The Second Ugliest Vulture

As if Vultures weren't dismal-enough creatures already, the Black vulture had to one-up the infamous Turkey Vulture by appearing even more morose, even more black. That being said, I submit that the Black Vulture, despite its morbid coloration, is more aesthetically pleasing than the Turkey. 

Both can congregate in terrifyingly large kettles and should not be taken lightly...

This group of thirty or more Vultures was hanging out near a water tank on Old Arlington School road.  Perhaps there was a large family reunion, or else the Vultures knew of some other group that was having large reunion and was also not long for this world. Whatever the case, they were planning something. Friends to the bitter end...

Told in flight by their silvery fingertips (unlike Turkey Vultures, whose entire wing primaries are translucent), their stockier build and their all-black heads, these buzzards minimize the disgusting facial features of the Turkey Vulture, and prove once again that black is a comparably flattering color, especially if you've got a dubious reputation already, as many Vultures do. 

Salute the Flag(staff) over at BIF

It's that time again...
My monthly post at Birding Is Fun is up and at em'. Check it out!

Season of the Swainson's Hawk

In large numbers and with great speed, these stocky, falcon-like Hawks move north to south, covering some 9,000 or more miles on their migratory journeys. For their spring move, mid through late April is prime Swainson's Hawk time in Arizona. Some birds stay in Arizona throughout the warmer months, while others stream up as far as Alaska. 

Although the Swainson's Hawks themselves are some of the more varietal raptors, with light, dark, and intermediate morphs all commingling in the same little patch of grass, it doesn't take too much to make them happy. An open field and a little raised furrow of dirt, these are the requirements for a Swainson Hawk's domain, at least for those who spend some time in Arizona.



Down along Palo Verde and other rural roads in Buckeye and Arlington, they perch, preen, bathe and hunt, sometimes with more than a dozen birds occupying a square acre of land.

It's in the spirit of the migratory season, perhaps, that they co-habitate so nicely. This fellow was even content to forage with Turkey Vultures, a sure sign of tolerance if ever there was one. 

 

Sure, they perch atop telephone poles like any proper raptor, but by and large they're content to occupy a lower, more proletariat position around the agricultural fields. In some locales they're even known as Locust Hawks for their dietary proclivities. This does nothing to detract from their nifty plumage variations and differentiation they bring to the Arizona farmland in the warm months. Their arrival is something to look forward to every spring, and their departure is a shame every fall.

That's Hard to Swallow

Recently I was scouring the eastern reaches of Tempe Town lake, along the McClintock Bridge, for Clark's Grebe and Common Loon. This isn't the best place to look for these birds, but the better-viewing pedestrian bride farther west limits your photographic range, and the McClintock bridge presents the rarer possibility of better photos. At any rate, the waterfowl were a no-shows anyway, but there was something very intriguing going on along the northern shore. 

Hundreds of Cliff Swallows were creating a commotion, a disturbance in the force, amidst the putrid muck on the water's edge. I hate to admit it, but it took me a minute to figure out why this big rotating system of birds touching down and lifting off after apparently getting a drink was necessary. 

Surely, ariel aces like them could swoop to drink cleaner water away from the stagnant muck?

Of course, the stagnant muck was the whole point. They were gathering material for their nests, impressive adobe things they build on the underside of bridges, cliffs, and any other shady overhangs that meet their territorial requirements. At some of the larger, more accommodating locations, these gregarious birds will nest in groups several hundred strong. 

The way they'd touch down and keep their wings raised, even while fluttering and collecting goop, reminded me of butterflies, but the way they flew certainly did not. 

 

 There seemed to be various levels of completion among the little gourds, and various levels of work ethic too. Some Swallows were more casual than others, at least in the building process. The concentrated activity also generated lots of bird droppings, and these were happily gobbled up by the insouciant Carp down below, the ultimate unscrupulous fish.

Despite there being plenty of muddy shoreline, even shaded shoreline, the mass of birds seemed interested in gathering from only one relatively small patch. As such, they had to harvest in shifts, and there was a constant revolving motion around the little mud farm. 

The grounded birds take a mouthful and lift off; new birds take their place and begin to gather.

