Taking a Dip on Mt. Baldy

A couple of weeks ago I joined my expert birding buddy Tommy D up in the White Mountains for a couple days' end-of-summer bonanza. I've made many trips to the southeast corner of Arizona in the last several years, chasing after migrants and regional specialties there. The higher elevation climes of Arizona also hold some gems, birds that can't be found much elsewhere in the state, and are also a habitat I really haven't visited enough with birds in mind. It helps that the White Mountains have some of the prettiest territory in AZ, and are also a fair bit cooler in late July than Phoenix. One of my main targets for the trip was the American Dipper, one of the best named, best all round' birds in North America. 

Check out the squishy pads on this guy's feet in the above photo. America's only aquatic songbird, they spend their time foraging in mountain streams and being adorable with their stubby build, white blinky eyelids, bobbing nervousness, and peeping calls.
I first saw Dippers several years ago in Oregon, and since that delightful experience it had been one of the most coveted state birds I had yet to view and photograph.



In addition to their sticky, lobed feet, the Dippers also possess a nictitating membrane, or transparent eyelids, and they can close their nostrils while foraging for larvae on the underside of river rocks.
We watched and photographed this fella at close range in the Little Colorado River, near the base of Mt. Baldy. My favorite aspect of these birds is their direct feeding. There are many aquatic birds that bob or dive for their food, but the Dippers just walk right along the bottom of a stream, sometimes fully submerging themselves and even becoming vulnerable to salmon and other large fish.

We scrounged up and down a stretch of the Little Colorado, with light rain and soggy shore plants soaking us pretty thoroughly. Since the Dipper was one of my main photographic targets, I came prepared with water shoes, so I wouldn't be restricted to obscured shoreline views. It worked well in a sense, but good grief was that water cold!
The Dipper soon acclimated to our presence and went about its daily business--foraging, preening, and doing it's little bobbing dance.

Some people train their dogs to balance bones and treats on their nose, showing great self-control against their instincts as tasty food is suspended so near their maw.
We trained our Dipper to do it too. Pretty good trick huh?

The Red-Eyed Menace is up, over at Birding Is Fun.

Roadside Birding in Greer--Something is Not Right

As I mentioned in a previous post, I've got quite a bit of material coming from a recent two-day birding jaunt in the White Mountains. Most of the sightings and photos came from a day-long excursion, during which Tommy D and I explored many different birding hotspots in the White Mountains area, crossing between Apache and Gila County, over mountain streams, between meadows and forests and, somewhat less excitingly, over streets. It was overcast and rainy all day, but we still came away with lots of great stuff, both in terms of sightings and photographs. In the first category, here's one of several hundred elk we drove past in the predawn. I've never seen so many. There were literally hundreds in the first fifteen minutes.  

The pristine and lovely north shore of Crescent Lake gives one an idea of the White Mountain's allure.



Osprey were numerous around the mountain lakes. They were some of the first birds active in the morning, followed closely by a few Bald Eagles eager to steal their breakfast. My bird buddy Tommy was telling me he read a report that found Osprey have an 85% success rate when they fish. That absolutely astounds me--I've never heard of any species with such a successful hunting rate.

This fellow posed nicely in front of the multicolored Greer woodlands just after daybreak. 

Over the course of the day, I experienced a peculiar inversion of the normal natural ordering of bird photography. We drove through many different habitats, stopping at every opportunity to photograph any proximal birds along the way. As in southeastern Arizona and other concentrated birding hotspot sites, one usually has to park and hike to find the specialist species, but there's also cool stuff to see in the mean time and in-transit.

Usually, roadside/car birding/safari-style birding is one of the most reliable ways to attain nice photos. In general, birds tend to tolerate the approach of a vehicle more so than people, especially when they inhabit roadside meadows and the like, thus acclimating themselves to vehicular traffic. 

But for whatever reason, I started to have serious issues getting any crisp shots from the car. 

