Springtime in Arizona

Springtime in Arizona is much different than many other parts of the United States.  With the mild winter weather, many resident birds might start breeding as early as January leading one to think that Spring has arrived.  Migrating birds are a bit different and some species can start showing up in late February and into March.  And for some species some only start arriving in June such as the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.  The months of March through May is peak springtime arrival for most migrants and birding is at its best during that time frame.  Of course, the weather is most generally pretty mild and wonderful during this time which makes birding very enjoyable.

This blog post highlights some of the birding that I enjoyed during the month of April of 2018.  Photos include a lot of our regulars interspersed with a few rarities that were encountered along the way. Towards the end of the post are some butterflies that I enjoyed and a really pretty cool reptile that not many people get to see.

Black-throated Gray Warbler

 Grace's Warbler

Turkey Vulture

 Summer Tanager - Female

Summer Tanager - Male

House Wren

Palm Warbler - A rarity for Arizona

White-faced Ibis - Breeding Plumage

 Buff-breasted Flycatcher - An Arizona specialty

 Northern Pygmy-Owl

Red-faced Warbler

 Cooper's Hawk

 Rufous-backed Robin

Streak-backed Oriole - A rarity in the US.

Band-tailed Pigeons - Not an easy bird to find in Maricopa County, Arizona.

One of my days in April was spent on a Butterfly Field Trip which resulted in 3 new species of butterfly for me.

 California Patch

 Common Streaky-Skipper - A new species for me.

 Common Streaky-Skipper

 Elada Checkerspot

Great Purple Hairstreak - Another new species for me.

Mourning Cloak

 Desert Ironwood blossoms.  Very colorful and show why they are related to legumes. 

Filigree Skimmer

Greater Short-Horned Lizard - This one was a juvenile.

 The first of 2 Arizona Black Rattlesnakes

The second of 2 Arizona Black Rattlesnakes.

   

Catching Up!!!

Recently, I have been very lax in posting to my blog site and with a recent big change in my employment status, it is high time to try a catch up a bit on some posts that have been neglected for far too long.  In theory, I should now have more time to to accomplish some of these tasks, but I have been told by many other retirees that all that free time that one envisions coming with retirement, is quickly filled up with many other functions.

Without further ado, I will attempt to catch up of some past experiences that have been woefully neglected.  The first is centered around a visit from Josh Wallestad and his son, Evan, from Minnesota in October.  Good birding friend, Tommy DeBardeleben, and I headed south and picked up Josh and Evan in Green Valley, Arizona.  We headed to Hunter Canyon where the target birds were the Rufous-capped Warbler and a Slate-throated Redstart.  The redstart had not been seen for the past few days and of course we dipped on it, but we did manage to find the Rufous-capped Warbler.  This bird was not very cooperative and knowing it was a life bird for Josh and Evan, I tried to stay back and let them enjoy this bird as much as possible.  This is my feeble attempt at a photo.

Rufous-capped Warbler

Just before Tommy spotted this warbler, he also had a Scott's Oriole and a Northern Pygmy Owl, both of which were new life birds for both Josh and Evan.  It was a moment of overload for the two of them to have that many new species in a matter of a couple of minutes.  

Northern Pygmy-Owl

From here we made a brief stop at Ash Canyon B & B, hoping for a lingering Lucifer Hummingbird, and we did succeed.  Unfortunately, it was not one of the brilliant males, but the long curved beak makes it easy to identify.

Lucifer Hummingbird

Acorn Woodpeckers and Mexican Jays were quite gregarious and hard to miss while we were there for this short visit.

Acorn Woodpecker

Mexican Jay

After staying for just a short time, we then ventured on to Miller Canyon with the hope for them being open and not closed for the season.  We got extremely lucky as Tom Jr, was around and he was more than happy to take us up the trail to look for the infamous Spotted Owl; a specialty for this location.  Just before we reached the area where the owls had been hanging out, Tom found an Alligator Madrean Lizard in the pathway and pointed it out to us.  This was really cool as I had never seen one before. This is a very handsome reptile!

Madrean Alligator Lizard

Tom then got us on one of the juvenile Spotted Owls from this year's hatch.  It was totally unimpressed with us humans as it sat on its branch sleeping and occasionally opening a eye to check out one of Tom dogs that had come along with us.  

 'Mexican' Spotted Owl

With 2 lifer owl species for Josh and Evan, and a couple more species, we have to consider that this was a successful one day trip.  It is always a lot of fun to help birders acquire new life birds.  Someday in the very near future, I believe Josh is going to be guiding us in Minnesota for some great new birds.  

   

Beyond the Dipper

As Friday continued, our next stop was the Sunrise Ski Resort, which is absent of all snow at this time of year, but the ski lift was in use for those that wanted to get to the top without hiking.  We opted to stay down closer to the beginning of the lifts as we had seen some reports in the past month of Pine Grosbeaks near this area.  We hiked uphill on the west side of lifts and then towards the area south of the lodge.  Their call was quick to be heard and singled out of the several other birds that were singing.  We knew they were there, but getting a good view of them proved to be a bit more of a challenge.  Finally one male did fly to the top of a nearby tree for us to get a good look.  Unfortunately, my photography skills decided to take a nap as I found myself having a bit of difficulty of finding the bird in the viewfinder and my lens.  Feel a bit like an idiot as I was focusing on pine cones on the branches just above the bird.  So my photos leave a lot to be desired. Guess I will have a make another trip back there for hopefully some better photos.  That definitely will not be a problem, as this place is an awesome place to visit.

