched rolls and I held the umbrellas while Tommy took photos.  Teamwork and ingenuity at work for us die-hard birders! 

 

 California Gnatcatcher

 

After taking our time adding this, my first life bird of this trip, we then headed to Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge.  We quickly discovered how unique this place was and took off exploring this place with our gear and umbrellas in hand.  Good thing we had them as you might notice that severl of the photos in this area have rain drops in them.  One of our target birds at this location was the Yellow-crowned Night Heron, which would be a lifer for Tommy. I had seen this species a year ago in Texas, but always desire more looks at a bird that I have not seen enough of.  It did not take long in locating one and it was quite content and not at all concerned with our presence.  It allowed us some really great looks and now we were tied with 1 life bird apiece for this trip.

 

 Yellow-crowned Night Heron

Tommy and his new lifer!

 

We ventured further south along the trail and eventually arrived at the end of the trail with a bench and our view out over the slow moving Tijuana River making its way west where it flowed into the Pacific Ocean about 200 yards west.  This place was swarming with birds with at least 6 species of terns and one of those species was the Gull-billed Tern which would be a lifer for both of us and it did not take long for Tommy to spy one, then two, then three and more!  All of these terns were taking the rain in stride.  But by now, Tommy and I had figured out how to hold our umbrellas and take photos at the same time.  But our legs were not protected and our jeans were soaked. 

 

 Gull-billed Tern

 

And a couple of the other terns:

 

 Caspian Tern

 Forster's Tern

Least Tern

 

Another bird of interest to me was the Little Blue Heron.  I had briefly seen on in Texas a year ago, but it was brief and no photos.  This time we saw 3 of them, 2 adults and a molting immature bird, and I was able to get photos this time. 

 

Little Blue Heron

 Little Blue Heron, Immature

 

After exploring the salt water marshes, we then moved over to the beach area of the Tijuana Sough where the waves of the ocean were washing ashore.  This area has many signs and a roped off area where Least Terns and Snowy Plovers are nesting.  One can still walk the beach area, but it is very wise to not spend too much time near the fenced off area so as not to disturb any of the nesting birds.  Least Terns were by far the most numerous with various birds hovering, landing, and some even nesting on eggs.  Some males were delivering their small fish catches to females. I got lucky and spied one of the birds leaving the sandy area and discovered a nest of 2 eggs.  Thankful for a zoom lens to be able to get a photo of the eggs.  This is our smallest tern in the United States.

 

 Least Tern

Least Tern nest with 2 eggs

 

Good numbers of Snowy Plovers were also there, but not nearly as numerous as the Least Terns.  Since they were basically a ground bird, the best way to find them was when they would scamper a few feet and detect their movement.  This has to be one of the cutest little birds around.  I also discovered one of their nests as well with 3 eggs.  Once again took a photo from the distance and left it alone.  Once a person sees how well these eggs blend in with the sand, it is easy to see why the nesting areas are fenced off.  It would be easy to step on a nest of eggs.  Sometimes, some of the birds nest outside the roped off area so it is worthwhile to watch your step at all times.

 

 Snowy Plover

Snowy lover nest with 3 eggs

 

By this time the sun had come out and dried out our clothing that got soaked.  We enjoyed what turned out to be an awesome day with 2 new life birds for each of us.  With that, I will leave you with one more photo; this one is a flock of Sanderling on the beach.  We needed to get checked into our motel and get a good nights rest for the pelagic trip the next day.

 

Sanderling - I think I counted about 78 of them in this photo