Nebraska: The Hunt and a Touch of Wyoming & Colorado

My third day in Nebraska was a journey to the old farm and to venture to Camp Hayes Recreational Area, which is a small man-made lake not far from the old family farm. The lake is so small that powered watercraft are not allowed.  But with the Red Willow Creek feeding it and flowing out of it, there is a lot of great habitat for birds.  

I always get a kick out of seeing recently hatched Killdeer chicks and I had to stop the car to allow this one to find better cover than on the road.  

 Killdeer Chick

 Killdeer Adult

Double-crested Cormorant

Whitetail doe and fawn

Spent a few hours in the town of Hayes Center reminiscing with my classmates and then headed out, taking the long way back to Denver, with an overnight stop in Sidney, Nebraska.  My plans were to leave Sidney early in the morning and head west to Kimball, Nebraska.  I was keen on trying to locate Mountain Plover in Nebraska.  They breed in western Nebraska in a restricted range and habitat, but are probably a bit more common on their breeding grounds just a bit south, across the border in Colorado.  The Mountain Plover is a migratory bird that spends winters further south than their breeding grounds, and some show up in Arizona in winter.  This is where I have always seen them in the past.  So I was going to attempt to locate them in Nebraska.  The drive to Kimball was shrouded in fog making visibility really tough.  It was still foggy when I arrived on the roads south of Kimball and was getting a feeling that the weather was going to jinx my effort.  Walked down one road for a ways without my camera and found a male McCown's Longspur in breeding plumage!  Being without my camera was a mistake, so headed back to the car and got my camera, but was not able to relocate the longspur.  Headed down the road a bit further and pulled over and lo and behold, there was a Mountain Plover on a side road.  I took photos from the car as I did not want to spook it.  Yay, success can be so awesome at times!  It is a mis-named bird as it does not spend any time in the Mountains.  This sighting was also cool to me as this one was in breeding plumage, compared to all those I see in Arizona in winter, non-breeding plumage.  Yes, it is a subtle difference, but still fun to see the differences.

Mountain Plover in breeding plumage in Nebraska

Mountain Plover in non-breeding plumage in Arizona for comparison.

Horned Larks were everywhere!

From there I headed into Wyoming where I have never done any birding in the past, so I stopped at an eBird Hotspot called Wyoming Hereford Ranch which is just east of Cheyenne, WY.  A great place to spot and I highly recommend this spot to anyone interested.  By then the fog had lifted and the lighting was much better.  Ended up with 34 species to start my Wyoming bird list.

 American Goldfinch

Gray Catbird

  

 Spotted Sandpiper

 Western Wood-Peewee

Western Wood-Peewee

My next couple of days was spent in Colorado staying with friends.  Birding was not the full focus of my stay, but I did manage a couple of photos during the bouts of rain and overcast skies and even some snow.

 Barn Swallow

Steller's Jay

One of the key birds that I wanted in Colorado was the White-tailed Ptarmigan.  Unfortunately, due to bad timing and the incredible amount of snow fall in Colorado the roads to the best location were still closed.  At least I have learned from this adventure and hopefully I will be better prepared for the next trip to Colorado for this bird.  The trip overall, was a success and I am happy with the results. I was able to add 19 new species to my Nebraska list, 9 species to my Colorado list, and got my first 34 species to my Wyoming list.  

     

More Maricopa Birding

The more time that I spend birding in Maricopa County in Arizona, the more I begin to appreciate the birding diversity and what can be found.  It is a large county in area and covers a very diverse number of different ecological habitats.  For those readers that are not aware, yes, I am doing a Maricopa County 'Big Year'.  Final numbers will be released in January of next year in a separate blog post.  I plan on recapping some of the highlights and point out some of the incredible birds that can occur in Maricopa County.  Included in this post are a few of the great birds that have been added in just the month of December.

 Reports of a Tundra Swan returning to a golf course in Sun City West was intriguing to a lot of birders, and after some great sleuth work by friends Chris Rohrer and Magill Weber, it has become clear that this bird is most likely a 'wild' bird and not a captive bird as it has returned several years in a row.  Not really unexpected at this time of year, because Prescott, AZ, almost annually has Tundra Swans that overwinter in their surrounding lakes.  Why this Tundra Swan returns to the same location to hang out with one of the captive and tame Mute Swans is a bit perplexing, but it apparently has found a safe winter haven at this golf course.

 Tundra Swan

Tundra Swan dwarfing an American Coot

The Mute Swan is much larger than the Tundra Swan and it is also fairly tame, looking for handouts from humans.  It also approached me fairly quickly and came closer to me than the Tundra, which seemed to be a bit more cautious.

