Re-Runs and Hidden Gems

It's time for another exciting installment of everyone's favorite Buckeye/West Phoenix show, Terrible Photos of Terrific Birds! As is often the case, this episode takes place in the Trasher Spot, 50 miles west of Phoenix. I toured the sagely site a visiting Puerto Rican birder who was looking for a little Sonoran fix and some of Buckeye's famous chalky-white desert ghosts, the Le Conte's Thrasher (which is french for The Butt-Pain Thrasher). 

This is one of my favorite sites in central Arizona, in fact the whole state, for a couple of reasons. In the first place, this plain of low-lying desert sage and scrub is easily navigable. There are no tall trees with neck-pain, bird-concealing inducing canopies. Furthermore, it can produce up to 5 different Thrasher species (one of the best genera of birds), depending on time of year, and both species of the recently split Sage Sparrow. Best of all, this site hosts Le Conte's Thrashers, which can be very difficult to track down as they tend to have very localized populations within their uninviting desert ranges, and this is one of very few birds to which southeastern Arizona cannot also lay claim. That's right, there is a good bird in the central part of the state that CAN'T also be found in the Santa Rita or Chiricahua Mountains!

Unfortunately that good bird is a real pain for photography despite being a personal favorite. The Sage Sparrows have long gone and the Sage Thrashers have already moved through, but the Thrasher Spot was still very productive with its Big 3. We had 6 Le Conte's, in two groups of three, a pair of Crissal Thrashers, and 5 Bendire's all in about an hour and a half, and this was without vocalizations (they've all since shut up after this most early of springs). Some day, I will make a camouflage blind, go out into this desert, and mercilessly crush the Le Conte's Thrasher. In the mean time, I have to make do with such injustices, which I post both to my own degradation and to blearily illustrate my point:

It wasn't just the Le Conte's today. The cost of seeing all the birds is often paid in some other way. Here's a nicely posing Bendire's, obscured by proximal creosote branches. It was going to be one of those mornings. 

Here's a heavily cropped Crissal Thasher, which I must shamefully admit is my best photo of the species. I'm serious about that blind. I'm going to make it this summer. It will be spacious, have nice panoramic views, have room for snacks, and be highly mobile, maybe situated one 4 of those rumba robots that drive around and vaccuum floors.
**If anyone has any spare rumbas they'd like to donate, please email me privately.

After a productive hour and a half at the Thrasher spot, which also turned up some lifer Brewer's Sparrow for my birding pal, we headed east through the Palo Verde agr. land for the daily dose of Burrowing Owls. If one ever ventures into the west Phoenix farmosphere and returns without roadside Burrowing Owl photos, one has not lived up to one's potential. This species is perhaps the greatest ambassador between birds and people, less filthy than Gulls or Pigeons and much wiser than Finches. This fellow was hanging out near a drainage ditch by someone's driveway, and another was perched on the roof.

Inevitably, our west-Phoenix tour ended at Tres Rios, the absurdly birdy wetlands that combine three riparian channels with desert chaparral and small sections of grassland. At the right time of year, skilled and dedicated birders can pull 100+ species here in several hours.
The only remaining waterfowl when we went were Ruddy Ducks and Mallards, and even with few attenuating raptors we still finished in about 2.5 hours with 81 species, and that was starting around 8:30am. That tally up is not a boast of birding ability so much as the capacity of this site.

It was late enough in the morning that the Osprey were already finishing up breakfast and contemplating lunch.

However, the key to Tres Rios' diversity--it's sprawling, well-watered, and wild habitat--also makes it a pitfall of sorts for photographers going after some really close-up, crushing shots. The birds here typically, though not always, perch high and flush easily. It's quite the catch-22, a catch-23, if you will.

I do not bring this up to solicit sympathy nor profess false modesty, but merely as a preface for another realization I had about my peculiarly adjusted behavior at this, or any other oft-frequented site. 

There are many nifty birds I see every time at Tres Rios. 