Sure, sometimes the birds were distant (and Meadowlarks are always a pain for me to shoot anyway) and the cloudy weather was an impediment, but we actually had excellent photographic success during our hikes. After rocking it at Mt. Baldy (post to come later) we drove by an entire family of American Kestrels. Two adults and successfully fledged at least two chicks, and all four birds were active in a little roadside aspen grove. This little bugger was just camping out and I took about 50 shots, none of which were better than the below photo.



I'm not looking for a pity party, saying it's the worst photo ever, or plaintively trying to get more attention. I know I'm spoiled for sunlight, living in Arizona, and am being whiny, but this Kestrel should have been NAILED. In fact, it was only thumb-tacked, at best. Some days, you get the bear, and some days...the bear eats you after you take a blurry picture of it. The usually reliable safari-birding threw me a curveball, as I took junk shot after junk shot.



A little roadside pull-off proved to be very birdy, with Western and Mountain Bluebirds popping up from the grass while Vesper and Savannah Sparrows imitated grasshoppers nearby. Again, distant-looking, hazy, unjust to the bird...yuck.
The Vesper Sparrow I'm actually somewhat pleased with, though mostly because my only other Vesper shots are more so no bueno.

Again, I took hundreds of photos, and it was one blurry trash bin shot after another, regardless of setting changes, breath-holding, or using flash grenades. After a couple minutes, all of the grassland songbirds hit the deck. A Swainson's Hawk (very nice find in the area), one of two in the vicinity, had brought his terrifying presence to the little pull-off. Gorgeous to look at? Absolutely. Successfully photographed? I would say not. This guy was like thirty feet away from the car. I curse my name, and you should too! You, dear reader, could've had beautiful Swainson's photos, and I let you down...

Again, it wasn't heartbreaking or anything--most of these birds I've photographed more successfully at other times (except for stupid Meadowlarks), it was just weird, because in retrospect we were totally killing it elsewhere. 

The safari-birding gods took the day off, or else Greer is outside their jurisdiction. So, what is the remedy when nice bird sightings won't translate to nice photos? Why, a nice, big, steady, cooperative landscape!

Nothing restores a photog's confidence more than a beautiful lake--in this case Lee Valley Lake, perhaps the highest lake in Arizona. It won't fidget, fly away, or in any way defy your desires. Come hell or high water, this lake will always be beautiful, and it'll patiently let you fill your memory card until you get something nice. On a fun side note, this 9,000 foot lake is also a favored little locale for breeding Spotted Sandpipers, of which we saw (but didn't photograph) a couple.

Now that my musings, moanings, and groanings have been heard, I can move on and share the other cool stuff from the trip...in a couple days. My wife and I are moving this weekend so there'll be a blogging hiatus for a bit. Here's one last poignant statement about how the roadside birding went in Greer (and again, the trip was great, just not the roadside photography). A Western Bluebird, forlorn and lacking in detail, getting soggy in the rain.

Summer Epilogues and Existential Affirmations

It was the end of July and those last precious days of summer were ticking away. Having been laid up for about two months with pre-surgery and then post-surgery physical limitations (face-lifts don't come without their own baggage, people), it had been a low key summer. There was much watching of movies and much reading of books, in addition to much playing of cards and drinking of...drinks.

While I was very content with the summer, there was also a whole inside this Butler, a void of certain sights and sounds that continued to enlarge its emptiness in the bearer until that the most heinous of thoughts--that the summer would soon be over and had been wasted--began to flicker on and off in my mind, like a patchy fluorescent light destroying any possibility of sleep or peace.

Female Selasphorous Hummingbird in Butler Canyon, Greer, AZ

I had to go birding, and I had to bird hard! There had been enjoyable walks and light birding in New Hampshire, as well as Maine and Pennsylvania during the summer. I had also gone out a few times and hobbled along the spillway of Tres Rios to ogle the Least Bitterns. But these were short, easy affairs. I was missing the gritty, all day birding, the burning hikes and the scratchy bushes, the thrill of a growing day-list and the pain of poor eating habits. I would have to face my family, my friends, my coworkers, and admit that I did no hardcore birding this summer, none at all. I'd become soft, even insipid.

Luckily I was saved from this pending existential crisis when a bird buddy started posting his wonderful photos and write ups from his week-long birding adventures in the White Mountains of Arizona. With a week left before returning to work, I expressed my interest in seeing some of the wonderful alpine birds, and the invitation was on. Thank you Tommy.

