Arizona's Grasslands and More

This past week, I had the privilege of searching for Arizona birds for a person that has been birding for more than 50 years and has a life list of of over 6400 species.  Peter Bono and his wife Elaine, made a stop in Arizona on their way to Mexico and had contacted me through Birding Pal.  Believe it or not, he was missing 3 species on his life list and was hoping I could assist him on these 3 species.  It is a bit intimidating to be trying to help find life birds for a person that already has almost 5000 species more than myself.  His life list targets were Baird's Sparrow, a species that I had only seen once before and that was almost 7 years ago, Cackling Goose and Sagebrush Sparrow.  The latter 2 species, I felt would be a bit easier than the sparrow as they usually winter in Maricopa County and there had been solid reports of them in the recent weeks.

Our first full day, we headed out early to southeastern Arizona to search for the Baird's Sparrow.  We arrived at our destination right around sunrise and we stationed ourselves in one spot to let the birds get acclimated to seeing us in their habitat.  After checking out many sparrows, we finally zeroed in on a Baird's Sparrow, which is a good looking sparrow!  A couple of them were kind enough to pose for photos. 

 Baird's Sparrow

Baird's Sparrow

As mentioned earlier, other species of sparrows were present; Grasshopper, Savannah, and Vesper A well as several Eastern Meadowlarks.  So it was a great opportunity to observe the finer details in sparrow identification.

 Grasshopper Sparrow

Savannah Sparrow

Eastern Meadowlark

From here we headed to Madera Canyon and the Santa Rita Mountains.  Madera Canyon is one of my favorite places in Arizona and I never get tired of birding there. 

 Hammond's Flycatcher

 Hepatic Tanager

 Painted Redstart

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

The next day, we birded in and around the Phoenix area.  Was able to get the Cackling Goose at Glendale Recharge Ponds, luckily I had my scope to zero in on them as they were quite a ways out in the water.  Next stop was the Thrasher Spot where we were able to get the Sagebrush Sparrow, which is a bird he did not have due to the recent split of the Sage Sparrow.

Sagebrush Sparrow

We then headed back to the eastern part of the valley to do some birding, and on the way I was able to locate the returning winter resident dark-morph Ferruginous Hawk.  I think this is the first time I have been able to photograph in in sunshine instead of cloudy skies.

Ferruginous Hawk - (dark-morph)

Now that his 3 lifers had been confirmed, we started working on birds to add to his Arizona list, so a stop at the Gilbert Riparian Preserve and other various spots were in order.

 Chestnut-sided Warbler

 Hooded Merganser - Female

 Orange Crowned Warbler

Wilson's Snipe

We also visited the backyard of a resident that has an awesome back yard for birds.  He was kind enough to allow us in to spend some time and we were hoping for the Ruddy Ground-Dove that has been visiting his back yard.  It took about 1½ hours before it made its appearance, but it finally did.

Ruddy Ground-Dove

It is rather satisfying to be able to assist a person in adding some new life birds to their list, especially when they are approaching the 6500 number.  In retrospect, it is an educational opportunity to fine tune my skills on birds that I do not see that often.  Sparrows can be so challenging, but the more one is exposed to them, they getting easier to identify for any future sightings.  

     

Criss-Crossing the Great Divide

OK, that heading is quite an exaggeration from reality.  With a heading like that, one would think I was birding the Great Divide in the Rocky Mountains.  Truth be told, the divide I am referring to is far less important and generally not even considered a 'divide'.  This divide, is the division line of Maricopa and Gila Counties on Mt Ord and the Slate Creek Divide in the far northeastern reaches of Maricopa County.  Probably not considered very important unless one is a birder and especially an eBirder where entering reports with accuracy really do count.  I volunteered to cover the Gila County portion of these 2 locations for the NAMBC (North American Migratory Bird Count) and I was fortunate to have Jason Morgan offer to assist me this year.  Since I love the Mt Ord area so much, all we had to do was concentrate on the Gila County portion only this time.  The county line between these 2 counties comes close to following the forest roads that lead to the tops of both locations with Gila County predominately to the north and east of the county roads.  However there are some spots where the county line crosses over the road and then back again and knowing where those spots were located was key to our success. 

 

We arrived at Mt Ord at 5:40 am and our starting temperature was a nice and balmy 36° F!  And to top it off, we had a bit of snow on the ground in sheltered areas as it had snowed the day and night before our arrival.  So we got off to a very chilly start, but that did not seem to bother most of the birds. 

 

 

By far, our most numerous bird was the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher which were found predominately in the higher elevations and were heard and seen at every stop we made. 

 

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

 

 

Another very common bird in this location and the most numerous of all the warblers we found was the Black-throated Gray Warbler.  I have not yet found any warbler species that was easy to photograph, so one has to have a bit of patience and once in a while they at least will show themselves on a perch in an a bit more visible place.  That does not mean the lighting will be great for photos when they do this, but one has to take what is presented at times.

 

 Black-throated Gray Warbler

 

Black-throated Gray Warbler and its departure

 

Finally was able to get a good visual on a Hutton's Vireo on this trip.  A few weeks ago when I visited this area with a couple of out-of-state birders, all I got of these birds were them singing.  They did not want to show themselves at all.

