To Tucson and a CBC

This year I took part in the Tucson CBC (Christmas Bird Count) for the first time.  The CBC was being held on Sunday and good friend, Chris Rohrer, invited me to come down on Saturday night so we could get an early start on Sunday.  I decided to try taking advantage of the Saturday road trip and do some birding on the way by detouring through the Santa Cruz Flats area.  The weather was definitely not in my favor as it had rained earlier in the day and when I reached the Flats, the rain had stopped, but the roads were a bit muddy, so I restricted myself to the paved and good gravel roads. Not too much to report, as I dipped on the Black-throated Blue Warbler that had been reported, but as I started heading to Tucson, some of the birds along the road were very interesting such as several Lark Sparrows, a Prairie Falcon, a pair of Harris's Hawks, and a juvenile Cooper's Hawk.

 

 Lark Sparrow

 

 Prairie Falcon

 

 Cooper's Hawk - Juvenile

 

Harris's Hawks

 

Once I left the Flats, I texted Chris to let him know I was on my way as we had made plans to meet at Sweetwater Wetlands.  Amazingly, as I turned the corner onto Sweetwater Road, Chris was coming in from the south.  Talk about perfect timing!  Sweetwater Wetlands is one of the premier birding spots in the Tucson area and I have never been disappointed with any of my visits to this spot.  Great place to find raptors and waterfowl together. 

 

 Cooper's Hawk - Adult

 

 Green Heron

 

 Ladderback Woodpecker - Male

 

Pied-billed Grebe

 

From here we still had a bit of daylight left and we headed to Reid Park in Tucson.  Usually a crowded place with lots of people, but with the dark and overcast sky, the number of humans were quite low and it actually started raining while we were there and we had to take cover for a brief time in one of the ramadas.  The waterfowl here are so accustomed to people that they actually swim right up to the shore looking for handouts.

 

 Canvasback - Female

 

Canvasback - Male

 

Another Pied-billed Grebe - had to use a flash as it was very dark with cloud cover

 

 Results of the CBC and photos will have to be addressed in the next blog post. 

 

 

A Graham County Weekend - Part 1

This past weekend, Tommy DeBardeleben and I set out to do some birding in Graham County in Arizona and specifically visit Mt Graham.  At 10,720 feet in elevation, it is the highest 'Sky Island' in Arizona and what an awesome place to visit. The Swift Trail or Road 366 is about 35 miles from the start off Highway 191 all the way to Riggs Lake, with about the last 12 miles being unpaved.  Campgrounds abound at many places along this road. 

Our goal was to search for as many species of birds we could in the short 2 days that we had and create a year list for Graham County.  Tommy had never been birding in Graham County and I had only visited it twice in the past, once in 2011 and once in 2012.  Of course our focus was Mt Graham, but we had some other stops to make on the way and the first of these was Cluff Ranch, south of the small town of Pima.  We started off great with a Swainson's Hawk on the road into the preserve that allowed some photos from the car.

  

Swainson's Hawk

One of our target birds was the Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, (a small bird with a funny name).  This bird is fairly common in spots in southern Arizona, but this location is close to being the on the northern fringes of its range.  It had been a nemesis bid for me for some time, but I knew it was just a matter of time that I would be able to add this bird to my life list.  They have been reported here, so we knew our chances were good in finding one and it's call was the first clue to knowing it was here.  A small bird that can be easily overlooked if it is not calling or foraging.  

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

 Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

Lark Sparrows were in abundance.  It is one of our largest sparrows and its distinctive facial pattern helps to make identification of this sparrow fairly easy.

Lark Sparrow

Our visit to Pond #3 resulted in several White-throated Swifts flying over the water along with many swallows.  I have never attempted to photograph this bird before simply for the fact that they are always in-flight and their flight pattern is fast and erratic.  But never-the-less, this time I made a feeble attempt to obtain photos and got a couple that were at least identifiable.

 White-throated Swift

White-throated Swift

From Cluff Ranch, it was a short drive to the Leay Lane Water treatment ponds.  Unfortunately, everything was enclosed in chain-link fence and locked up, so we were not able to view quite as well as we would have liked.  We did have a Greater Roadrunner run ahead of our vehicle for a distance before exiting off into the fringes of a cotton field.

Greater Roadrunner

View of Mt Graham in the distance from Leay Lane

Next stop was south of the town of Safford, Roper Lake State Park.  This spot is fairly well known for its birding, but this day was a bust for for us.  I have been here on both my previous visits and found some decent numbers of birds.  The only bright spot was a Belted Kingfisher that flew over and hovered above the water in front of us.

 Belted Kingfisher

Belted Kingfisher

Next was a brief stop at Dankworth Pond which had far more diversity and numbers of birds than Roper Lake.  We found out the next day that about 3 hours after our visit to Dankworth Pond, another birder reported a fly over by an adult Anhinga at this location.  Apparently we were about 3 hours too early bit for this location on this day.  An Ahiniga in Arizona???  That would have been an awesome find as there had only been one other sighting of that bird in AZ and that was in 1893.  Several others including Tommy and I checked back at the pond and it was not seen again.   

