From West to East, to Most from Least

As mentioned in a previous post, I spent last Saturday morning at Tres Rios with Pops chasing after a vagrant Northern Parula and Chestnut-sided Warbler. Of course, we also had an eye out for the other birds around Tres Rios--and there are always plenty--but having dipped on the vagrant warblers and not come away with much in way of photos, it was a somewhat disappointing trip. It felt like the morning had been wasted a bit. So after leaving Tres Rios and indulging in some fortifying lunch, I traded this western extremity of the Phoenix area for far east Mesa, exploring some sites along the Salt River where a Red-breasted Sapsucker has been residing since December.

Since our vagrant warbler quarry at Tres Rios was supposed to be in a single large clump of eucalytpus, we spent most of our time there around those few tress, and as such our species diversity was low.
There were plenty of Lincoln's Sparrows hanging out in the brush piles around the big trees, and some bedraggled Abert's Towhees filled the brisk morning air with their shrieking.

Seeing this Abert's Towhee, and hearing them singing/calling so much, reminded me of how few Thrashers I see at Tres Rios. There could potentially be Bendire's, Sage, and Curve-billed, even Crissal, but I do not believe I have ever seen a Thrasher there. What a dreadful dearth!
Tres Rios does have lots of Cinnamon Teal in the spillways right now, so at least there's that.



We did see lots of raptors during our eucalyptus steak out, with Harris's Hawk, Red-tailed, Cooper's, Sharp-shinned, Osprey, Kestrels, and a Bald Eagle all making for a very carnivorous morning. We didn't pick up Peregrines or Ferruginous Hawks, nor the single Red-shouldered in the area, so factoring these in too, Tres Rios can really bring in the big birds.
 

Eventually our focus and interest waned at Tres Rios, plus pops had some cool, important mechanic-type stuff to do back at home. Feeling a bit defeated, especially with this being my only birding thus far in the the week and weekend, I decided to head over to the Pebble Beach site, about eight miles east from the Salt River dam, to investigate a lost and stubborn woodpecker.



This reclusive, yet very chromatically conspicuous Red-breasted Sapsucker was first found during a December CBC (Christmas Bird Count) in the area, and it's been seen off and on since then. The Pebble Beach site is much like any of the other picnic/hiking areas along the Salt River--some concrete tables, dusty trails, and scattered clumps of chaparral. Honestly, it's not my favorite habitat in which to go birding, but hey if beautiful birds like it, I can like it too.

I arrived at the Pebble Beach site around 3pm--not an ideal birding time--and first just sort of wandered around, curious to see what would turn up. The first half hour produced lots of Phainopeplas and Gila Woodpeckers, but no Sapsuckers. I eventually noticed some mesquite trees with lots of fresh-looking sap wells in them, and figured that maybe with some patience (the worst!) somebody would visit.

Frustratingly enough, the first birds to come by the sap wells during my vigil were Yellow-rumped Warblers and House Finches. Assumedly they weren't eating the sap, as Sapsuckers sometimes do, but were just enjoying some of the insects the sweet sticky stuff attracts (which Sapsuckers also do). But after another ten minutes I saw a flash of black, white, and red entering my peripheral vision. 

What a stunner! I saw one of these birds several years ago in Northern California, but the sighting was brief and distant. Seeing it again, fairly close, and against such a comparatively dull and dreary background...it rocked my socks off.

After ogling this splendid specimen for a little while and watching him move on to other wells, I located and re-applied my socks, before heading back to the car and west towards the Granite Reef Dam. The Granite Reef site is the western most site along the Salt River, and is also, overall, the birdiest. The guest parking area hosts lots of different Sparrows and Flycatchers while the adjacent river walk gives one the opportunity to view lots of waterfowl, including Mergansers and Goldeneye.

While observing this slinking female Ladder-backed Woodpecker, I ran into fellow Arizona birder, blogger, and photographer Gordon Karre, who was showing the sites to another birder from New Jersey. It's always nice to run into other birders and bloggers. Earlier that day I had bumped into Jeff Ritz and some of his crew out at Tres Rios, and I met another very knowledgable birding couple while looking at the Sapsucker.

There wasn't actually a lot going on at the Granite Reef site, though the fellow from New Jersey, having apparently not birded Arizona or much of the southwest before, was racking up lifers like crazy, including the Ladder-backed Woodpecker pictured above.

