Heard it through the Grapevine

The Prescott area, about an hour and a half northwest of Phoenix, is home to some diverse birding habitat situated between 2,000 to 6,000 feet. The higher elevation draws in plenty of birds that are far less common in Maricopa County, and it also offers a general reprieve from Phoenix birding which can, like anywhere, get repetitive. On Friday I went chasing up Grapevine Creek in the Bradshaw Mountains after an annual AZ vagrant, the Varied Thrush. I have dipped on this bird three times before, so it's becoming a bit of a nemesis for me and a beautiful one at that. 

The sparse mountainside habitats may not look like ideal habitat--and truth be told they aren't for Varied Thrush--but the the real treasure offered at Grapevine creek is the shady riparian wash nuzzled in between the hills, with water, shade, juniper, and fir trees.

The dirt road up towards the creek becomes inaccessible by vehicle a good mile or so from the creek trailhead, which forces the intrepid birder to traipse through elevated desert chaparral. This unique habitat, comprised of desert holly, saltbrush, scrub oak, juniper, and manzanita, offers up its own birding delights, and this was just as well since--spoiler alert--the Varied Thrush remains an inchoate nemesis. 

The morning walk along Grapevine road, though very chilly, was filled with emberizid noises. Black-chinned Sparrows were the main culprits, but White-crowned, Rufous-crowned, and Black-throated also made their contributions, as did a plethora of Spotted Towhees.

A little pishing and a little playback can get all kinds of things stirred up in these bushy surroundings. The whole neighborhood was buzzing and among all the Sparrow happenings I almost missed a pair of Crissal Thrashers (not photographed, of course) gathering food for a nest.

I picked up my first 2014 Black-chinned Sparrows just last week near Mt. Ord, but during a time crunch. While waiting for the sun to crest the mountains and illuminate the creek trail I was able to crush them more properly along Grapevine road, much to my satisfaction.

The Black-chinned below (not crushed, just circumstantial) is perched on one of my favorite chaparral scrub bushes, manzanita. What? You don't have your own favorite chaparral bush? Lame.

The manzanita have rich verdancy in their evergreen leaves and a smooth, reddish bark running along their gnarled branches. They show resilience, color, and texture in a remarkable way, especially amidst the predominantly homogenous, grayish-green backdrop of their surroundings.

Nearer the creek and in the shaded valley between the Bradshaws, ponderosa pine and juniper come to dominate the scene, with scrub oak and the occasional fir trees, as well as cottonwoods also growing nearer the water. From looking down into the bushes one must look up into the busier canopy. Bushtits and Kinglets bounce from limb to limb, creating a false impression of how numerous they are with their raucous, kinetic behavior. They make up the basis of solid mixed flocks that Goldfinches, Chickadees, Titmice, and Vireos also join, while White-breasted Nuthatches and Brown Creepers lurk on the periphery and wallflower Hairy Woodpeckers wait for an invitation (or not).

Hutton's Vireos are kind of a dull bird, but they have my undying appreciation in the month of March for being something admittedly kingletty that is not a Kinglett. They were very vocal in the scrub oak along the creek trail, showing more personality than their generic appearance otherwise indicates. 

The Varied Thrush was seen a fair way up the Grapevine trail, about 4 miles of hiking total, around a white fir grove. Due to a combined ignorance of this trail and what constitutes a white fir grove, I am not satisfied that I was searching in the right places. I was further impeded by my own clumsiness, which resulted in me dropping some equipment in the creek and having to greatly expedite my search so I could get home and stick it in rice.

As such, the Varied Thrush chase did not get underway to full satisfaction, but Grapevine Creek has some great potential as a birding spot. The changing habitats alone provided me with 40+ species in about three and a half hours, and the creek itself offers the right settings for an uncommon and delightful little bird.



Big tangles and brush piles along the water aren't just appealing to rodents. All the while walking the creek I had eyes and ears pealed, eventually picking up that anticipated call note of a Pacific Wren, the little bird with a big chip on its shoulder, struggling to forge a separate identity from Winter.