Mute Swan

Mute Swan - Close-up showing how tame it was

This pond also had a few Hooded Mergansers, and I never pass up a chance to photograph one of these beauties.

Hooded Mergansers - male and female

From this location and while I was in the western part of the valley, I headed out to the Buckeye/Arlington area to see if I could locate a Ross's Goose that had been in the company of 2 Snow Geese at Lower River Ponds.  Turned out to be an easy find, but at the distance where they were roosting, scope views were the best I could do to confirm the ID of the ROGO.  Never saw what spooked all the birds, but whatever it was, just about everything took flight and that is when I was able to get better looks and also a couple of photos.

 Ross's Goose in the middle with 2 Snow Goose

 Ross's Goose with 3 Snow Goose

Ross's Goose on the right with 2 Snow Goose

A drive through the agricultural lands out there is always prudent to see what else might be found.  At this time of year, the raptors are some of the stars with Red-tailed Hawks being the most numerous Buteo.  Here are a couple of photos that show the stark diversity in appearance of these raptors.  They can fool many novice birders due to their extreme differences in appearance, especially in western United States.

 Red-tailed Hawk - dark morph

  'Harlan's' Red-tailed Hawk - light morph - incredibly this is the 9th year for this hawk to return to the same place for the winter in Arlington

  On the day that I was exploring out west, birding buddy, Tommy DeBardeleben, was following up on a report of a Hooded Warbler that was discovered by Troy Corman the day before.  He was able to locate this bird and he proceeded to provide very good instructions on locating it in Seven Spring Wash.  This is not a place for a lot of people to undertake without a lot of hiking experience and some surefooted hiking abilities; no marked trail in a canyon with rocks and flowing water.  The Hooded Warbler is a bird that I had only seen once before and that was in May 2014 at High Island, Texas, and it was a fleeting glimpse at that.  I was not sure what my chances were in locating this one, but surprisingly, it was the 4 species of bird that I found on this trek.  I caught a glimpse of it and followed up with a view in my binoculars to make sure it was the right bird.  It quickly disappeared around a bend in the stream, but I cautiously followed and got a another quick view and was only able to get this horrible shot of it.

Hooded Warbler - the crappy first photo

Then I lost it and could not relocate it, however, I kept moving downstream looking for a Pacific Wren that Tommy had also discovered (but I was not so fortunate).  Finally, I returned back up the stream and when I reached the spot where the Hooded Warbler was originally seen, I decided to sit and wait awhile to see if it would return.  Sure enough,  about 15 minutes later, it did return,  Still kept its distance downstream, but this time I got a little better photos.  Would have like to have gotten better, but I can live with these photos.

 Hooded Warbler

A Painted Lady kept me occupied during my wait.

Painted Lady

About 5 days later, birding phenom, Caleb Strand and Laura Ellis, had a Long-tailed Duck fly by them at Lake Pleasant.  Did not think that it was chase-able at this point, but incredibly, Louis Hoeniger, then reported one the next day at Glendale Recharge Ponds.  Strangely, the first time I had seen this duck was at the exactly the same location on December 24, 2013, and it was a one-day wonder.  Then this past June, while in Wisconsin, I had the pleasure of seeing a stunning male, but it was far away and in some fairly turbid water, making it impossible for photos.  I headed out to Glendale Recharge Ponds within 30 minutes of the notification.  Once there, it did not take long to locate it, although it spent more time submerged and foraging than above the water.  This one was even better looking than the one from 3 years before.

Long-tailed Duck

On December 14th, I took part in the Salt/Verde Rivers CBC.  At the end of the day, one of the teams reported a Northern Waterthrush at Coon Bluff along the Salt River.  Well, this bird actually turned out to be a Louisiana Waterthrush, which is rarer, but very similar in appearance.  Tommy and I quickly made plans to try for it the next day.  We arrived early and found Ryan O'Donnell already at the spot also looking for it.  With 3 of us looking and listening, we definitely had improved our odds of finding it.  Eventually, Ryan spotted it and we followed it around to several of its favorite spots, but always staying a bit secretive and hard-to-get.  We were all getting mediocre photos of it during this time, so when it finally decided to do some foraging in the sunlight, it presented us with much better photos.  Ironically, I had only seen this species once before in southeastern Arizona and it was a fleeting glimpse of it when Tommy, Mark Ochs, and I took a trip on December 14, 2013.  That encounted was also 3 years ago.  I had never photographed this species until now, so this was a redemption viewing for me.  I liked these results so much more.