So I found some good birds and good birders. Tres Rios let me down a bit, but I saw a gorgeous Sapsucker so the day didn't...err hem...'suck' after all.

Plus, I went back and got the Parula on Monday, so Tres Rios and I can still be friends too.

Unconventional Wisdom

There was a cool story on NPR this afternoon (yes, I listen to a liberal radio station; I'm really not that bad once you get to know...ok maybe that's going too far) about Wisdom, a Laysan Albatross and the oldest known wild bird, hatching a chick at the ripe old age of sixty-two. She was banded back in 1956, and she was estimated to be already five years old at the time.

Sixty-two! That's a good twenty years longer than the average Laysan Albatross lifespan. Not only that, but this is actually the sixth year in a row that she's hatched a brood. This momma's got a lot of survival knowledge to share with her chicks, along with plenty of street smarts, bargain shopping tips too, and romantic advice too. With a pinch of luck, they'll live to be 150!

Here's a Link to the full story, from which this photo is also taken.

Parulyzed!

After dipping on a Northern Parula at the Tres Rios Wetlands last weekend, I was determined to find the bird this week and thus not have it nagging at me next weekend. So, it would be a simple drive over in the evening, with clear skies, to spend some time looking in the one little area where this bird has been seen off and on for the last few weeks.

It sounded simple enough on paper, but the mission would prove to be very difficult. Getting off work at 4pm, By the time I reached Tres Rios it was 5:06pm, which meant I had about 40 minutes of honest-to-goodness sunlight left. While the Parula has been seen and heard consistently in one little, contained area at Tres Rios, this was the area:



A group of three huge eucalyptus trees, already teeming with Yellow-rumped Warblers, is not the easiest place to spot a little 5 inch, non-breeding plumage warbler, especially when it's about the same size as an individual eucalyptus leaf. With the fading light and the high canopies, I was not expecting much in way of photos, just a documentation shot.

But the greatest tribulation of all, and one I was not so much expecting (in large part due to my inexperience in this sort of endeavor), was the intense, paralyzing stiffness in my neck from staring straight up whilst also supporting binoculars and a camera. Warbler neck is a common, professionally recognized and diagnosed problem in the east, with many cases occurring in the spring and summer, but it doesn't break out so much in Arizona. I think the Surgeon General needs to start putting a warning on all binoculars and birding optics:

*WARNING: The use of these optics to view and enjoy wood warblers for a sustained period of time surpassing five minutes may result in severe neck soreness and the haunting worry that one has instantaneously become 117 years old.*

At any rate, after about 45 minutes of searching while the sun was sinking below the South Mountain range, I finally caught sight of something. With its smaller size and yellower belly and breast, I'd finally found something that, at least, wasn't a Yellow-rumped Warbler. 

I cranked the ISO up to 800 on the camera, rolled the EV compensation up to +7, and reduced the aperture to 5.6. With all the pent up rage of a sore neck and a frustrated weekend excursion, I unloaded volley after volley of digital shots at the tree, hoping to catch the Parula in the viewfinder. As the sun finally set and my camera barrel was till smoking, I felt satisfied that I had something for my trouble, and could now add this unusual eastern visitor to my Life list.

I hope to see more Parulas up close and personal when I can make a properly timed and located birding trip in May, but until then these sorts of sporadic chases will have to do. On the way out of the preserve, a few hundred Ibis moved in to roost for the evening. There were purple skies and I was Parulyzed. Not bad for a Monday!

Beware Delaware, but Get Hooked on Bombay

I must warn of two things up front. Firstly, this post is, alas, not going to be a tale of addition and fancy Indian gins. Secondly, this is going to be really lengthy. 

During a winter visit to Pennsylvania, I found myself with a free day to move farther afield than the local haunts around, so I fortified and forayed out into the cold towards larger and more famous hot spots. I had no Fellowship, and I had no ring-generated invisibility powers, but nonetheless I set off to a place as terrifying to travel through as Mordor in the summer...Delaware!!!

About an hour and a half south of West Chester is the Bombay Hook Wildlife refuge, a large nature preserve with salt marshes, lagoons, woodlands, and farmland all coming together to form a very diverse and birdy landscape. Admittedly, this is a place better visited in the later Spring, but it still provided some of the winter sparrows and eastern waterfowl that I'd been missing in the southwest. I didn't know it at the time, but I had also apparently been missing the bitter, driving coldness that comes with these sorts of birds. 

