What Can Happen In A Week Of Birding: Part 2

After the excitement with the Northern Jacana, I knew that it was a good way to kick off my "Friday" and prepare for my "weekend" of having Thursday and Friday off, which was September 10th and 11th, 2020.  I planned to go birding in the first half of the day and wanted to be home earlier in the afternoon.  On the 10th, I opted for Phon D. Sutton and Granite Reef Recreation Sites of the Lower Salt River.  On the 11th, I birded Seven Springs Wash and Camp Creek.  The mornings were fun but didn't have anything too noteworthy.  The Salt River locations were loaded with birds, especially Granite Reef.  At Granite Reef I had close to 70 species right about noon-time, which included Black-and-white Warbler, Dickcissel, Wood Duck, and this showy Painted Redstart.

When I got back from the Seven Springs/Camp Creek area on September 11th, reports came into the birding community from Jennie McFarland and Richard Fray that Jennie had found three Roseate Spoonbills at the Glendale Recharge Ponds.  I knew I wouldn't mind seeing these awesome birds, and it's only a ten minute drive from my home in Peoria to the ponds.  When I got there I joined Caleb, Jeff, Levi, Louis, and Pierre.  We all enjoyed the Spoonbills, and we also looked for birds in other five ponds. 

Then, something really awesome happened for my Maricopa County birding, and everyone else's Maricopa County birding.  Caleb spied a Common Nighthawk flying over the basin, and it foraged and dove down at prey a few times.  In Maricopa County, Common Nighthawk isn't "Common" at all.  Back in the day, I had my first Common Nighthawk sighting near my Grandfather's house in mid-November of 2002.  We were walking through the neighborhood, and I flushed a bird that I described as having, "boomerang shape wings with white bars near the end of the wing".  I also noted the bird giving a loud call, and that call stuck with me.  When I got home, I listened to Common Nighthawk calls and it was the match.  As time went on, I realized that a Common Nighthawk in November is freaking rare.  I know I had a nighthawk, but could a Lesser Nighthawk pull something off that is loud like a Common on rare occasions?  In recent days, the record has had me wondering if I really saw that bird, even though I identified it right.  When Caleb spied this Common Nighthawk while we were Spoonbill watching, it became the first Common Nighthawk documented in Maricopa County by photograph.  We were all stoked at the sighting.  With Common Nighthawks in visual comparison to Lesser Nighthawks, they have the white bar further down on the wing and closer to the wrist than Lesser does, a tern-like flight, and darker primaries.  We watched the bird for about a minute before it went off.  What a huge highlight and bird it was for me, thank you Caleb!

The Common Nighthawk was one that turned out to be reliable.  As I write this now, it has been present and chasable at Glendale for a week now.  Birders have been finding it in the evening and early morning.  On September 12th, I was driving home from work and was planning to go grocery shopping and then spend the rest of the day at home.  When I was about to get to the store, Caleb texted me saying, "Chris Benesh has a Canada Warbler at Gilbert Water Ranch".  I forgot about everything else and took a 45 minute drive to Gilbert to for a bird chase.  In Arizona, Canada Warbler is a very rare bird.  Really freaking rare.  Once getting to Gilbert, I made my way to the spot that Benesh had indicated where the warbler was.  There were already plenty of birders there, including Chris and Holly Thomas.  Holly was the one who identified it first, and she and Chris had the local birding community in a search after their awesome find.  Despite many many pairs of eyes looking for the Canada Warbler, it wasn't to be re-found for the rest of the day.  Caleb got there and had two shorebirds flying around while calling.  He felt like they were Buff-breasted Sandpipers.  However, Chrissy Smith had an awesome detection when she was birding around and she found an Eastern Kingbird in Pond 5 of the ranch.  Many birders flocked over to see the Kingbird.  This was only the second time I've seen this species in Maricopa County (as well as in Arizona), and it was fun to see it and watch it forage alongside a Western Kingbird.