These Wrens can be as amazingly gregarious and they are amazingly small. It almost flew up and landed on my foot when I was pishing, which resulted, rather cruelly, in me being unable to properly focus on the oddly proximal bird before it again vanished into its twiggy labyrinth.

Grapevine Creek isn't the most easily accessible hike--several miles of choppy dirt road and some occasionally steep/loose hiking, but it certainly is birdy. That's also true of many other trails in the Prescott area, even though this site is closer to anyone heading north from Phoenix. 

No luck, again, with the Varied Thrush. I'll just have to quit being lazy and go find my own some time.

Dealing with Doldrums?

What better way to weather those fallow times of year, when you're bored of Kinglets and anxiously ticking off the days, chewing your nails, until the Warblers and Tanagers arrive?

Bourbon and cards with fellow nerds is a pretty good solution, when you're not pouring over field guides or the latest and greatest in bird blogging.

Here's a kickstarter campaign link to Emmanuel Jose's work. This New York based artists is trying to complete mass production of a really sharp, clever, and cute bird-themed playing cards. The artwork alone in impressive, and these will make great gifts for yourself and for friends and family.

Check out the project HERE

No Ordinary Sparrows in the Shadow of Mt. Ord

The excellent winter sparrowing continued through the weekend, this time out in east Maricopa County where an immature Harris's Sparrow was kicking up at Mesquite Wash, not too far away from Sunflower (famous for its Black and Zone-tailed Hawks later in the year) and Mt. Ord (famous as the best high elevation birding in Maricopa Co.). Harris's Sparrow is annual in Arizona but tends to turn up farther south more often and, at any rate, was a lifer for me. 

So with the Superstition Mountains and Four Peaks marking my horizon, I drove out east early in the morning looking forward to one of my favorite birding exercises: Sparrow Sleuthing! Truly, there is no more virtuous or worthy a pastime known to philosophy or the annals of love than sparrowing. 

The young Harris's Sparrow, expectedly, was seen hanging around with very mobile White-crowned flocks. I met up at Mesquite Wash with Tommy DeBardeleben and Dominic Sherony and after appreciating some early Lucy's Warblers we set to work chasing around the Sparrow packs. The first few groups of White-crowns yielded little but turned up one of my favorite emberizids.

Black-throated Sparrows are absurdly good-looking birds, even if they lack the plumage complexities of some of the more secretive Sparrows, such as Le Conte's. They're like part Old Blood Spanish Nobleman, part wizard (the eyebrows), and part Edward Teach. So maybe I'm over-thinking it, but it's a pretty sharp Sparrow.

We spent about an hour with decent birding but little luck relating to Harris's Sparrow before running into another well-reputed Phoenix birder, Pierre Deviche, who had followed the White-crowned flocks past the mesquite wash and into the surrounding chaparral hillsides, which were now blooming nicely after recent rain. This was farther away than anyone had found the Sparrow in the previous week, but we stuck to our guns and were finally able to turn it up when it took to the bushes briefly. It even gave a few single call notes, something unexpected for this sort of vagrant.

Photo courtesy of Tommy "King of Maricopa" DeBardeleben 

I got a decent look at the bird but no photos before it disappeared over another cactus-ridden hill with its adopted friends. With everyone operating on a pretty tight schedule, we decided to head further down Highway 87 and up to Mt. Ord. The climb up to FR 1688 (elevation 6,000ft) winds on a treacherous dirt road through scrub oak and mesquite chaparral. We were too early for Gray Vireo, but the hills were alive, sound of music style, with the trills of Black-chinned Sparrows.

I didn't come away with any crushingly good photos but the sightings were pretty close and very enjoyable. There's no better place in central Arizona to find these guys, and they combined with the Song, Lincoln's, White-crowned, Black-throated, and Spotted Towhees (also very numerous) to make for an exceedingly emberizidish day.

It was a beautiful day atop Mt. Ord, and even though time constraints prevented us from properly dawdling and we couldn't turn up Pygmy Owls we still had some very nice sightings, including Juniper Titmouse and the first Painted Redstart of 2014 (for North America). 

