White Mountains of Arizona

After my return to Arizona, I had the privilege to escort a birding friend from New York to the White Mountain area of eastern Arizona.  A trip to this area in the middle of summer is always welcomed.  It is a great place to escape the unbearable heat of central Arizona and also a fantastic place to see some really cool birds that cannot be found in the lower elevations amidst all the heat.

Ernie Welsh and I met on the same trip to Chiapas, Mexico, last July.  Those kind of trips are awesome in the fact that one meets other birders from other parts of the country and it is nice to know these people as they can assist in finding birds in their own turf if one should ever decide to visit.  Ernie is an accomplished birder and was approaching the mystical number of 800 on his life bird list.  So the pressure was on for me to help him hit that magical number.  Our route to the Greer area took us through the communities of Pinetop/Lakeside where I knew we could most likely find a Lewis's Woodpecker, which was one of Ernie's target birds.  Just driving on the main highway through town, Ernie quickly spied a Lewis's Woodpecker.  We got amazing views of it, even though we were parked on a busy street.  We then headed to Woodland Lake Park, where I figured we would get much better views and they did not disappoint us.  A rather unusual colored bird, especially for a woodpecker, but one this is highly sought for many birders. 

 Lewis's Woodpecker

Pygmy Nuthatches seemed to not be concerned with us as well.  They were bold and brazen while feeding just a few feet from us in some low bushes.

 Pygmy Nuthatch

In Greer we were treated to a Red-naped Sapsucker that also seemed unconcerned about us and was busy tapping away on these saplings along the Little Colorado River.

Red-naped Sapsucker

Gosh I love Golden-crowned Kinglets!  They are such a nice treat to see especially having seen many of their counterparts, the Ruby-crowned Kinglets in the winter.

 Golden-crowned Kinglet

Bridge over the Salt River between Globe and Show Low.

After checking out both the East and West Forks of the Little Colorado River in Greer, and srriking out, we finally made it to Sheep's Crossing at the Old Baldy Trailhead in the search for an American Dipper.  Congratulations go out to Ernie when he spied one flying down the river and in the process, we also discovered they had a nest under the bridge.  They were making forays to the river to find food for the babies in the nest.  This bird was number 800 for Ernie on his life list and I was happy to be with him to celebrate the occasion.  Even went so far to write it on the rear window of my vehicle for documentation purposes!

 American Dipper

American Dipper nest and babies.

And here is the traveling billboard!

When we got to South Fork, just west of Eager, we found a bit of a surprise.  As we were walking the road we found a couple small birds flitting around in trees overhead.  Once I got my binoculars on them, I realized that they were American Redstart juveniles!  (This can be determined by the small patches of dark feathers in the chest area.)  Normally this is a bird that I see in Arizona in migration and casually in winter.  All the range maps of this species indicate it breeds much further east.  The general western limit of its breeding range only extends to the far eastern part of Texas and the eastern part of the United States.  To see juveniles in Arizona at this time of year indicates they were hatched in AZ.  After returning home and consulting the Arizona Breeding Atlas, it appears there has been a history of this species breeding in this area in Arizona irregularly since 1936.  But has been some time since any evidence had been discovered,  It is experiences like this that goes to show how the study of birds is an ongoing and fact finding of research.  Every little bit of data collected and notated, is immensely helpful to the trends of avian knowledge.  

   

 American Redstart

One other bird that caught my attention was this Brown-headed Cowbird with food in its beak.  Normally not much to ponder with most species as it would appear it is fetching food for some nestlings.  However, since this species is a brood parasite and it lays it eggs in the nests of other species for the unsuspecting other species to raise, it should not have a nest of babies to feed.  Quite puzzling to me, but I am sure there is a logical explanation for this.

 Brown-headed Cowbird

Another life bird for Ernie was this pair of Clark's Nutcrackers.  

 Clark's Nutcrackers

This Townsend's Solitaire was also a welcome sight at the river where it took a bath.

 Townsend's Solitaire

This was a much needed short break to an area of the state that I dearly love.  And to see all the diversity of these different birds is always exciting.  I think I assisted Ernie in getting about 6 or 7 life birds on this trip.  

White Mountains: A Weekend With Fellow Birders

It is an annual event in Arizona and one that I always thoroughly enjoy and this year was no exception; the AZFO (Arizona Field Ornithologists) annual meeting.  A great place to meet new friends and touch base with some of the old friends that reside in other areas of the state and beyond.  This year the meeting was being held in Show Low, in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona.

Early on Friday morning, birding pals, Tommy DeBardeleben and Mark Ochs, joined me in our weekend trek and we headed east and north to Show Low.  Once we arrived in Show Low, we picked up Brian Ison and from there we traveled to Lyman Lake.  It was on this stretch of road that we had a bit of misfortune; we got a flat tire.  Indicator on my dash was stating low tire pressure so we stopped and sure enough, we heard air leaking.  Once we dug out the spare after unloading the entire back to get to it, we got it on and proceeded the rest of the day on the donut tire.  It succeeded in our quest for birding.  For this Friday afternoon field trip, we met up with 4 others to scope out the birds at the lake.  We saw a lot of good birds, but most of the viewing was by scope at a distance, so photos were not going to be possible.  However, the pair of White-fronted Geese, that were flushed by a Northern Harrier on the far side of the lake, at least approached our location before heading north.