 

Hutton's Vireo

 

Next photo is one of 2 empidonax flycatchers that I could not safely identify.  This is a very tough family of birds to ID with 100% certainty.  Vocal calls notes are very helpful, but most of them that I encounter are silent so I have to rely on behavior and other small details.  Unfortunately, this is the only photo that I captured of this one, but based on the long primary projection, my best guess on this one is a Hammond's Flycatcher. 

 

Empidonax flycatcher species

 

Of course we had many Black-chinned Sparrows as well, with most of them being in the lower elevations.  Kind of surprised to have some a little higher up than I have seen them before and actually using a pine tree for its singing. 

 

Black-chinned Sparrow

 

 

Other warblers that we had on Mt Ord included Hermit Warbler and Grace's Warbler and both are always a delight to see.  Hermit is a passing migrant while Grace's breeding range includes many of the high elevation locations in Arizona including Mt Ord.

 

 Grace's Warbler

 

Hermit Warbler

 

Rounding out some of the many birds we found on Mt Ord, were Chipping Sparrows, a pair of Lazuli Buntings, and a first year male Scott's Oriole.

 

 Chipping Sparrow

 

 Lazuli Bunting-female on left and male on the right

 

Scott's Oriole

 

After spending most of the morning on Mt Ord, we then travelled to the west side of Hwy 87 and worked our way up to the Slate Creek Divide area.  Just before we decided to stop for a lunch break on one of the ridges on the road up, we happened to find an Olive-sided Flycatcher.  As we got out to observe it in more detail another vehicle full of barking dogs came up from behind us and needless to say, once they had passed, the bird had disappeared. 

 

Olive -sided Flycatcher

 

Acorn Woodpeckers were plentiful, but most were not approachable for photos.  This is also the only place in Maricopa County where one can find Mexican Jays.  Today they were located on the Gila County side of the road, so we were able to add them to our list for the NAMBC.

 

 Acorn Woodpecker

 

Mexican Jay

 

We also had several Broad-tailed Hummingbirds fly by and males can be identified in flight with the loud whistling produced by their wings in flight.  We did have a female take time to pose for us and I found after the fact she was photo bombed by a colorful blue and black tent caterpillar on the right in the background.

 

Broad-tailed Hummingbird - female

 

Slate Creek Divide was much slower in the bird department, but part of that might have been the fact that we were birding there in the usually slowest part of the day for birding.  A very nice and cooperative Hammond's Flycatcher displayed and performed for me before we called it a day.

 

 Hammond's Flycatcher

 

 

We concluded the day about mid afternoon, but we got to see some incredible scenery along with some really cool birds and hopefully contributed a small bit to the NAMBC for 2015.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Sabino Canyon -- 13 April 2013

Many of you probably think that I have stopped blogging, but that really is not the case.  I had a week off from work and during that week I planned a couple of mini-vacations to do some birding outside of local Phoenix and Maricopa County.  Now that the week is over, I have a lot of blogging to catch up on.  Those mini trips were wonderful and I got to see a lot of great birds.  

First off, is Sabino Canyon located near Tucson, Arizona.  This was the first day of my 4 day trip to the southern part of the state and Sabino Canyon is a spot I had never been to.  It has a tram that one can purchase a ticket for and one can ride the tram from the bottom to the top with various stops along the way. Unfortunately, the ticket booth did not open until 9:00 am and I arrived at 6:30 am, so I decided hiking would be good as the road is paved all the way.  Of course I took a detour on the way to the top by checking out Sabino Dam and by the time I arrived at the top I had already hiked 6 miles uphill!  But without the detour on the way back, it was another 4 miles to the start, so it was a long haul, but very worthwhile.  This is a very popular spot for hikers and on the weekends even arriving at 6:30 am the parking lot was filling up quickly.  

One of the first birds I encountered was a Pyrrhuloxia.  This bird is the desert southwest cardinal and they are related.  However there are differences and I was able to photograph 2 different males in 2 different settings.  This was a good start to this wonderful hike.

 Pyrrhuloxia

Pyrrhuloxia

Also located in the lower desert areas was another one of those birds with a 'ph'unny name that starts with the letter 'P'.  The Phainopepla is also a bird with a crest, but not at all related to the Pyrrhuloxia.  

 Phainopepla--Male

Phainopepla--Female

The White-winged Doves (of Stevie Nicks fame) have returned for the summer and are a nice sight to see in the springtime.  These birds also frequent the lower desert areas as do the Northern Mockingbirds, Gambel's Quail. and Black-throated Sparrows.

White-winged Dove

 Northern Mockingbird

 Gambel's Quail

Black-throated Sparrow

In the area of Sabino Dam, I found a Cassin's Vireo along with many singing Bell's Vireos and Lucy's Warblers.

 Cassin's Vireo

 Bell's Vireo

Lucy's Warbler

Many spots along the road to the top were inhabited by Northern Cardinals including one at the top of the trail that allowed some great looks and a photo.

Northern Cardinal

On the trip back down and near the bottom I ran across one of those 'difficult' Empidonax Flycatchers.  I have decided that this is probably a Hammond's Flycatcher based on the longer projection of the primary feathers.  

Hammond's Flycatcher

I also took some photos of some flowers and some butterflies along the way.  Sorry, but I have not had time to figure out which species of butterflies I have here, but will so some research in the future to see if I can figure them out.

Nice start to a wonderful week off.