Ruddy Duck at Dankworth Pond

From here we then started the long trek up Mt Graham with several stops along the way.  Probably the most rewarding stop was the Arcadia Campground.  This campground was full of people, but we chose to skirt the main campground and follow some trails and also some dry washes without trails.  We had several warbler species including Red-faced Warbler and several Hermit Warblers.  

 Hermit Warbler - Female

 Hermit Warbler - Female

Red-faced Warbler

We had read some reports that Spotted Owls had been found in and around this campground, so we did have a bit of a strategy in trying to see if we could locate one.  Obviously we felt the need to get away from any of the main trails and focus on where a Spotted Owl might be.  During the day they are basically hard to find as they just sit perched without moving and this species is one that can be quite unafraid of human activity.  We knew we had to keep our eyes open for them and even though it seems they would be easy to spot sitting motionless in a tree, they can be very easy to overlook.  In the bottom of one of the washes, we stopped for a couple of minutes to discuss where they could be hiding, then as we took no more than 5 steps, Tommy looked back and up to the right and lo and behold, one of them sat on a limb, probably watching us as we were discussing them.  This one was a year hatch bird, so we know that the adult parents had to be nearby although we did not see any.  It would stare down at us from just a few feet away, probably wondering what these 2 humans were doing.  It would look down at us and every once in a while would stare off in the distance at a squirrel.  After a some great photos and some adrenaline pumping, we departed to leave it in peace.

 Spotted Owl

 Spotted Owl

Spotted Owl

 Tommy & the Owl - note upper right of photo

So much for the first day of birding in Graham County.  The Spotted Owl, which is a threatened species was definitely the highlight of this day.  More to come on the 2nd day, but will finish off this post with a few photos of some other non-avian specialties.

 Yarrow's Spiny Lizard

Yarrow's Spiny Lizard

 Widow Skimmer

Widow Skimmer

Checkered Setwing

  

Birding with Kathie - 14 April 2013

After such an exhausting day on Saturday, I met up with fellow birder/blogger Kathie Brown at the Agua Caliente Park in the eastern part of Tucson.  This was the first time we have met in person, but knew each other a little bit by our blogs.  I highly suggest checking out her blog site as she can present a different perspective that is always informative: http://kathiesbirds.blogspot.com/

We met at Agua Caliente Park with a goal of trying to locate a Northern Beardless-Tyrannlet which this location has been a good spot for many birders and evidently bred here.  Unfortunately for us, we were not able to locate this small flycatcher so we settled for some other birds and critters instead. it was a great spot for birds including a Rufous-winged Sparrow that made its presence by singing in some of the dry grassy areas.  

Rufous-winged Sparrow

Also nearby in the morning hours were a couple of Coues (pronounced cows) Deer, a small southwestern version of the White-tailed Deer.

 Coues Deer

Coues Deer

We left my car there while Kathie and I explored Mt Lemmon and later in the day when we returned we also  found a few more discoveries.  A Harris's Hawk came in for a landing and I have to thank a Lark Sparrow for being so cooperative and allowing some decent photos.  What a handsomely marked sparrow!  Kathie also discovered a Vermilion Flycatcher nest, and I am convinced I must be losing my eyesight as it took a long time for me to find it.  However, the nest was hard to see and we did not want to interrupt the birds by getting too close.  The photo says it all.

 Harris Hawk

 Lark Sparrow

Vermilion Flycatcher and nest

From there, Kathie drove, (thanks again for offering to drive Kathie), and we then headed up the road to Mt Lemmon.  We made several stops on the way up and found birds at each stop.  One of the stops while still in the desert habitat included a Rock Wren and a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher.  What was neat about this stop was that we had 2 different species of gnatcatchers and 3 species of wrens, (unfortunately, I was only able to get 2 photos out of those 5 species of birds).

 Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Rock Wren

One of the most exciting stops was at Rose Canyon Lake and we hiked the south trail and got some wonderful birds, including a Yellow-eyed Junco that decided it liked us because when it saw us taking photos of it down lower on the ground, it decided to fly up into the tree right beside us and pose for our cameras.  What a dynamic looking bird with that awesome bright yellow eye!

 Yellow-eyed Junco

  Yellow-eyed Junco

 Yellow-eyed Junco

Also seen at this location was an Osprey, a Mexican Mallard, and a Pygmy Nuthatch and its nesting cavity.

The Mexican Mallard is not considered as a separate species at this time, but a sub-species of the common Mallard.  At one time it was a separate species.

 'Mexican' Mallard

 Osprey

Pygmy Nuthatch

Also at this location we found a nest in progress of a Broad-tailed Hummingbird, thanks to another couple that advised us where to look.  But even then it was almost impossible to find, but thanks to Kathie's eyes we finally spotted it.  The nest is pictured below, but the photo of the female Broad-tailed hummingbird was actually taken at almost the top of Mt Lemmon.

 Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Broad-tailed Hummingbird nest

Once we reached the top we enjoyed a small pizza and a LARGE cookie and found that the Yellow-eyed Juncos were everywhere at the top.  What a great day of birding and seeing some great birds and having a great guide really enhanced the trip.  Hope to do more birding in the future with Kathie and maybe we can persuade another birder/blogger, Chris Rohrer to join us.