Birding with Brits

In February, I had the pleasure to take a couple of Brits birding in Arizona.  Being from the UK, they were enthused seeing just about any birds in Arizona.  It is always fun to show and share our native birds to people from across the big pond.  This gives me a chance to hit the road a bit in the wonderful birding state of Arizona.  Below are some of my favorite photos from these trips.

First set of photos came from a day trip to southeast Arizona including visits to Madera Canyon and Patagonia.  You can never go wrong in starting off a blog post with a male elegant Trogon.  

 Elegant Trogon

 Caught it with a snack it had captured. 

 Acorn Woodpecker - Male

 Painted Redstart

 Violet-crowned Hummingbird

White-nosed Coati - This was a nice surprise in Madera Canyon

Back in the Phoenix area, we made stops at several places including the Gilbert Water Ranch Preserve, Freestone Park, Zanjero Park, and Papago Park. Here is a sampling. 

 Black-crowned Night Heron - Juvenile

 Burrowing Owls

 Calliope Hummingbird

 Canvasback - Drake

 Cinnamon Teal - Drake

 Green Heron

 Hooded Mergansers

 Pied-billed Gebe

Pied-billed Grebe - with chicks

We also made a stop at the Desert Botanical Gardens with both gentlemen.  

 Gambel's Quail - Male

 Gila Woodpecker - Male

Rufous Hummingbird 

 Greater Roadrunner

  Greater Roadrunner

Rufous Hummingbird

 Rufous Hummingbird

A stop at the butterfly display at the Desert Botanical Gardens gave us a few Arizona native butterflies to enjoy as well.

 White Peacock

Great Southern White

It is always great to get out in nature and enjoy what this world has to offer.   

Mogollon Rim - Epilogue

Sunday morning we knew it was our day to head back the ugly heat of the valley, but we also wanted to explore the area around the Tonto Fish Hatchery.  Chris had never been there and I always enjoy stopping when I have time.  After enjoying a great breakfast at June's Cafe in Heber, we took to the road and headed for the fish hatchery which is north and east of Payson.

The road to the hatchery itself is a beautiful drive with towering pines on both sides of the road interspersed with a mixture of deciduous trees.  Cordilleran Flycatchers were calling in several places and one of them came out and posed for us in the sunlight.  That does not happen often as this species usually hangs out in the lower to mid level canopy of the trees and is quite often a challenge to photograph in shady conditions.  

 Cordilleran Flycatcher

We also noted Virginia's Warblers calling, but getting a good look at them was quite a challenge.  Finally had one fly into a nearby tree, but it did not want to show itself, so I just raised the camera and focused on where it was and got lucky enough to capture one photo as it decided to take flight.

Virginia's Warbler

Shortly thereafter a Painted Redstart also made an appearance for us as well.

 Painted Redstart

Flowers and butterflies also entertained us as did this Zela Metalmark butterfly that was very attracted to this head of orange blossoms.  What is rather cool was that it had company on the flowers.  We knew the bee was there, but did not notice the small assassin bugs until I looked at the photos.

 Zela Metalmark - With some assassin bugs

Not a great photo of this damselfly which I believe is a Canyon Rubyspot damselfly.  But it was very showy with those red spots on the wings.

 Canyon Rubyspot damselfly

A great ending to a couple of enjoyable days of birding and I know these places will be spots that I return to in the future and I think Chris will as well.

    

The Start of a Long, Hot Summer

Blog posts have been a little sparse recently for me, but there is a reasoning behind all of this.  With a major epic out-of-country birding trip planned in the month of July, I have been focusing on more local birding rather than many 2 to 3 day trips around the state of Arizona as I had done last year.  But at the same time, I just cannot stay home and ignore all those marvelous avian creatures we have in the great state of Arizona.  It is becoming hard for me to find too many more life birds in Arizona, but there are still a few on my wish list and with luck I will be able to pursue those goals in 2016 and beyond.  But rather than staying at home while planning this epic trip in July, I like to return to visit some of my favorite haunts in Maricopa County and the surrounding area.  So with that in mind, I made a couple of trips on consecutive weekends and both ended up being the same destination, although the first was meant to be a little bit different.  

On Saturday June 6th, another birding acquaintance, Rob Bowker, and I planned to make a trip to Slate Creek Divide and we gave it the good old All-American try, but due to some really freakish weather, we were not able to make it up the road.  Seems Mother Nature decided to bless many areas of the state with rainfall in June.  June is traditionally one of the driest months of the year in AZ, but this year we have been blessed with rainfall in most areas of the state.  Since we were not able to access the muddy road to Slate Creek Divide, we opted to go across the highway to Mt Ord and see how the roads were and what we could find.  

It was still cloudy from the rain the day and night before, but the road was fine to navigate and we ended up enjoying the hiking in and around the 1688 trail.  While I have had Acorn Woodpeckers near this area in the past, they have always been a bit distant, but on this trip at least one of them perched within a decent distance to allow a photograph.  It is a bird I have photographed many times in many other locations in the state, but I believe this is my first photo of one in Maricopa County.

Acorn Woodpecker

At one point as we were bushwhacking through some of the pines, I heard a squawking noise fairly close by and low to the ground and it did not take long to discover the source of the noise; a newly fledged chick, but a bird at that age can be difficult to identify at first glance.  This is a case though of having patience, because a youngster making that much racket will most likely have a parent nearby fetching morsels of food for them and they will return.  Sure enough, in less than a minute, one of the parents dropped in with some food and it became clear this youngster was a Plumbeous Vireo fledgling.  And here is a sequence of photos of this youngster and his parent.

Plumbeous Vireo - Fledgling

It is always a treat to witness something new like this and obtain a few photos knowing that is a moment in time that only 2 of us witnessed and captured some documentation by our photos.  

As we finally headed back towards the vehicle, rounded a corner on the trail and found this Painted Redstart singing up a storm for us.  Lighting left a little to be desired, but one can never have enough photos of this smartly dressed bird.

Painted Redstart

While we were not able to access our target location, we still had a great time birding at one of my favorite locations in Maricopa County.  

A week later and the summer heat had arrived, but I thought I could maybe get in a couple of hours of birding early on a Saturday morning before the heat kicked in and once again I chose to go to Mt Ord, but this time by myself.  Wanted to do a little more practicing with my new camera and this time around, different species of birds made themselves available to my camera.  There are going to be some challenges for photography on my upcoming adventure in July.

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

Spotted Towhee

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Hutton's Vireo

Hepatic Tanager

Hepatic Tanager

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay

And to round out the trip, the agave plants on Mt Ord were sending up their tall flower spikes which really added to the color of the spring day.