I arrived in Greer Tuesday afternoon, and although the northern AZ skies were even more permanently and thickly clouded than Phoenix's, we still had a couple of hours to bird, to prologue the all-day bonanza that was to come. We went to nearby Butler Canyon, a fine place to go for Butler's Birds, pining for some Woodpeckers. Tommy has already written up a fantastic post on the Williamson's Sapsuckers he was studying all week long, and we quickly found several different specimens on the pine trees around the lower canyon, while Olive-sided Flycatchers and Steller's Jays made their noises in the background. Here, a young female Williamson's scampers up a tree.

The Williamson's Sapsucker was a very overdue lifer, one I had never chased when they showed up at Boyce Thompson Arboretum or other areas closer to Phoenix. I wanted to see them up in the pines and knew that eventually I would. As it turns out, not only would I get to see them, I'd get to see all of their (very) variable plumages. Here a young male, yet pale in the belly and awkward in attitude, surveys a possible reservoir for some sap wells.

In the high-elevation pines there were many first year birds, and in fact it wasn't until our fourth or fifth specimen that we saw a fully fledged male. Alas I didn't get any photos of the handsome bird, neither while it foraged nor when it flew away and fully revealed its striking blacks and whites. Here instead, for your viewing pleasure, is another immature male looking rather like a beetle.

Seeing this lifer first thing in Greer was greatly satisfying and a good indication for the rest of my brief birding trip. We would see them occasionally at our other birding spots on Wednesday, but never in such high concentrations as at Butler Canyon. To do the birds more justice, I'm going to cheat and use a photo here of another young male that wasn't taken in Butler Canyon, but is a more fitting view for this groovy sapsucker.



The Williamson's were a part of a one-two Woodpecker punch (why is no one producing a birder themed drink, with one such flavor being Woodpecker Punch???), and the other half was even more particular to the White Mountains area. Odds were I'd eventually see a Williamson's closer to Phoenix in the next couple of years, but certainly not it's White Mountain counterpart.
Yes, this is a woodpecker that seldom strays below 8,000 feet and stays masked in shadow.

Evidence of this specialist Woodpecker is most often seen in recently burned forest, the type of charred trees now tragically surrounding parts of Greer from a large fire several years ago. The brittle bark on the burned pines allows for the unique flaking feeding habits of this Woodpecker, that is, chipping and flaking off the bark instead of drilling holes into it. It also makes for some interesting textural and color combinations in the spooky woods.

I speak of course, of the American Three-toed Woodpecker, one of the longest named birds in North America. Often difficult to distinguish from the unscrupulous Hairy Woodpeckers that are also found in the area, their unique feeding style is one quick ID tool, and since most views of this bird are going to be of it foraging high in a pine tree, that's a good place to start.

We actually found this female on the side of Greenspeak, but again I'm going to take the photos and include them there, out of a deep concern with justice for the birds, that they be better represented than the shadowy, hazy junk I took on Tuesday. The heavy black and white barring on the sides, visible on this female, is also a good way to tell the bird apart.
Needless to say, if one somehow gets a good look at the feet, counting toes will also help in an ID.

The Three-toed and the Williamson's made for two lifers during our preliminary birding, giving us a great start and alleviating some of the pressure going into Wednesday's epic bird day, the story of which must be told and illustrated next week. Tuesday night ended with a burger and a beer at the Greer lodge and a semi-pleasant night spent in the car, as rain and thunder made for a very natural orchestra, accompanied by its own natural light show.

Cloudy Sunset

Speaking of clouds and such, which have lately been prominent over much of the U.S., even Arizona, here are some dandies that I photographed from 35,000 feet up over Orlando Florida (a very perturbing stop in a detour my wife and I have to take to get back to Phoenix from Manchester, New Hampshire).

Yeah yeah, cloud photos are about as cheesy and commonplace as nature photography can get. Just picture yourself to be a Godwit or some other long-migrating bird. This may be their view too.