Greater White-fronted Geese

We did manage to find one bird that stumped me because I have never seen a juvenile of this species before and this is the time of the year that juveniles can appear to confuse a lot of birders.  As usually is the case, many of these birding adventures can turn into a learning experience as this one did.

Horned Lark - Juvenile

Have to throw in a photo of an American Coot while I am at it.  Yes, they are plentiful and can be seen just about anywhere, but they are not always shore line birds that are used to people and allow a close approach, so I always appreciate a chance at a good photo.  

American Coot

Saturday consisted of the all day meeting with many presentations of which some were awesome and very informative and one or 2 that I kind of lost interest in.  But before the meeting started, we had some time to kill, so we stopped at Woodland Lake Park in Pinetop.  This is one of the best places to find Lewis's Woodpeckers and I have sent many birders to this location to find this bird.  Once again, we were not disappointed as we found several of these unique looking woodpeckers.  

Lewis's Woodpecker

This place was swarming with Chipping Sparrows.  Even though they are much more striking in their breeding plumage, they still have some nice marking in their winter plumage.  The black line from the base of the bill through their eye and continuing beyond the eye, is one of the key identification marks for this species.

Chipping Sparrow

And who can resist of photo of a Pied-billed Grebe?  They are just too cool and their chicks really unique.  

Pied-billed Grebe

Sunday we took part in another field trip and that will be covered in my next post.

And for those that are interested in the tire situation, we got back to Show Low and pulled into a Discount Tire store that appeared to be open with several people around and inside.  But when checking the front door, it was locked and the sign indicated that they close at 6:00 pm and we arrived at 6:20.  As we were preparing to leave, one young man from the work bay area came running out and offered to repair the flat (the screw was very obvious in the tread).  He had it repaired and put back on my car in about 15 minutes and told me to go see the manager inside, so I did and had my credit card out to pay for the repair.  The manager printed up at receipt with 'NO CHARGE'.  That is amazing!!!  I did find the young man that repaired the tire and made sure he got a nice tip.  It is amazing that they cared enough to go the extra mile and helped me out when all of them probably wanted to get home on a Friday night.  If you are even in Show Low, AZ and need anything related to tires, I highly recommend going to Discount Tires!  

    

A Hastily Planned Road Trip

Late last week, in a hastily planned birding road trip to Flagstaff, 4 of us made a 1 day trip to the Flagstaff, Arizona area for some great birding.  I joined forces with 3 other extraordinary birders, Tommy DeBardeleben, Laurence Butler, and Mark Ochs.  Rather sad to say, but I have not done much birding in this part of the state, and that is a shame as there are some awesome birds to be found at this high elevation.  Glad I joined in on the trip as I discovered some really awesome spots for future trips.

Our first stop was at Rio de Flag near the Museum of Northern Arizona.  Not a big spot by any means, but tucked away in a residential neighborhood.  The prime target birds at this location?  Cassin's Finches and Evening Grosbeaks.  Neither one of these birds was a new bird for me this year as I have found more Cassin's finches this year than I thought possible and sure enough, it was one of the first birds that we found, keeping to themselves high in the pines.  What I was more interested in was the Evening Grosbeak, a bird that I encountered for the first time in June of this year and have been wanting to see more.  One can never have too many photos of this stunning bird.  Alas, they too, did not want to meet me at eye level for photos, but maybe I have not yet won over their confidence.

 Evening Grosbeak

 Evening Grosbeaks

Evening Grosbeak

And since we happened to be close to a residential neighborhood, we had a 'murder' of American Crows congregating on one of the houses.  (Yes, the term 'murder' is the collective name for a bunch of crows!)

A 'murder' of American Crows

From here, we headed to Ashurst Lake, which is another new spot and one that can harbor some rarities from time to time.  While the lake had huge numbers of waterfowl, most of the birding here was with scopes from the distant shore line.  However, a couple of species of bluebirds presented a consolation prize for photos.  MOBLs and WEBLs  (Mountain Bluebirds and Western Bluebirds) were evident in many places on this day and at this location we had both.  I think the Mountain Bluebird has a little bit better camouflage with the blue sky than the Western Bluebirds.  

 Mountain Bluebird

 Western Bluebird

Western Bluebird

As we were departing this great spot an adult Bald Eagle was posing as a sentinel in the dead branches of a pine a bit off the exit road.  Always great to see this majestic bird and the symbol of the United States!

Bald Eagle

Our next spot was Mormon Lake which is a vast shallow lake especially when springtime snow melts fill up most of it.  This weekend, it was fairly dry, but as we drove from points around this lake, we were noticing Lewis's Woodpeckers which are always a treat and definitely not unexpected.  This is their habitat, however, we were astounded by the sheer numbers that we found, upwards to just shy of 3 dozen.  They were very active in plucking acorns from the oaks and caching these acorns in many of the pine trees for feasting when the winter food sources become a little scare.  This is one very unusually colored bird and another species that you can't photograph enough.