In order to get there, I had to first drive through many miles of single-lane "highway" laced with stoplights and stop signs and speed traps and those large carnivorous flowers from the Mario games. It was an ordeal, to be sure, and the fact that often times in order to stay on one of the older "highways" in Delaware one must actually exit and join with a parallel road, or it'll turn into something else. Anyway, the travails of travel aside, Bombay Hook was the vast birding expanse it promised to be, a combination of habitats none of which are substantively found in Arizona.

The preserve is huge and you are expected to proceed through it in a sort of safari loop not unlike the jeep tour in the first Jurassic Park movie, except none of the animals here are enclosed, so it's even more dangerous. The perimeter of the park is old cottonwood and oak woodlands. These craggy trees host all kinds of noisy songbirds, including some of the little brown jobs I was particularly seeking while in PA.

This Swamp Sparrow was kind enough to come up and out into the open for a moment so we could take a commemorative photo.

This red morph Fox Sparrow was not. 

It was also nice to be birding in a place where the ranges of the similar Carolina and Black-capped Chickadees do not overlap. Although the Chickadees aren't as approachable on a nature preserve as they are in the backyard, it was nice to have unambiguous identifications of the Carolina variety.

These old, leafless woodlands would be well-described as sleepy, except that all the Sparrows and Wrens and Chickadees kept up such a cacophonous racket that napping was quite impossible (and, given how chilly it was outside, potentially deadly). In concert with the noisy songbirds were all kinds of headbangers. Pileated Woodpeckers were easily the coolest (too cool for a photo), but Red-bellied Woodpeckers were another great attraction in the old growth forests.

The woodland perimeter is itself surrounded by fallow farmland that hosted Blackbird/Cowbird flocks along with Snow Geese, but this area was best observed through a scope. This massive conspiracy of Crows was large enough to be observed and feared with the naked eye. Hitchcock would be proud.



The interior of the preserve features the tall grass and twisting rivulets inherent to salt marshes, and this was really the big attraction. I had the vain hope of seeing a Nelson's Sparrow in the tidal reeds, and while I did not really expect to find that secretive bird, I knew that I'd see lots of cool stuff in the process. It's difficult to get anywhere near Bufflehead in Phoenix, but while I was trying to photograph a Northern Harrier flying over the dense grasses, a lovely male came floating by parallel to the road without any pomp or fanfare.

Some of the channels come together through the preserve to form larger reservoirs, and these reservoirs in turn have sandbars and islands that support larger birds. In addition to the Tundra Swans pictured earlier, Canada Geese congregated by the hundreds, while the occasional Great Black-backed Gull tried unsuccessfully to blend in with them. 

 

I drove slowly down the dirt road, frequently stopping to binocularize and photograph the marshy species on display. After one such stop, I looked down out my window to see this Savannah Sparrow staring up with frozen terror. I felt bad for the little guy. It was like the sight of this gangly monster protruding from the truck and made him forget how to fly away. It is also possible he was just playing opossum. A third possibility is that he was just trying to remember if he had left the stove on at home. I feel like we've all paused and made this face at one time or another. 

The Savannah Sparrows were pretty common along the road, and it also became clear that they were pretty accustomed to the vehicles. This bird below was hopping amongst these anti-topsoil-erosion rocks, foraging without a care in the world. He definitely got his foot stuck between two stones for like fifteen seconds. He feebly flapped for a second, noticed I was watching, and then just decided to sit still until I was no longer witnessing his great shame. I shifted my attention to other things and, upon a second inspection, the clumsy sparrow was gone. 

The salt marsh portion of the preserve is set up such that on either side of the dirt road there are short, grassy slopes and then thinned riparian vegetation sprouting up before the man-made estuaries that serve to both feed the larger ponds and keep people from approaching any unwilling birds too closely. Nothing likes these thin reedy habitats, or goes better with Bombay Gin, than Bitter(n)s.

I saw three of these eminently awkward and super cool birds along the Bombay Hook drive. Even though they were not new birds for me, unlike the American Black Ducks and Tundra Swans and Fox Sparrows, they were probably the coolest sighting of the excursion, and they're none too common in Arizona either.

Look at this stud of a bird. It's back looks like marble and mahogany all in one. Add to that aesthetic this bird's lightning-fast reflexes, super sharp beak, and disposition similar to that of a stick (but you know, a really cool stick), and you've got a real winner.