 Louisiana Waterthrush

A couple other photos from this location consist of an American Pipit, perched in an unusual spot at the top of a tree, and a Spotted Sandpiper also along the same water edge as the Louisiana Waterthrush.  Incidentally, the sandpiper and the waterthrush, both dip and bob their rear ends as they forage.  Quite an interesting behavior trait to observe at the same time on 2 different species.

 American Pipit in a tree - a rather rare perch for this species

Spotted Sandpiper

What more will I be able to add to my Maricopa list this year?  Maybe nothing, but the month of December is not over and who knows what might show up in the last couple of weeks.  Only time will tell.

    

   

The 2nd Meandering: The Salt River

After an interesting hike on Saturday, and really having an an epic moment or two, (see previous post), I opted for a place with some water nearby on Sunday, the Salt River area, specifically Coon Bluff and Granite Reef.  An early arrival at Coon Bluff found not too many people there except for a few people fishing.  I love coming to this place but this time I noticed that the grassy vegetation surrounding all the mesquites and trees is gone.  It always used to be a lush green carpet of grass.  I am not certain for the reason of this, but one theory is the wild horses of the Salt River might have contributed to its disappearance by overgrazing on land that cannot support the number of horses located there.  Or maybe it is due to some other reason.  Recently there was a big controversy about the wild horses and there was to be a round up to capture some of the horses to reduce their numbers and auction them off.  A big rally of support from many people got them to change their minds and they did not go through with the plan.  I too, enjoy seeing the horses along the Salt River and in fact I did see a few on Sunday morning.  But after seeing the grass vegetation gone, it made me contemplate the reasoning.  With no grass, it will greatly affect the wintering birds, especially sparrows and ground dwelling birds.  A year ago, a nice vagrant Harris's Sparrow spent the winter there with dozens of White-crowned Sparrows, but it is probably unlikely for that to happen again with these conditions.  Only time will tell if this habitat is in trouble or not.

Coon Bluff is quite frequently one of the best places to see Bald Eagles in Maricopa County and this day was no exception.  A pair of adults were waking from a night of slumber and in the first rays of sunlight, they made for a nice silhouette in a tree along the river.

Bald Eagles

A nice kettle of Turkey Vultures perched on a dead tree also greeted me before the sun had risen high enough to give them warmth for their first flight of the day.  They rely on the heating of the sun which creates those warm thermals that they rely on to glide almost effortlessly as they soar the skies hunting for a dead animal corpse to consume.

Turkey Vultures

One of the reasons that I love to come to this place is for the Vermilion Flycatchers; one of the most colorful birds in Arizona.  And as usual, they were present and actively foraging for insects in the air.  On this trip they were found in a bit different location than the normal campground where I used to see them.  But knowing where they are always makes the trip worthwhile.  Most non-birders are awe struck by the brilliant red of the males, but those females have a more muted coloration, but are really quite spectacular as well.  

 Vermilion Flycatcher - Female

Vermilion Flycatcher - Male

One of my favorite warblers, the Townsend's Warbler made an appearance, but was playing hard to get in the trees.  I will admit that this bird does make me ponder the thought that it might be a Townsend's x Hermit Warbler hybrid.  These 2 species do hybridize quite frequently and this bird does give me that vibe of possibly being a hybrid.

Townsend's Warbler?

A Spotted Sandpiper was resting on a rock out in the middle of the river as I explored the river as well.

Spotted Sandpiper

As I prepared to leave a Greater Roadrunner toured the parking lot and as I was headed out about 200 yards from the parking lot a second one ventured out onto the road in front of me and then crossed over to the left side and I was able to shoot photos out of the window of my vehicle.  (Guess that is why they are called 'roadrunners', they like to sometimes run on the roads!)

 Greater Roadrunner

After departing Coon Bluff, I decided to stop in at Granite Reef before returning home.  The most exciting observation at Granite Reef was a male Belted Kingfisher that was hovering over the water for sometime before taking a plunge into the water for a fish.  I knew it was successful in its plunge, but had a heck of a time detecting what it had caught as it appeared to carryout some moss or seaweed.  After reviewing my photos at home, I finally discovered it had captured a fish, but apparently some plant life came with it.  I love watching them hover like that while in a hunting mode.

 Belted Kingfisher - Male

 Belted Kingfisher - Note the tail of the fish under the wing on the right side.

And here it is carrying its fish and the seaweed as well.

Another fun and enjoyable outing to observe nature at its finest.  There is never a place too boring to return to for birding in Maricopa County of Arizona.