We had a pair of boisterous Hutton's Vireos, as well as Bushtits foraging near us at one point, all of which I managed to substantially miss photographically speaking. The autofocus on my camera has been broken for nigh on a year now, and after one more birding trip this week I think it's finally time to bite the bullet and send it in for fixing. The soul can only endure so many missed opportunities for crushing birds without being torn asunder.

Atop Mt. Ord and down at Sunflower the Violet-green Swallows are already setting up shop. Doesn't he look cheerful? Hopefully I can get just a bit more mileage out of the camera before sending it in to repairs.

"Howdy Howdy how's it going?"

The east Maricopa birding was pretty rad, and picking up lifers in AZ, especially central state, is becoming an increasingly challenging proposition, so it was a great day indeed.

It's either SoCal for Wrentit, CA Thrasher and Gnatcatcher, and Tri-colored Blackbird, or else the Huachucas for that persistent Sinaloa Wren that I, and I alone, still have not seen. Stay tuned!

Twilight Gatherings in the face of Desolation

The sun-scorched earth...nothing can grow, nothing can live...much less survive. The stoic Ibis stretches from one forsaken spot to another, the only shade being provided by rocks even more lifeless than the desiccated soil itself. Truly, this may be the spitting image of the last bit of life on earth, when that day comes...until that fragile little flame dies out amidst the all encompassing black of the universe.

Or it's just suggestive cropping in a particularly poor-looking area. On the other side of this little dirt road there was much more going on, and there always is, if one swings by in the last hour of daylight. These photos were all taken around the Broadway dairy farms, which are, quite in contrast to atmosphere of the beginning photo, teeming with activity.



Cattle Egrets have the namesake and reputation for bovine association, but out in west Phoenix where Cattle Egrets are few and far between anyway, the Yellow-headed Blackbird is, by far, the species seen most closely socializing and living with the cows.

They roost in the thousands at the protected Tres Rios wetlands just a mile south, and spend their days and evenings chittering, chattering, and making bizarre metallic sounds with their cow buddies.

It's a rip-snorting good time. Everyone gets plenty to eat, has plenty of gossip, and wallows in their own feces. When everyone's a party pooper, the party don't stop!

The Yellow-heads aren't the only birds to come out in large numbers in the evening light. Bulkier, quieter Eurasian Collared-Doves, the awkward wallflower or any semi-urban get-together, line the corrals. They know they're a good looking dove, but also that no one really likes them very much or wants them to be there.

Adjacent to the masses of unscrupulous farmyard birds, Burrowing Owls also become readily conspicuous as the evening wears on. They must remain diligent in looking out for Red-tails and Cooper's Hawks, but that won't stop them from imitating those wire-perching birds either.

Two look-outs are better than one; these fellows had the panorama covered well. They didn't mind my presence either, perhaps thinking that the large gangly creature would further deter any raptors from swooping in and ruining their evening porch time.

I'm hoping to try for a Maricopa rarity Harris's Sparrow this weekend and get some good photo ops at the Oak Flats campground in Superior, AZ. It's nice to have some direction and plans going into the weekend. It's also very nice to have some reliable spots, like those shown here, where fun and fine-looking birds can always be found. They sometimes have a gruff (or in the case of yellow-heads, cacophonous) demeanor, but they don't mind visitors in the evening, just don't stay too late. 

What's the Secret?

It has been a grossly long time since I've been able to post, with weekends being full of other considerations and, more recently, heavy rain (which I really shouldn't grumble about). Recent car hiccups and expensive gas discouraged too far of a trip this weekend, but the Hassayampa River preserve offers some precious riparian junk at only an hour away, and a nice reprieve from the somewhat repetitive central phoenix birding. At least, that was part of the reason for heading to Hassayampa. Truth be told, there are more species to see at Tres Rios and the surrounding farmland. 

These Mallards met at dawn along a non subterranean portion of the Hassayampa River, presumably to duel to the death for the lady's honor.