The one disappointment of the Bombay Hook, other than the terminally icy and face-chapping breeze, was that I could not actually get coastline access. I had really been hoping the salt marsh road would open up to a full coastal view, but alas. You never know what'll turn up at the beach, and last time I birded on the Jersey shore (Barnegat Bay mind you) it was fantastic. I did some extra driving down past the preserve and made it out to the Atlantic via a small sandy road, but it only opened to a little boat launch and a grumpy gang of stumpy Ring-billed Gulls.

So there weren't any coastal or pelagic birds on this trip then, but I can now say I've taken a shot of Bombay in Delaware, lived to tell the tale, and even come home with a few more life birds. I will definitely try to get back there in the summer.

Lemmons to Lemonade

Earlier this month I posted at Birding is Fun about a bust of a trip I made up to the lovely Mt. Lemmon in Tucson. The plan was to see and photograph some Red Crossbills, but I came away only with one sketchy sighting of the target bird and no Crossbill photos at all. 

There was plenty of time on the mountain though to acquaint myself with some of the other high altitude residents, chiefly the Yellow-eyed Juncos, which can be found anywhere and everywhere above 7,000 feet or so,

and the Pygmy Nuthatches, which are loud and gregarious but nonetheless considerably harder to pick our from the tall ponderosa pines. 

While traipsing back and forth, up and down and all around the mountain, I found the Yellow-eyed Juncos to be everywhere: on the ground, on rails along the street (see above), up in trees casting condescending glares (see below), and all the mediums in between.

One of the Junco chieftains was particularly sociable, and this was evidenced not only by its brazenly close approach to a big gangly human, but also the proud jewelry it wore to show it had a history of such interactions. With both legs decked out in colorful bands, this bird really must've been the toast of the mountain.

I sent the banded bird's information into the USGS banded bird site, already satisfied with my Lemmon of a trip mostly do to the Juncos I saw along the way. It was all the sweeter then to quickly hear back from the banding lab and get this certificate with information on the particular bird. It's also warm and fuzzy to know that the USGS officially, and in writing, appreciates lil' ol' me.

I found it particularly satisfying and delightful to learn that this bird, with the green and yellow on one leg and silver and white on the other, was at least four years old.
Cheers to you 2030-27116, my favorite Junco in the world!

Floored with birds at Florida Canyon

It's not really a secret anymore, but nestled just a little bit away from the world-renowned Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains is one of the must-see winter destinations in the Arizona birder's travel log. Florida Canyon doesn't pull in quite as many spring and summer attractions as Madera Canyon or those old guard canyons in the Huachuca Mountains, but for the last two winters now it's hosted Rufous-capped Warbler, an exceedingly rare and beautiful vagrant from Mexico that does as much to give the canyon its namesake (meaning, 'flowered' in Spanish) as any of the flora. And there are lots of other great birds hanging out too.

I was fortunate to see Florida Canyon's main event last February while on tour with Birding Is Fun's Robert Mortensen and Jeremy Medina, but I was forever nagged by my unsatisfactory photos, and Pops still had to log this jaw-dropping bird to his ABA list. What more of an excuse is needed?

Truth be told though, I was feeling anything but confident when we arrived at the base of Florida Canyon. It was bitterly cold outside (in the 20s) and in from 7:30am to 9:30am we saw maybe seven actual birds and only four or five different species. With the canyon slopes keeping out the early morning sun, it was simply too cold and dark. The birds were much wiser than we were.

We ambled up and down the lower canyon, staying within a half mile or so of the old dam that used as a checkpoint for the Warbler location. The sun would occasionally burst through the clouds and we'd get small doses of activity, but with snow all over the ground and the weather so uninviting, I had a hard time imagining what would keep tropical Mexican warblers in this far north of their normal range.  

For a while we had to content ourselves with some of the braver local birds, and sightings of the chromatically opposed Pyrrhuloxias and Mexican Jays, along with the sweet serenades of Canyon Wrens, kept our morale high enough. 

 

By 10am the sun finally got its act together and the birds started to make up for lost time. The canyon started to echo with more and more chatter. Rogue groups of Lesser Goldfinches and Kinglets began their daring daylights raids and then, all at once we felt as though we were being swept off our feet! A massive mixed flock made it's way down the canyon, gathering birds and noise like a tropical storm. Dozens of Black-chinned Sparrows joined with Bridled Titmice and the Finches to form a feathery gallimaufry that conglomerated with Lincoln's and Song Sparrows along the creek to obliterate every exposed seed and insect in their path. 