They're not really crushable either, but I could consistently take decent, blog-complimentary images of American White Pelicans, Egrets and Herons, two species of Blackbird, etc. But because I see these birds constantly, I don't bother. Instead, I take mediocre images of the Gila Woodpecker above, or the Spotted Sandpiper below, because these birds don't present themselves as frequently. In the moment, I have a greater attraction to the opportunity presented by these birds because that opportunity comes around less often. This also means I lower standards sometimes. If the picture below were of a Least or Western Sandpiper it would've been chucked immediately, but Spotties are kinda hard to crush (in fact, upon further rumination, I don't recall seeing them crushed much ever at all on the blogosphere). It's not the first time I've pictured the species, but this relatively crumby sighting was more significant than the 1,000 Blackbirds (take it, Wallace Stevens) who were much more aesthetically pleasing subjects. Few people would argue this in-range, in-season Spotted Sandpiper is cooler than flying-in-formation Pelicans, but after enough Pelican sightings, that's how it registers. 

Which would be the better subject? Really I should just shoot both, shoot everything I can, shoot until the barrel overheats and melts shut, mwuahahaha! 

Nah, that obnoxious soliloquy was just a personal chastisement for being snooty at the expense of my photography. Anyway, one Tres Rios sighting of particular note was this Lesser Nighthawk, parallel-perching in a dead cotton-willow and generally winning at hide-and-seek. Finding nightjars in the day time has to be the highlight of almost any trip, even if these would be a dime-a-dozen after 7pm.

We had several other FOY birds at Tres Rios and finished the half day with 92 species. It was a pretty solid Phoenix birding run, a reminder of the excellent birding to be had closer to home before I head southeast next weekend to be spoiled once again, and maybe forever.

New Birds!

I've been trying to cram as much last minute birding into this week before school resumes, and while we (Pops and I) haven't always visited the most lush or beautiful places, we've made an excellent run with new species these last few days. With half-day parent-teacher conferences all this week, I'm needing all the escape I can get. We checked out both the notorious thrasher spot west of Phoenix, where the Salome Highway meets the I-10 , and later paid a visit to the Rousseau Sod Farms on the other side of town.

I'm used to birding now at the Gilbert Water Ranch and the Desert Botanical gardens, places where the birds are somewhat acclimated to constant foot-traffic. This is not the case outside of the city, where the birds are wild and the people are rare. It's difficult at times to get close enough to use your binoculars, and harder still to get good pictures. It has been an exciting, if poorly documented series of sightings, and the challenge has helped shake me out of that complacent urban birding mentality.

The first hour or so of birding at the thrasher spot was pretty fruitless, but finally this Bendire's got things going. The speckled breast along with the shorter beak make for a pretty straight-forward identification. Little did we know at the time that this was the best look any Thrasher would give us.

We chased this Crissal Thrasher, named for its rusty rump, a long way down an old river wash. In a way it was good that I only ever really saw this bird's backside--that's his most tell-tail feature--and after a while he alighted to some higher scrub where he briefly paused to sing before vanishing.

We ran into another birder who had come all the way out from Maryland (in Phoenix for business), and who had made the drive out solely to see a Le Conte's Thrasher. Pops and I had a brief but satisfactory look at the bird, with the buffy breast and dark eye again making for an easy identification, before it too disappeared into the scrubby undergrowth. I hope it resurfaced later for the far-travelling gentleman.

We were also hoping to see some Sage Sparrows, and they finally obliged us as we were about ready to head out. They kept their distance, a little bit to my disappointment, but even from far away we could admire their silver and white heads, as if they were named sage for their wisdom, instead of their choice in habitat.

The drive out and back had it's own fun sightings, including a Mountain Bluebird, a White-Faced Ibis (new bird!), and plenty of Meadowlarks among the agriculture. We were also able to pull over and get some nice views of this Long-Billed Dowitcher before finally committing to the highway and heading back into the city. The three Thrashers, Sage Sparrows, and Ibis added 5 new birds to the List, and made for a great half-day of birding.

We decided to next check out the Rousseau Sod Farms east of Phoenix, in essence scouting out the fields and canals in search of plains-dwelling birds such as Longspurs and raptors. While the Longspurs never showed, we continued to find new species and got some great looks at Northern Harriers, a Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Kinglets, Savannah Sparrows, and Blackbirds.

By funny coincidence, the Kinglets were the best photographic subjects of the day (usually they're the bane of cameras). I'm still falling short of getting a good look at that ruby crown, but they're such darn perky birds it's inevitable that they lifts one's spirits, even if you're already having a great day!

Here's to great birding in 2012!