Hassayampa is a smaller area than Tres Rios, so in a sense it's easier to bird and relocate sightings, and it has also been a hotbed for great Maricopa County finds. Grey Catbird, Rufous-backed Robin, Downy Woodpecker, Gray Hawk, and Green Kingfisher, Winter Wren, and  Magnolia Warblers have all turned up here in the last couple of years. It's a lush strip of riparian in the middle of an arid fly-way, the perfect vagrant/migrant trap.

And yet...I dunno, I just can't get this place to work for me. Whenever I bird Hassayampa it is pretty lackluster. I find the expected stuff, maybe a few uncommon birds, and never the big rarities. I haven't found the key quite yet, haven't unlocked the full potential of this place, which is maybe why I bird the closer Tres Rios much more often.
It's a beautiful place and time at Hassayampa is never poorly spent, but looking at the all-important good birds vs. time spent finding them ratio, my ratings there are pretty poor.

There's still something to be said though for a place where Vermilion Flycatchers are a common, expected sighting, something to be said like, "Wow, Butler, what are you complaining about?"

With this unseasonably warm weather in Phoenix weirdly early migrations are already underway. I decided to hit up Hassyampa for any nifty migrants and then peruse Tres Rios is later on. Some notably early finds were Lucy's Warblers as well as Bell's, Hutton's, and Plumbeous Vireo.

Lesser Goldfinches were some of the most numerous and vocal birds. I find their chirps to be very pleasant on the ears, and that their flocks also attract other nice birds.

The best find at Hassayampa, more so than the early birds, was a pair of Lawrence's Goldfinches gathering nesting material. This is only the third or fourth time I've seen these birds--Hassayampa is definitely the best place for LAGOs in central AZ) in the last few years, so naturally I took no decent photographs.

Anna's were already on the nest when not busy berating one another or other unassuming flycatchers and the like. Winter definitely got skipped down here.

In addition to wanting to turn up my own rarity at Hassayampa, I also went for another pride-based reason, which is that I have absolutely no photos of Cedar Waxwings. 

One assumes that by my age you'd have have at least one lovely, intimate photographic experience with Waxwings. I mean, I saw them often enough, heard their calls, appreciated them from afar but...it just never happened for me. As time goes on, it becomes more and more difficult; there's more and more pressure, and pretty soon I just stopped trying...

Actually that's not so true. They just tend to perch pretty high around Arizona, not being forced to come down lower to forage as in snowier places, so there aren't as many opportunities for photograph them well here, especially not around Phoenix. The Seven Springs site in Cave Creek, with its many juniper bushes, is the only exception I can think of.

Hassayampa has some the most clean-cut examples of the southwest subspecies of Song Sparrow. Many of the SOSPs around Phoenix are much darker intergrades, but at Hassayampa they're predominantly light and chestnutty, as southwestern Darwin intended.



There are always plenty of Robins to see too, not a common/widely distributed bird elsewhere in Maricopa, and this time of year the Robin flocks hold a bit of extra intrigue because of what it might conceal.

Alas, the dozen or so examples were all Non Rufous-backed Robins, the lesser known cousin.

Do you have any spots like that, a spot's reported on listservs as having all kinds of awesome stuff, and then when you arrive it's like the party ended just before?

There were plenty of year birds and some nice sightings, but I'm still feeling I haven't unlocked the potential here, and it's a bit too far to bird often with many excellent options only half the distance. 

Sometimes you have to pick your battles, and this is one gorgeous site I'll recommend to anybody, but probably wait to visit again myself until I hear something reported. In the meant time, I'll stick to places I know well, or else try to find some that are totally new.

Bottom of the Barrel Birding

Sitting here on a pleasant Sunday evening, I'm wondering where the weekend went. For what reason or to what purpose I cannot say, but a combination of general enervation, carry over from the work week, less than ideal weather, and some continuing car problems kept me from my cathartic weekend birding outings. By evening time I was finally able to go out for an hour or two, but there is probably no worse time to go birding in the central Phoenix area than on a Sunday afternoon with pleasant temperatures. 

