Spooning at the Glendale Recharge Ponds

Just another day at the Everglades, or one of Florida's many phenomenal wetland preserves? Florida is bout the only state where the goofy and awesome Roseate Spoonbill doesn't look out of place. However, as you may have suspected, this distant and dismal shot was not taken in Florida, but at the smelly, hot, and ridiculously birdy Glendale Recharge Ponds in west Phoenix, which makes it more palatable eh?

Spoonbills are already crazy-looking birds, but this bird must actually be crazy. It's now been camping out in Basin 2 of the Recharge Ponds for two days, a good two thousand miles out of its usual North American range. First called in on Saturday by Melanie Herring (thanks Melanie!) this is the second Spoonbill to turn up in Glendale in the last four years.

It's a pretty nice lifer for me, one I was definitely not expecting to pick up in Phoenix, and one which I still need to see properly--in its normal habitat and up close--in Florida. But until then, I certainly appreciate this pretty pink fella coming by to spoon in Phoenix.

Room for Two?

This week is AIMS week, the week in which my students take lots of standardized tests to tell us and them how they compare to other students and schools across the state and country. These tests are woefully inadequate and fraught with analytical problems, but I'm still not complaining because this means I have very little work to do this week in terms of lesson preparation. That dull anecdote was necessary only to say: I had some time to go birding Sunday afternoon.

I decided to try for a rare double-whammy, first stopping by the Glendale recharge ponds to chase a few unusual birds before quickly heading south to the Tres Rios site. The recharge ponds were a total flop last week, but in the twenty minutes I spent circumventing and surveying the first basin, they more than made up for their previous vacancies. The miniature lake was mostly populated with Black-Necked Stilts and Mallards, while Least Sandpipers lined the shoreline. Amidst these larger and darker birds, it was pretty easy to pick out the Red-Necked Phalarope and Bonaparte's Gull.

While scanning the wide, reflective water basin, the Gull was the first unusual sighting. As is always the case at the GRP, the bird was very far out on the water. Not too far away from the Gull there floated a much smaller bird with just a hint of red on the neck. 

Even at a distance, seeing a new bird is always greatly satisfying, and in this case it was a pretty rare bird too! It wasn't the soul-satisfying view that comes from a close encounter, but I'll take it! The Phalarope seemed to be buddies with this Black-Necked Stilt. It is also possible that the Phalarope was just using the taller bird as a mobile shade.

The Bonaparte's Gull took off pretty soon and, for once, I got my best look of the bird while it was passing overhead. There was a Franklin's Gull also reported in the area, but this bird seems much too light on the wings and there was no discernible red on the beak.

Two new birds is not bad for the first stop on a two-part birding adventure!