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.

Utah - The Final Post

Torrey, Utah is just west of the entrance to Capital Reef National Park, a park that does not draw the number of visitors as the others, but it is equally as beautiful and worth the visit.  With fewer visitors, it does tend to cater to birding enthusiasts such as I.  When I was planning this trip to Utah to visit relatives, I did a lot of research on eBird to see what species have been reported in much of the area that I was visiting to see if there were any possibilities of any new species to be found.  And I found only 1 species and that was the Chukar, an introduced game bird in the western United States that has become established in many areas.  The sightings had all come from Capital Reef National Park, with the last report dating back to May of 2014.  I was confident that the birds were there somewhere, but did not have high expectations in finding any.  Must have been my lucky day as I stopped in one of the shops in the park and was visiting with 2 ladies that worked there and while I was visiting, one of the local Park Rangers came in with some freshly picked peaches for them to sell and overheard me asking about Chukar sightings.  He quickly mentioned that he had seen a fairly sizable flock just the day before in one of the fenced off, enclosed and locked orchards and he asked me if I wanted he would take me there!  What an incredibly nice man to offer to take me to where he had seen Chukars.  We drove about a mile down the road and came to the enclosed orchard and then unlocked the gate and we took off looking for this bird.  We walked and scoured the rocky hillsides and grassy areas for quite a distance and I was beginning to think our timing was off as we were coming to the end of the orchard.  And suddenly, there they were, 8 of them running in the grass.  Might not have been the best photos, but just being able to add them to my life list was really sweet.  We watched them for awhile and then quickly retreated to leave them alone and cause any undo stress to them..

 Chukar

 Chukar

Chukar

With my one and only target bird finally conquered, I considered my vacation a rounding success for birding.  

Capital Reef National Park

One other bird that I was able to capture a photo, was a Plumbeous Vireo in Capital Reef National Park.

Plumbeous Vireo

In the afternoon, we all took a drive to Bicknell Bottoms, where I added several other birds to my Utah list.  I was surprised to hear and then see about 10 Sandhill Cranes, and if I had been paying more attention looking out my window, maybe I could have gotten a better photo than I did.

Sandhill Cranes

A few bird photos from the yard included a regular Western Scrub Jay and a Pine Siskin.  

 Western Scrub Jay

Pine Siskin

Finally Friday rolled around and it was time to depart and head back to Arizona.  For the trip back we headed east on Highway 24 through some very desolate areas where the pit stops and human habitation were few and far between.  While traveling down Highway 95 in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, where cars were few and far apart (averaged meeting only 1 vehicle every 6 miles), we came around a bend and found some Bighorn Sheep.  The adult ewe was grazing on grass along the highway while 2 younger lambs were keeping a safe distance in the rocky cliffs on the side of the highway.  To find this on last day was pretty awesome!  Not always easy to see these mammals up close and personal.

Definitely an outstanding vacation and it makes we want to return.  There is some really awesome wild and remotes areas to be found in Utah and northern Arizona.  Will add this to my lists of places to return to.  

Mt Ord & Sunflower - 4 May 2013

Saturday May 4th, I was joined by a couple of FB birding blogger friends, Kathie Brown and Chris Rohrer, along with Mark Ochs and we went birding to Mt Ord with a stop at Sunflower on the way home.  Kathie got a bunch of new Maricopa County birds and Chris got a new life bird in the process as well.  By the time the day was over, it was dusty and windy and everything was covered in dust and everyone was exhausted! 

 It was cool and windy at our first stop on the road up to Mt Ord.  We made about 3 stops before we came to the 1688 trail head.  And along the way, we saw several Scott's Orioles, which are absolutely beautiful birds all decked out in bright yellow and black with a decorative trim of a white wing bar.  Had one land in a shrub right outside my window as I was driving and I couldn't get my camera up and turned on fast enough, but did manage to capture a photo.

Scott's Oriole

Also in about the same general area, we had Rufous-crowned Sparrows and Ash-throated Flycatchers.  However, they did not want to pose for us quite as nicely as the Scott's Oriole did.

 Ash-throated Flycatcher

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

Once we reached the pine forested slopes we started seeing lots of warblers, but most of them did not want to be photographed.  I did manage a few photos of some, but definitely not the best shots on these birds.  Photos include a Black-throated Gray Warbler, which was a very common species at this location where it breeds and resides in the summer months.  Also have a photo of a Painted Redstart, a dynamically colored bird all decked out in red, white, and black.  We also found Virginia's Warblers.  I had only seen this species  once before but did not get any photos.  This time I did manage to get a photo, but it leaves a lot to be desired.  Guess it is another one of those birds to come back for.

 Black-throated Gray Warbler

 Painted Redstart

Virginia's Warbler

Another group of birds, the vireos, were also well represented.  The Plumbeous Vireo was quite numerous just about every stop we made.  My photos came with a nice stick in front of the bird!  We also had Hutton's Vireos and in one case, one of them had found a nice green headed worm to snack on.  I did not even realize the worm had a green head until I saw my photos.

 Plumbeous Vireo

Hutton's Vireo with a green headed worm

Another group of birds that was well represented was the tanagers, as we found 3 species during the day. We found the Hepatic Tanager and the Western Tanager in the pines and upper elevations of Mt Ord, and we found several Summer Tanagers in the afternoon when we visited Sunflower.  

 Hepatic Tanager

 Western Tanager

Summer Tanager

One of the other birds that caught my eye was a female hummingbird that was flying around a dead log and some dried out pine needles and other litter. Looked strange to me as I saw nothing of interest for it, but once I got my photo, it appears it was gathering nesting material in this area.  Also of interest were a Chipping Sparrow and a Dusky Flycatcher.

 Anna's Hummingbird gathering nesting material

 Chipping Sparrow

Dusky Flycatcher

Among the non-avian photos, we have a couple of flower photos; one is of the lovely Desert Lupine, which was found near the top and a bright red Hedgehog Cactus that was also found at the very top of Mt Ord.

 Desert Lupine

Hedgehog Cactus

We had a great day together and hope to have many more.  Next gathering of us 3 bloggers might be the Tucson area if everything falls into place.