I tried Papago Park, the Botanical Garden, and Tempe Town Lake, only to be repulsed from all three by the overwhelming numbers of people who beat me to it, fishing poles, strollers, and novelty flying discs in hand. Of course, it is a great thing that so many people are out enjoying all the parks, but for my purposes it was somewhat bothersome.

I should've known the short-span birding would be pretty terrible when the first non-columbid bird I found was a this floater:

Judging from the long tail, I'd say a Neotropic Cormorant. I especially like the grisly algae growths covering one of the feet. It must've taken a while for those growths, which means this fella has been floating for a while. Even the normal aquatic carrion feeders were being lazy, or else there is no fouler meet than Cormorant.

 It wasn't just that the birds themselves were being withholding--although they were--the Tempe Lake pedestrian bridge was being patrolled back and forth by a ferocious gang of segway riders, each of whom was more ferocious and intimidating than the last. The last two guys in this line don't even have to stand up straight to ride so, you know, they're pretty good.

The heavy foot and segway traffic drove me down into wash west of the floating dams, where there is little water, little soil, and little birding to be done--a somewhat disappointing circumstance seeing as the area itself is pleasant.



A Black Phoebe and some Killdeer where stretching out their vocals in the gloam, and a single Eared Grebe, perhaps equally put-off by all the people up higher, and retreated to these surprisingly shallow waters.

I'm doubly motivated to get some higher altitude Prescott birding in next weekend so, and then it'll be a push to mid-March spring break and some time, between writing evaluations, to head back down south. Hopefully that Sinaloa Wren is still around...

In the mean time, can the new work patch make it up to 30 species??? Odds are 7 to 1 against, but taking all bets!

Cling Well Drill Well Sap Well Stay Well

It was a rip roaring Thursday afternoon at the new work patch as I added no less than five new birds to the patch list, bringing the total up to a staggering 26 species! Yes indeed, with clutch finds of Eurasian Collared Dove, House Finch, and Northern Mockingbird, I pushed solidly past two dozen. This is more than likely about as far as I'll get until some more Swallows, Nighthawks, and WW Doves show up along the canal in a month.

Too much sarcasm, or even irony, like too many Blackbirds, if off putting though; I did return to the the work patch for other reasons than pursuing a few overstated, cheap ticks. I had a small but lingering desire to give the SRP Falls and Herberger Park a quick going over for a couple of months, ever since taking an AMSP/FOAL break there with another employee before a summit meeting. 

While we were unscrupulously indulging in good ol' fashioned American vices in the afternoon, I noticed firstly that there were plenty of pine trees at the park--not a given around Phoenician parks and a favorite of some birds--and that many of the Australian bottle trees were absolutely riddled with holes.

There are only but one of a few possibilities for how a proud bottle tree such as this could become so porous, and since I didn't see any OCD kids with pellet guns hanging out in the park, I deduced that it must have, in fact, been some sort of Sapsucker. Pretty clever eh? 

Red-naped, of course, would be the only real suspect, but even with that being the only possible (and Yellow-bellied does tend to drift a lot) Sapsucker in Phoenix, it's a decent find for the central city given the small amount of woodlands. Upon returning to Herberger Park on Thursday I soon found the freshest looking sapwells, and soon after found the culprit.

Caught red-handed!...err red-naped!

There were two birds, both males, from what I observed in about thirty minutes. The conspicuous red on the napes immediately ruled out any possibility of Yellow-bellied (also known as the "for lack of any other obvious distinction" Sapsucker), but it's still a pretty gorgeous bird and certainly the most solid find thus far at my dinky little work patch. I dig how the red on the nape is very haphazard, like whoever was designing this bird just gave up towards the end and stopped coloring in the lines.

Apart from the presence (or not) of red on the nape, the black malar border on the RNSA is thinner and doesn't extend all along the red throat to keep it from meeting the white face paint. That black malar border is much more distinct on a Yellow-bellied, which I'll still hold out hope to see here some day.

It was a quick jaunt before I had to be back at work, but on the way to the car I snagged another tick for the patch list as it patrolled the canal. It's up to Prescott this weekend to see who's hanging out where there's some decently cool whether.