They then bring the mud up to their nest, sometimes to construct of their own design and energy, and other times to merely drop off the raw materials for a waiting mate in the semi-finished structure. This dynamic was very curious.
Presumably all the birds building nests already had mates? Were some building homes with an eye for snagging a mate with their bodacious pad? Were some Swallow families just having two working parents? Interesting stuff...

At any rate, this high-stress, fast-paced cycle was more fun to observe and photograph than distant, blurry waterfowl. Even though I still have no photos of Loon species, this was a pretty good way to wind down the afternoon. Good riddance to those Loons. 

For these nest-builders, the big rule is, Don't Swallow!

Salt River Sights

Several weeks ago I met up with two Phoenix area wildlife photographers for some east side birding. In exchange for a delicious Chipotle lunch, I showed them around one of my favorite Salt River sites, Coon Bluff. The bluff itself is a great and famous place to observe perched Bald Eagles, and its lower reaches host all kinds of other cool birds, including Canyon and Rock Wrens, Lucy's Warbler, and Flycatchers in the surrounding bosque.

We first explored the Coon Bluff trail heading west of the parking area, which eventually dead-ends along the Bluff. We had excellent looks at the Eagles, and also a female Common Merganser, seen first out of the water--kind of a rare sighting. I didn't realize how goofy these birds look when photographed head-on, but the blurriness of the image aside this has to be one of the most unflattering photos ever taken of the species.

To be honest, she had weirdly dilated eyes and seemed to be pretty disengaged from her surroundings, like she was in a trance. Must've been drinking the salt water again...

There were plenty of Swallows flying around too, with Rough-wings being the most frequent perchers.

In addition to the always-suave Phainopeplas, Ash-throated Flycatchers, and Vermillion Flycatchers in the mesquite bosque east of the Coon Bluff Parking area, the highlight of the day came in observing a pair of Bald Eagles from across the river. With rolling hills of saguaros in the background, they happily perched, preened, and fed in a very raptor-oreinted cottonwood tree.

There are lots of Eagle nests along the Salt River (which should not themselves be directly/intentionally approached, both for ethical and legal reasons), but Coon Bluff has to be one of the better places to observe these patriotic raptors in Maricopa county. They fly up and down the river, but seem to pause and perch in this area the most, with little regard for lookyloos. Eagle Bluff may be a better name; I have never seen raccoons in the area.

With recent rains helping the keep the desert landscape a most charming green, now is a great time to visit the Salt River sites. Steve and Charlie had a great go of it, snagging some super images not only of the Eagles, but of the Flycatchers and Woodpeckers in the area too.

We didn't find or photograph the wild horses this time around, despite them being the biggest animals in the area, but I did get one of the smallest. And gnats all she wrote.

Cowbird Mondays

Oh you didn't hear about it? You didn't get the memo? Yeah, it's definitely a thing.
Slender, small, and without a pleasing call, these birds are very few people's favorites. They are also brood parasites, so they lay their eggs in other birds nests and thus largely pass on the parenting responsibilities, even at the expense of the other bird's eggs. There is supposedly documentation of Cowbirds conning Hummingbird and Raptors nests.
If ever this bird were to get it's own exclusive bird post, it would have to be on a Monday, coupled with all the other un-favorite things.

Despite their commonness around large, manicured grassy areas, the Brown-headed Cowbird is not a bird I photograph often or even very well. Yesterday I was able to snag a few shots of these unwelcome birds hanging out in one of my parents' trees. The photo below was taken by my younger brother too, who aided in the stake-out.

There's not a lot to say in their favor, though of course being birds they have a certain amount of coolness and impressiveness built into them. At least that bill would give a Grosbeak a run for its money. Somebody has to be the unpopular one I guess. The Cowbirds play the part of jerks so others don't have. Or maybe they just like it.

