Two Recent Life Birds

I usually post stuff much sooner on this Blog when I obtain a life bird, but for these next two bird species, I am finally getting around to it.

The first one occurred on August 13th, 2016, when I was birding in the Cascades with Walker and Khanh on our Boreal Owl trip.  Outside of the Boreal Owl, the chance for other lifers was very high.  We had Harlequin Duck as a possibility for me, as well as three gamebirds:  Spruce Grouse, Sooty Grouse, and White-tailed Ptarmigan.  A trip to the nearby coast would also result in several alcid species.  We never got to the coast, we never looked for Ducks, and we didn't find any of the game birds despite looking for all three of them.  But this small Chestnut-backed Chickadee I did get.  The Chestnut-backed Chickadee ranges along coastal states from Alaska south to California.  It prefers dense coniferous forests as it's habitat.  While Khanh, Walker, and I were driving on a remote back road in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, we encountered a family group of these neat-looking chickadees.

The Chestnut-backed Chickadee is a very small bird, one of the smallest chickadees in North America.

Understandably so, many folks refer to the Chestnut-backed Chickadee as the best-looking of the North American Chickadees.  While this one is more dull than some, looking at pictures of crisp adult birds shows a striking chickadee.  I would say that I have to agree with that consensus.

The other lifer was an "armchair" lifer, which is also pretty fun.  An armchair lifer is when the AOU gets together and splits one species into two or more species.  Sometimes they lump a two or three species into one species, which really sucks.  But this time, they gave us a long awaited split when they split Western Scrub-Jay into two:  the Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay and the California Scrub-Jay.  As I have many locations nearby and throughout Arizona where I commonly see Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay, I have also seen the California Scrub-Jay a few times in California when I took my two trips to San Diego, one in 2014 and the other in 2015.  This split is one everyone figured would happen, and when it was done, the birding community loved the split.  These two Jays differ by looks, size, voice, and most importantly, ranges that don't overlap.  Since the split, one lucky birder in Yuma even found an Arizona first California Scrub-Jay in their yard!  While I have snapped off a few photographs of California Scrub-Jay when I was near San Diego, here is my best one.

My life list now numbers 528 species (All in ABA area, Lower 48), which the most recent three being California Scrub-Jay (first seen in 2014), Chestnut-backed Chickadee, and the epic Boreal Owl.

A Little More California

I usually don't do my posts out of order, but, there is a first time for everything.  I've had some great experiences in Arizona lately and I honestly wanted to get those posted.  I do have a good closing post to complete my trip to southern California with my buddy Gordon Karre.  After our epic Albatross graced pelagic trip on Saturday, May 16th, we would head home on Sunday, May 17th.  Our goal was to get up early and spend much of the day in the Laguna Mountains.  We didn't get up too early and got more sleep, which was needed.  A Denny's breakfast was in order before the trip back towards the Laguna Mountains which was also in the same direction as home.  Once we got to Denny's, we heard a loud racket in the sky and saw parrots flying overhead.  We knew that these parrots were a strange life bird for us, so we took time to look at them.  These parrots are the Red-crowned Parrots.  They have established populations in different cities in North America, and San Diego is one of those cities.  In other words, they are countable under American Birding Association standards.  They are like the Rosy-faced Lovebirds that we have in the Phoenix area.  Gordon and I spent about twenty minutes observing these parrots.

Tick, tick, tick.  Another life bird in the bag.  I didn't care about seeing these parrots at first, but after seeing a different parakeet that we both thought was a Red-crowned Parrot at first, it made me a little more competitive towards getting the Red-crowned Parrot as a lifer.  After eating Denny's for the third time on our trip, we headed towards the Laguna Mountains.  The Lagunas have an interesting habitat array, and we were heading up the Sunrise Highway and were soon in conifer and oak forest.  It was awesome!

Our main target up in the Lagunas was a new life bird for both of us, the Purple Finch.  When Gordon and I got into appropriate habitat, we heard one singing and weren't able to get visuals for some time.  Gordon said, "I would really hate to give this a tick on my list as a heard-only".  And I agreed with Gordon, and the Purple Finches continued to sing up high and out of sight.  Eventually, we heard more singing by a trailer park and came upon a foraging flock of birds within the trailer park.  We had perfect views and study opportunities of this new lifer.

The Purple Finch was fun to see as a lifer.  We also enjoyed the coastal form of Western Scrub-Jay at this elevation as well as Pygmy Nuthatches coming to the same water feature as did the Purple Finch.  A good variety of forest birds were present besides these ones mentioned.

After exploring the higher elevations of the Laguna Mountains, we ventured down lower into the chaparral and oak woodlands within the mountain range and birded along Kitchen Creek Road.  Gordon and I hiked down a trail in search of Wrentits and more.  We heard a few California Quail.  After awhile, things got fun and we got to see a few Wrentits up close, and it was the first time Gordon got to see them well and photograph one.  Nevertheless, it's a bird I don't get to see much of at all, so it was a very neat encounter.

Seeing the Wrentits along Kitchen Creek Road in the Laguna Mountains was a nice way to end a fantastic trip.  Thanks Gordon for a great time!