 Lewis's Woodpecker

 Lewis's Woodpecker

 Lewis's Woodpecker

Lewis's Woodpecker

All the while the Lewis's Woodpeckers were being the star attractions, Tommy was quick to spot a Hairy Woodpecker that was not feeling a bit overwhelmed with the Lewis's.  A Steller's Jay also came in to check us out.  I think it felt like we were ignoring it and wanted to grab some fo the attention as well.

 Hairy Woodpecker - Female

 Hairy Woodpecker - Female

Steller's Jay

We caught the last of the fall aspen leaves and had to capture at least one photo with the bright gold leaves behind the pines.

Finally our day came to an end as tow of us had previous engagements for later that evening, but one last stop on the northern fringes of Phoenix was at Lake Pleasant, which is another spot I have not visited.  While the place was crawling with many humans, the birding was a bit scare, but we did manage to find a couple first year Herring Gulls, which was a new state bird for me.  And another first for me, was my first wild Burro.  Yes, you are welcome to make jokes about it, but still rather cool for the first time.

Another great birding adventure with some really cool birds and some really cool bird nerds like me!

A Weekend of AZFO Activities

The first weekend in October is usually the weekend that AZFO (Arizona Field Ornithologists) holds their annual gathering.  Every year it is held in a different location which is a great way to introduce others from around the state to new spots for birding.  This year the meeting was held in the Globe/Miami area in Arizona and since the Pinal Mountains are close by, I was familiar with a bit of the area.  The meeting was being held on Saturday, but there was a couple of mini expeditions set to take place on Friday afternoon.  Chris Rohrer decided to attend so he drove up from Tucson and we met on Friday morning to make a quick trip into the Pinal Mountains as he had never been there before.  Knowing the time we had to work with, we hurried through many of the spots I would normally stop at as I wanted to get Chris to the top.  Turned out to be a very lucky plan because we found some really great birds at the top.

The first bird that caught our attention flew over our heads from the rear and quickly flew on the back side of some pine trees, but it quickly returned and it turned out to be a Lewis's Woodpecker.  Not a rare bird in Arizona by any means, but one that I had never observed in Gila County.  While the photo is not the best, it is at least diagnostic of the species.

Lewis's Woodpecker

About the same time that I was trying to get some photos of this bird on the other side of a small pond, Chris noticed a Band-tailed Pigeon in one of the oaks on the south side. Once again, not a rare bird, but a bit uncommon and not always easy to find and photograph.  My previous sightings only consist of one photograph of the bottom end of one of these birds, but high up in a pine tree snag.  This one was cooperative with us for photos, but the angle of the sunlight was not where we would have preferred.  Regardless, it was nice to get some identifiable photos of this bird.

Band-tailed Pigeon

Band-tailed Pigeon

Band-tailed Pigeon

As we were really enjoying the moment with good looks of these 2 species of birds, another small flock of smaller birds flew over and into the tops of the pines.  Once again this was another bird that was new to me for this location.  In fact, this same bird was a life bird for both Chris and I back in February of this year; Cassin's Finch.  I believe this made the 3rd sighting of this bird for us this year.

 Cassin's Finch

Cassin's Finch - There are 3 of these birds in this photo

It would have been great to have more time to explore this area, but since we had to be back into Globe by about noon, we did not have the luxury of excess time on our hands.  Even though it was a relatively quick trip up and back, we did find some remarkable birds.  

We had signed up for a mini Field Expedition in the afternoon to visit Timber Campground and Jones Water Campgrounds so we met up with the very large group that had signed up.  Both spots offered great birding but as usual, afternoon birding is not always the best time to explore.  We did get to see some really nice birds, but photography was not at its best except for a Bridled Titmouse.  Both spots are now on my list of places to visit and spend more time exploring.  

Bridled Titmouse

The meeting on Saturday was a success with lots of great presentations and information to be absorbed.  Sunday we had signed up for the Sierra Ancha Wilderness area field trip and we were introduced to some amazing wilderness with outstanding scenery.  The first stop included an inside viewing of the habitat near the Rossevelt Lake Diversion Dam.  We had a lot of birds and had a great time, unfortunately, my only photos for that day consisted of an Ash-throated Flycatcher and a Gray Flycatcher.  

 Ash-throated Flycatcher

Gray Flycatcher

When we returned to the entrance area we discovered a Great-horned Owl on the steps to the restrooms.  The owl will probably never know how lucky it was to be found by this group of humans.  There were several in the group that were familiar with rescue and rehabilitation.  It was captured and found to be very emancipated and it was then transported to Liberty Wildlife in Scottsdale, AZ and was found to have suffered a leg fracture that had already started to heal.  It was given food and an IV for re-hydration and is expected to make a full recovery.  That was good news to all.

Great-horned Owl

This was a great weekend for Arizona birding.  Got to see many birding friends and meet many more.  Definitely will be an annual event for me.  In ending this post, just want to share a couple of other photos that I got on this weekend of things other than birds.

 Brown Trout

 Flame Skimmer

 Coyote Gourd

 Hackberry Emperor

Painted Lady