One and Only Patagonia

The Spotted Owls at Miller Canyon were a miss yet again, but like any good birders, we had a contingency plan in Patagonia. Sure, there are some other famous Patagonias in the world, but nine out of ten birders agree that Arizona's is the best. By heading southwest and then looping back up towards the Santa Ritas, we'd be able to spend several hours in this veritable birding mecca of southern Arizona, and that's really saying something for the area. We hoped to find a lifer Black-capped Gnatcatcher at Patagonia State Park, as well as the wintering Trogon that has been returning to parts of the Sonoita Creek off and on since the late 1990s. But before any of that we had to stop by and pay our respects to the Paton House, one of Arizona's birding landmarks. 

For the last half-century this property has been maintained with its many feeders and bird attractions, providing some excellent, at-ease birding for those staying in town or just passing through. The current caretaker, Larry Morgan, is also a very knowledgable, experienced birder and is often flush with up-to-date information on recent sightings in the area.



It was about midday when we arrived--hardly ideal timing--but we nonetheless had some very nice sightings, including first-of-the-year Lazuli Buntings, along with Pyrrhuloxia, White-winged Dove, and a million billion Broad-billed Hummingbirds. Naturally, the only bird I photographed was a ragged Yellow-rumped Warbler that wasn't even in its nice breeding plumage. Just gotta be different...

We missed the Scott's Orioles by only a couple of minutes, but had some brief, satisfying views of the Paton House speciality Violet-crowned Hummingbird, which has been reliably found here for the past several years. These white-fronted Hummers turn up elsewhere down south, but nowhere is so reliable for them as the Paton place.
Missing the Scott's Orioles still puts me in the peculiar position of having only seen Orchard Oriole in Arizona for the 2013 year. That is rather backwards and shall have to be remedied directly.

After a thirty-minute stake-out at Paton's, we proceeded towards Patagonia State Park, keeping all of our various sensors peeled--eyes, ears, noses, radar, potatoes, etc--and it paid off when we had a promising silhouette fly over the car and a nearby butte off the Highway 82. In hopes that the raptor would circle around, we pulled over to the side of the road, parking on the wrong side with doors hanging open and all concern for safety hanging with them.

Not only did our raptor swing around for another pass, but it was joined by a buddy, and I was treated to the best looks and photos of Grey Hawks I've yet managed. Abiding traffic laws is for chumps (**I'm a chump 99.5% of the time).

Getting to see these unique raptors was a real treat. They're basically hawks in evening suits, and they ooze more class than a Princeton course on viniculture attended entirely by Spanish aristocrats wearing french cologne and smoking Arturo Fuente cigars.

We got pinged by the somewhat steep entry fee for Patagonia, but as soon as we parked near the Sonoita Creek trailhead, east of the visitor center, we had more promising sightings.
By soaring high in the cloudy skies and keeping the sunlight on his back, a Common Blackhawk did its very best to disguise itself as an ubiquitous Turkey Vulture. Silly Common Blackhawk...your wings are too fat, and your tail band is showing!

The first portion of the Sonoita Creek winds through some mesquite bosque, which was particularly pleasant habitat with the recent rain softening and greening things up. In these low, scraggily trees lurked a potential lifer in the annual but ambiguous Black-capped Gnatcatcher. A male Black-capped Gnatcatcher can be told apart from the similar looking and sounding Blue-grays, but that would be just too easy.
After checking out some Gray Flycatchers and other mesquite lovers, we heard a Gnatcatchery veeer, reminiscent but different from that of the Blue-gray. When we finally got some brief sightings of the bird, naturally it was backlit and clouded over, but I think we got enough to make the ID. Both female and male Black-capped Gnatcatchers have a proportionally longer beak and more graduated primaries on the tail, with a touch more black as well. It's hard to pick these plumage subtleties out in the field; luckily we got a few photos to examine in the dark room afterwards.

The Sonoita Creek trail and mesquite bosque open up to cottonwood riparian habitat as you head east of the lake, and here we had some more great birds such as Lucy's and Yellow Warbler,  as well as Cassin's and Bell's Vireo. This certainly was not my nor Tommy's first time down the trail, and there were a half-dozen other birders in the area as well. However, the most veteran explorer of Sonoita Creek was actually our other target for the site. 