Pine Grosbeak

To finish out the day we headed into the community of Greer to do some birding on the trails around the town.  While exploring the church campgrounds on the southern end of Greer, a Rufous Hummingbird paid no attention to me and landed on a small limb just a few feet from me.  Guess it must have felt sorry for me and my failed attempt of photos of the Pine Grosbeak!

Rufous Hummingbird

After leaving this campground sight, we were treated to an odd behavior by some Violet-green Swallows.  This species was fairly common in this region and we were seeing them at just about every stop we made, but in this case they were landing on the dirt road in front of us and then leaning over on one side.  I don't believe any of us had seen that behavior before on this species.  We have come to the conclusion that they were possibly sun bathing.  They were not trying to roll or fluff their feathers which would be a sign of maybe a dust bath.  They would just roll over on their sides and lay there.  Looked a bit like they were injured, but was definitely not the case as they quickly took flight if we approached them.

Violet-green Swallows

We took a hike along the Butler Trail and so glad we did.  We discovered 3 recently fledged Northern Pygmy-Owls.  This owl is diurnal and will sometimes forage in daylight.  They are a fairly small owl at just under 7 inches and many times they show very little fear of humans.  We watched as one of them flew from a perch in the trees to the ground and then returned with its prey and actually landed in a tree very close to us.  It casually watched us as it slowly took it time to devour its catch; most likely an insect of some kind although we were not able to see it.  As adults, these owls can be quite aggressive as they will take on prey almost the same size as them.  When a young owl allows this kind of close-up study and picture taking, all one can do is enjoy the moment and create as less stress as possible for them.  (Kind of made up for my poor Pine Grosbeak photos!)

 Northern Pygmy-Owl

Northern Pygmy-Owl

 Northern Pygmy-Owl

Northern Pygmy-Owl

Found a few butterflies to add to the color scheme.  Finally purchased a butterfly field guide, so hope to be able to identify some of the butterflies I do happen to stumble on.  

 Small Wood-Nymph - best ID to my knowledge

 Northwestern Fritillary - best ID to my knowledge

Painted Lady

Of course, what would a log post be without a photo of a couple of our team.

Day number 2 was very different as we put in a lot of miles for naught, but on the way back we stopped off at a spot that was quite entertaining.  This will all be covered in the next post.

  

  

Mt Ord - 16 March 2013

All I can say about this trip 'What an awesome day of birding!'  Mt Ord is in the far northeastern part of Maricopa County and rises to an elevation of about 7100' making it the highest spot in Maricopa County.  I had not been to this location for some time and was wanting to go, so I was joined by Tommy DeBardeleben and Dominic Sherony and away we went.  Tommy is very familiar to this area and thanks to him and his website:  http://www.birderfrommaricopa.com/ this area is a bit easier to locate.  We chose to hike the 1688 trail, which can be a bit strenuous if one is not in pretty good physical condition.  The trail follows the west side of the mountain for about 2 miles in and then one has to return.  If you discover an uncommon bird and you have to deviate from the trail, be prepared to do some bushwhacking and climbing as it will get much more strenuous.  And that is exactly what happened to our party of 3.

Near the far end of the trail, we heard a Northern Pygmy-Owl and chose to locate it by climbing and bushwhacking and the prize was well worth it.  These tiny, but ferocious, owls (about 6.75 inches) seem to not have much of a fear of humans and once found, this one gave us lots of great views while perched in a pine and at one point even turned around so we could capture photos of the back of its head which shows off the distinct black marks on the nape, which is a key field mark, and give the appearance of 'false eyes'.

 Northern Pygmy-Owl

Northern Pygmy-Owl---back view with false eyes

Northern Pygmy-Owl

This owl was definitely the highlight of the day, but it was far from being the only great bird we saw. We found evidence that the spring migration has begun in earnest.  Black-chinned Sparrows and Rufous-crowned Sparrows were in abundance on the first mile of the road leading to the 1688 trail.  The Black-chinned has a song that reminds one of a bouncing ball and they were singing from the hillsides, but most did not want to make themselves visible, until one of them finally flew in and circled us all the while foraging and singing and giving us fantastic views.  

 Black-chinned Sparrow

 Black-chinned Sparrow---Note the long tail

Black-chinned Sparrow

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

A very welcome find was the Painted Redstart, a warbler of the southwestern US and probably a bit earlier than normal for migrating into this area.  We found about 5 or 6 of these birds singing and foraging high in the trees, constantly flicking their tails and wings, which is a normal behavior of these birds.

 Painted Redstart

Painted Redstart

We also found 3 species of nuthatches, the Pygmy, Red-breasted, and the White-breasted.  Unfortunately the only species I was able to capture with a photo was the White-breasted, which is probably the most common species found throughout the US.  We also heard Spotted Towhees all along the trail and finally one of them popped up out of the dense vegetation and gave us great views and some wonderful photos.

 White-breasted Nuthatch

White-breasted Nuthatch

 Spotted Towhee

Spotted Towhee

Awesome birds, awesome scenery, and awesome company for the day.  We also made a stop at Sunflower on our way back, but have decided to do a separate post on that as we got some new migrants there as well.