Sunflower amidst clouds and rain

It's been a great monsoon this year in Arizona. Every afternoon in late July and parts of August, the heavy clouds gather, often bringing lightning storms and dusty wind. Too often they just make everything dirty without leaving any precious precipitation, but this summer we've been very fortunate in our rainfall. The clouds have been offering evening downpours and often staying through until morning, following up with a.m. showers to keep the desert temperatures comparatively low and the foliage comparatively green. Of course, this does impede birding and photography somewhat, but there's not too much high level birding to be done in Phoenix this time of year, so I won't complain.

Last Friday Pops and I made a trip to Sunflower, which is little more than a turn off from the Hwy-87 with a few houses and a tow truck company. The Sunflower turn-off leads to a section of closed off road, now called the 'Old Beeline Highway' (the 87 is the new one up to Payson). This road is now closed to vehicle access, but pedestrians can walk along and use the vantage point to observe the denizens of Sycamore Creek that runs adjacent to the eastern side of the Old Beeline.
With all of the recent rain, the creek here and at Mesquite Wash, ten miles down the Hwy-87, were flowing at a very good clip.

The well-watered riparian area and the juniper canyons on either side of the Old Beeline Highway make this stretch of Sunflower excellent nesting habitat for both Zone-tailed and Common Black Hawks, and these were our target birds, along with the optimistic hope for hearing or seeing a Yellow-billed Cuckoo on the side.
For much of the drive up to Sunflower (about fifty minutes), the percussion of raindrops and streaks of lightning gave us quite a show. It was still raining when we began birding on foot, so I initially left the camera in the car. Yellow Warblers, Bell's Vireos, Blue Grosbeaks, Ash-throated Flycatchers, and Cassin's Kingbirds were all very common and audible on the walk, even with the rainfall. Phainopeplas still dotted many of the canyon juniper bushes while Gnatcatchers flitted around in the understory.



The creek continued to swell with runoff and the cloud cover made for a very pleasant walk, enhanced by not lugging around heavy camera gear. That nicety was shattered though, when we looked up into one of the many Arizona sycamores and saw a large mass of sticks. Not only was it a nest, but there was the single silhouette of a raptor chick sitting pretty. Alas, it was mostly obscured when I later returned with the lens.
Which species was it, Zone-tailed or Common Black Hawk? This was a matter of no small discussion, a matter that has still not been fully resolved.



As we were walking along the road maybe one hundred feet up from the nest, a Common Black Hawk spooked from a sycamore and made a beeline towards the nest area. At the time, this seemed to confirm that the nest was Black Hawk property, but that wouldn't be the end of the story.
After we were treated to calling Cassin's Kingbirds, who were also prone to bouts of aerial bellicosity as they staked out their respective domains, the very loud, very recognizable shriek of Zone-tailed Hawk wafted through the canyon.

Though these Hawks seem to prefer canyon walls for perching and hunting, they also hang out and nest in riparian areas, particularly in cottonwood trees or sycamores. In addition to the two birds we saw on the rocky escarpment, there was also an individual bird calling not much farther down the road. 

The presence of these three raucous Zonies, all relatively close to the nest, made us rethink the site as that of a Blackhawk chick--it just seemed dangerous and impractical from the point of view of prospective Blackhawk parents. That being said, the Zonies never came near the nest, nor even crossed over from the opposite side of the Old Beeline Highway. Who knows...

It proved to be a very good day for raptors, and not only because we found our two target Hawks. We heard and saw multiple Cooper's Hawks, and even a single Sharp-shinned Hawk--identified in part by its distressed flight call and wingbeats--which is a pretty rare find in the area during late July.

There was a Red-tail and plenty of Turkey Vultures (of course), but the Cooper's were unusually Cooperative. The bird shown below was perched on the side of the road, between us and the car, but let us approach from a hundred feet or so until we were even with the bird, opposite the road.

After a few minutes of observation it departed, showing some pretty haggard primaries on the tail. These moments, when the bird is stretched at take off, can show how proportionally short the accipiter's wings are, relative to the length of its body.