While most Elegant Trogons wait until later Spring and summer to really press north into Arizona, a single male Trogon was been wintering along Sonoita Creek since, allegedly, the late 1990s. In a sense he's sort of the Pater Familias of all the other Arizona Trogons that have followed in his footsteps, exploring further north into the Santa Rita Mountains and elsewhere. The documentation of this individual bird is as extensive as it is impressive, and despite seeing Trogons elsewhere and visiting Patagonia many times, I'd never seen this particular bird.
About a half-mile from the lake, down the Sonoita Creek Trail and hanging out in the mid-level scrub...that all changed.

The brilliance of the male Elegant Trogon really can't be overstated. It is one of the most colorful, bodacious, and grandiose birds that occurs in North America. That doesn't make them easy to find either. Especially in the winter/early spring months, when these birds are silent, it comes down to luck and persistence. Scanning scrubby tree after scrubby for that green and red...eventually we spied this fellow sitting perfectly still and perfectly comfortable. It was silent; it was stunning; it was surreal.  

Of course, we were only two of hundreds, even thousands of birders who have ogled this Trogon in the last dozen or more years, but that did nothing to dim the magnificence of the sighting, especially because in the silent wood, we were only twenty feet away from the bird, and we had it to ourselves.

Unsurprisingly, this old fella was used to people. He patiently indulged us as we filled our memory cards with face melting images. He showed all his sides, including the resplendent, shimmering back, and even took a break to catch and eat a caterpillar during the shoot--the action of which I unfortunately missed, but here you can see a bit hanging out of his beak.

It worked out splendidly well. We couldn't have asked for better looks of the bird, and we were close enough that the cloudy weather didn't corrupt the sharpness in the photos. It was just another day in the life for Mr. Trogon, but I daresay we were positively glowing. 

After getting our private session with the HIs Elegance, we then had the pleasure of being able to share the bird with some other birders passing through. 

There was an older couple who began recounting when they saw this very same (presumably) bird ten years before, a group of four younger birders (it feels weird saying that...) who started geeking out about it hard, and some folks visiting from Colorado who were not expecting such a sighting and were overjoyed. To be fair, we were expecting the sighting, and were also pretty ecstatic. Here's Tommy, with the Trogon in the background. The bird stayed so still, we could've taken family portraits with it.

It was only early March, but bird sighting/experience of the 2013 year? Very probably.

Still buzzed from the Trogon, we stumbled around Patagonia for another hour like drunken sailors aboard a drunken ship in an ocean of beer. The Sonoita Creek trail yielded a few more cool birds, and we scanned the mesquite for further sightings of Black-capped Gnatcatcher, since we did not feel satisfied with our earlier sighting at the time. Eventually we decided to swing by the Patagonia visitor's center and then head north to the Santa Ritas. 

Much to my relief, the visitor center was open and had bathrooms. More pertinent to a bird blog, it also had Broad-billed Hummingbirds, along with a few White-throated Sparrows.

Even around 2pm, it seemed like the birds were out and everyone was having a great day. But while the people and critters of Patagonia all enjoyed the cool weather and were generally congenial, one sour bird sat and moped, perhaps contemplating some past insult or plotting a revenge.  

Blarg! This was, without a doubt the grumpiest Green-tailed Towhee I have ever seen. Usually they're such chipper little birds, colorful on the outside and the inside. Not so with this misanthrope; he looked like that surly Internet Cat's best buddy, if crotchety animals can have best buddies.

Before you ask, yes this bird haunted my dreams for weeks afterwards. It was too grumpy to even bother flying away. I was all smiles and taking photos, and it just kept staring and staring, letting the shame and loathing set in until I hung my head and backed away...backed away...backed away.

The Green-tailed Towhee was a buzz-kill (not really), but once again Patagonia delivered with some the best birding I've yet experienced in 2013, and that was my feeling even before examining the Gnatcatcher photo too, so the life bird was just a bonus. I got to visit my best buddy the Trogon again, and see some other magnificent birds along the way. 

It was almost a lethal overdose of birding. Luckily this all occurred during my spring break week, and I didn't have to work again for several days. Upon returning to Phoenix I had severe withdrawal symptoms and was incapacitated for some time. Visit Patagonia but be careful. It will ruin you.