Local Meanderings

With a big trip looming in the very near future, but too antsy to stay home all weekend, I ventured out for a couple of brief visits to some local spots.  Both of them were short and sweet.

This first trip was back out to the Baseline & Meridian wildlife area.  I wanted to see if I could relocate a Lesser Nighthawk nest that was shown to me by Walker Noe about a week before.  At that time, all we got to see was the two eggs on the ground and no adult nearby.  

These birds are nocturnal and feed at dusk and dawn and throughout the night.  They rest during daylight hours and rely on camouflage for protection and go unnoticed.  Even the eggs as seen above on the bare ground would not be easy to see.  The next set of photos will show the area where the nest is located in the first photo.  The second photo will narrow the field of vision down and yes, the nest is visible in the second photo, but definitely hard to find.  The third photo will show the female on the nest and incubating the eggs which will normally hatch in 18-19 days.  So this will be a great thing to try and relocate in a couple of weeks to see if chicks have hatched.

Mission accomplished!  Time to depart and not disturb the nest and the incubation.  On the way back to the parking lot, I noticed a pair of Common Ground Doves.  Not a rare bird by any means, but one that is often overlooked by many birders, especially novice birders.  I was pleased that at least one of these birds stopped long enough to allow s couple of photos.

The heat was rising and it was time to leave and as I headed north on the road leading away from this area, I always keep my eyes peeled along the road for Burrowing Owls and once again, I was not disappointed.  It was sitting along the road and I did not even have to get out of my vehicle.  Just drive up along side of and fire off a couple of shots.on the camera.  I think it would almost be a crime to not photograph one of these cuties.

A very big adventure awaits with the beginning staring on Wednesday of this week.  This adventure has the possibilities of many blog posts with many different birds!

Stay Tuned!

Granite Reef Recreation Area

Granite Reef Rec Area is one of many on the Salt River that flows from the northeast mountains and down into the valley of the sun.  Many of these recreational places are great birding stops.  The Salt River is also a very popular place for many people in the Phoenix area to escape the city and go camping, hiking, tubing, and kayaking in the Salt River, so at times, especially holidays in can get very crowded and congested.  Granite Reef is known as hotbed for many varieties of birds and it almost never disappoints.  Saturday morning, this was my destination and while nothing rare presented itself it was very enjoyable for the couple of hours that I spent there before the heat got unbearable. 

The most entertainment I found was a pair of Western Kingbirds that had 3 recently fledged young in the trees.  The fledglings had not yet learned how to capture bugs in flight by themselves so they were still very much dependent on the parents.  This first photo show one of the young that had just received a morsel from one of the parent birds.

 Western Kingbirds

And just as soon as that morsel was gone, it was begging for more!

Western Kingbirds



I spent several minutes watching these birds and during that time an Ash-throated Flycatcher flew in and landed almost on the same branch of one of the fledglings. 

Ash-throated Flycatcher and Western Kingbird in the rear



It is always interesting to see 2 different species of the same family together as it is great to compare them and understand how much in common they are and in this case, it helps to understand whey they both belong in the flycatcher family.

Another visitor that was quite active in the same area were Lucy's Warblers and it was very nice and generous of one of them to land on a bare branch for my photo op!  This is a female and you can see a hint of red patch on its rump.

Lucy's Warbler



The last birds that I attempted to photograph were some Lesser Nighthawks.  They belong to the family of night jars and are most generally a nocturnal bird flying through the air catching insect in the large gaping beaks.  They are a migratory bird and this was my first observation of them so far this year.  They were at least 15 of them flying over the lake water but at quite a distance from me.  Since they sleep most of the day, they are usually very hard to find in a tree or on the ground as they blend in so well with their surroundings.  I decided to try and capture some shots on them in flight and found out it is not an easy thing to do as they zigzag all over the sky.  Here is one of the photos I got that at least shows the field markings of one of them.

Lesser Nighthawk





And as was making my way to my car, one of them flew overhead on the road and I had just enough time to lift the camera and fire off a shot and came away with this photo.

Lesser Nighthawk



 A very challenging task, and even though the photos are not as crisp as I would like, I can live with these photo until a better opportunity comes along.