As things started to quiet down at Sunflower, we retraced our route on the Hwy-87 and stopped off at Mesquite Wash, still hoping for a Cuckoo photo-op and anything else that would be new for the day. A young Summer Tanager fit that bill, but the wash itself was pretty flooded and muddy, making the trek somewhat perilous and uncomfortable as the sun finally forced its way through the clouds.
We spent a fair portion of time trying to get good looks and photos of the numerous Blue Grosbeaks in the area, a bird which manages to deny me with the ol' stick-in-the-face trick every single time...



Our experience with the accomodating Cooper's was one-upped at Mesquite though, as we had close encounters with another adult Cooper's Hawk and its two whiny offspring, who were perfectly capable of flying and hunting for themselves, but still seemed determined to mooch off of their parent.

They had very little fear of people, and in fact we didn't spot the first bird until we were standing right underneath it. For the next hour or so that we spent exploring the muddy wash and surrounding bosque, the distant, plaintive calling of the two demanding young was a constant.

Really, these birds were being spoiled by their parent(s) and the relative bounty of the flooded riparian woodland. It's a sign of the times, or so I've read. Kids stay living at home with their parents later and later, not wanting to wade into the tumultuous and unpromising job market, saddled with economically debilitating student debt and an inability to catch one's own songbirds.

Then again, from the parents' perspective, who could say no to this face?

The Maine Event: Conglomeration of the Commons

It's a gloomy day here in Phoenix (finally!), with monsoon rain continuing through from the night before. Rather cruelly, these are some of the most special, cherished days in Phoenix, even as they impede outdoor activities. 

We had a similarly overcast day while in Maine a few weeks ago, when we were making a day trip from my in-law's house in New Hampshire. Gloomy weather is, of course, more expected there, and given our limited time it was also no reason to hold back on birding, so we went out slipping and sliding on the wet rocks of Seapoint Beach, with the promise of lobster shack lunch soon after.

Herring Gulls and Ring-billed Gulls were the most common birds, both foraging along the shore and floating out in the inlet. Being about two and a half weeks out of surgery, I was still pretty limpy and wimpy moving around the jetties, but this Spotted Sandpiper demonstrated how it's done (with style).

A few Common Terns added to seabird scene, as well as a couple Great Black-backed Gulls. All in all the diversity wasn't great, but this was the first time I'd seen Common Terns, their name not withstanding. Dainty and somewhat swallow-tailed, they're a particularly elegant member of the Tern family.

A small raft of Common Eiders provided another new bird, though they were not as playful nor as inspiring as the Terns. The largest duck in the Northern Hemisphere, according to Cornell, these were all females and/or immatures--not exactly the most colorful bunch.

Once they became more comfortable with me spying on them though, they resumed their diving, crabbing ways. Needless to say, with the family and I being in Maine already, this helped put everyone in the mood for some crustacean gestation.

A single Common Loon floated out in the inlet too. We had seen some beautiful Common Loons in their breeding plumage and with chicks on Granite Lake, back in New Hampshire, but unfortunately I did not have a camera at the time (which was also a good thing, as I was floating in the middle of the lake on pink pool noodles and the camera might've alarmed the Loons).

For a short while I optimistically tried to turn this into a Red-throated Loon, but it just wasn't there...

So the seascape had some fun birds but was a bit bleary. The crescent beach had plenty of seaside vegetation and shrubbery on the opposite side of the sand though, and while the Seaside Sparrows never sounded off nor came into view, there were plenty of Song Sparrows and Red-winged Blackbirds.
Exploring the paths through this overgrowth was an interesting experience. In some places the vegetation was high and thick enough such that none of the ocean breeze came through. It was thus quite sweltering and buggy in these tangles, rather unpleasant for people but perfect for other critters.

As I've mentioned before, birding in lush places like Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, or Maine, affords much better looks at birds like the Yellowthroat, in addition to the regional specialties. I never get nearly as close up, clear, or prolonged views of this otherwise common bird in Arizona, and it was very nice to finally get a satisfactory image, even with the overcast blur.

It was only recounting the birds and photos after the trip that I realized everything I photographed, including two new birds, had 'Common' in their name. Sometimes common can still be pretty cool, although I also might've picked up a common cold out there...