I was particularly jazzed to get so many nice views of the Black-chinned Sparrows, an uncommon emberizid I'd seen only once, and fleetingly, before. Of course, being camouflaged Sparrows with an affinity for low-lying scrub brush and an constant motion, they weren't the best photo subjects, but I wasn't complaining. These birds alone made me feel the trip was worth it, and there weren't even any Warblers (including Yellow-rumped!) in sight.  

We followed the big mixed flocks down the Canyon, with great delight. After the first two hours of frigid birding we had scarcely logged a dozen species, but in the span of fifteen minutes it shot up near forty, as the Bridled Titmice and Bushtits met with the other foragers and caused a sensory overload. In all the madness we even managed to see (and hear) fives Wren species. The Canyon, Rock, Cactus, Bewick's, and House Wrens all made appearances--my first and only five-Wren day, and this was, again, all within a very short span of time. Thinking back on it now, the Wrennaissance was perhaps the most remarkable experience of the trip... obviously I didn't get any photos to prove it.

After half and hour or so of mixing with the mixed flock, Pops and I felt like we were finally starting to get a lid on everything. Ladder-backed and Acorn Woodpeckers were starting to pop in at points along the canyon, and jealous Jays were always squawking in the background. Some larger, pointy-headed Finches caught our attention as they made their way down the grassy canyon slope (west side), with their noises and coloration seeming very good for Cassin's. While trying to snatch a photo of these fleeting Finches, a different flash of color cut across the west-side path and stopped me dead in my tracks. I had almost forgotten we were after this bird!

From the grassy cover on the west side of the trail, a single Rufous-capped Warbler darted to the base of a scrub oak. After much shivering and scheming, it had finally worked out! Though the bird only stayed close for a minute, Pops and I both got beautiful up-close looks of this well-traveled bird--for all I know the exact same one I saw last year. We watched it forage down on the ground, mostly obscured from any clear shots. I was happy enough just seeing it again and knowing that Pops could add this incredible critter to his list. But the Rufous-capped Warbler did me one better. With no apparent aim other than to check us out and let us know that he was made of sterner stuff, he ascended the tree and perched right at eye level, first showing his fuzzy fanny...

 Behold! One of the rarer butts in North America

 ...and then about-facing for just a moment of eye contact, before bolting farther up the canyon.

We were on cloud-nine (one of the few clouds I like while out birding) as we descended the Canyon, picking up Spotted and Canyon Towhees on the way, along with Arizona Woodpeckers and a Roadrunner. It's been three weeks and I still feel buzzed thinking about this sighting. The remarkable turn-around from six species to forty in about thirty minutes, is thus far one of my best birding experiences. I've dipped on Mt. Lemmon and the Estrella Mountains this winter, but Florida Canyon has too much good stuff to dip, and this worked out to be one of those days when we just about hit it all (ok, to be fair, we didn't see any Montezuma Quail, but most scientists now believe those birds died out with the Aztecs two hundred years ago). 

Star-less Mountain and a Shrike

Last weekend I went for a lovely morning hike in the Estrella Mountains of southwest Phoenix. I had not been to this mountain range before so it engendered that bubbling sense of excitement in seeing a new place. Additionally, this is one of the few areas in the state where over-wintering Gray Vireos hang out, provided they can find enough bursera microphylla to sustain them through the chilly months. So, a lovely morning hike in pretty mountains with prettier wife and the (very small) possibility of seeing a new (and pretty uncommon) bird was the excellent prospect for our Monday off.



It was indeed a lovely hike, but in all honesty the closer and more mainstream South Mountain Park offers better hiking, and alas we didn't press far enough south into the mountain range to really tap into the potential Gray Vireo territory. I saw only one scrawny bursera and it was in the process of being suffocated by mesquite.
At any rate, I was too dense to take any good scenery shots, and the bird activity was very low. Oddly enough, it was a Loggerhead Shrike--a bird not widely known for its gregariousness or tenderheartedness--that took pity and gave me my only close ups with a bird for the day.

So, neither the goal nor the result of our day trip was great birding, but seeing a Shrike up close is always a treat, and knowing that alone would happen, even if I also knew I'd dip on the Vireos (and yeah, I kinda knew that was coming anyway), would've been motivation enough for the drive out west.  It's funny to think that I'm here photographing Shrikes in 70 degree Phoenix while Mia McPherson is up in Utah is photographing the same species in thoroughly frigid conditions.