September 13th was a day that birders were hoping the Canada Warbler would be re-found.  It is one that is a very challenging statebird to land.  Troy Corman was saying that in his years of birding Arizona, he has never been able to get a Canada Warbler in Arizona.  Ronnie and Caleb were teaming up, and would be at Gilbert.  Scads of birders were there for the day, and the Eastern Kingbird was a big reason for the turnout.  Luckily, Caleb worked up some magic and relocated the Canada Warbler!  It was along the same path in between ponds 3 and 4 of Water Ranch.  I was already prepared to chase the bird after work, and 1 P.M. couldn't have come around sooner.  At about 1:45 when I was pulling up to the ranch, birder Alex Grant had relocated the Canada Warbler along the path between ponds 4 and 5.  I was hoping that this would be an easier spot to see the bird.  In the previous and limited viewing haunts of this Canada Warbler, the vegetation was dense and the bird would be seen with quick, fleeting glimpses.  Earlier in the morning, many were able to see it, but not many were able to photograph it.  I walked up to the new spot and there was a crowd of about 15 birders there.  Luckily, it had been seen about 5 minutes before I got there.  After about 5 more minutes of waiting, I heard the phrase I wanted to hear that goes, "here it is".  I got over to the spot where it was being pointed out and there it was, my first Arizona Canada Warbler, and my 396th bird for Maricopa County!

Canada Warbler is a bird I've dreamed about getting for Maricopa County for a long time, and of course for Arizona as a whole too.  It's one that doesn't usually stick for very long once discovered, and many birders at Gilbert Water Ranch on the 13th got to see this bird and it stuck around for several more days to come.  It ended up being obliging a few times while I was there watching it, and it would behave well in the following days for more birders to get awesome views.  When it was found earlier in the day, I thought it was going to be the elusive bird that it was as Holly and Chris found it. 

It was fun to run into many birders while viewing the Canada Warbler and searching for the Canada Warbler.  After the fun, I realized the fun was only getting started.  I was off of work for three days from September 14th through September 16th.  Caleb and I had conversations at Gilbert about birding, and once I finished up with viewing the Canada Warbler, we made plans to bird together the following day.  After landing an epic rarity, we were feeling lucky.  We decided to go to the southwest part of Maricopa County to see if we could turn up any good birds at Arlington Wildlife Area, several ponds, and at Paloma Ranch.  When September 14th came, I picked up Caleb early and we went down to Arlington Wildlife Area.  We had vagrants on our mind, and Field Sparrow was one of them as we knew it hasn't shown up in Maricopa County yet.  We didn't find anything like that, but scanning a field I found a Roseate Spoonbill.  Can you find it in this picture???

Yeah, yeah, the picture is horrible, but we didn't need to hike out to that bird.  Arlington Wildlife Area is a birdy place, and it has great potential for a lot of birds.  I particularly like a tamarisk treeline that is inviting to migrants.  Caleb and I made our way south to Gila Bend after Arlington.  As we were just a few miles north of Gila Bend, something caught Caleb's attention.  "It was a light-looking Kingbird perched with Western Kingbirds", he said, "can you turn around, it might've been a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher".  I turned around and drove to the spot.  Caleb quickly scanned and said, "Yes!  Scissor-tailed Flycatcher!".

We both started screaming our heads off.  I couldn't believe that I was looking at a Maricopa County Scissor-tailed, and it became back-to-back days of getting lifers in Maricopa.  Scissor-tailed was #397.  Caleb and I got out and got closer to the bird before it flew further off and into farm fields.  We had great looks at it perched and in flight.  On another good note, this bird has entertained many other birds and has been present as I write since Caleb spied the bird.  Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is a bird I've kept in mind a lot for Maricopa County, and is one that I've dipped twice on in the county in the Arlington area.  Thank goodness Caleb was there to look out the window.

Caleb and I were stoked after the Scissor-tailed sighting.  A mesquite tree was along the road we were driving on.  Caleb said, "Tommy, I feel like I can go up to that mesquite tree and find a Philadelphia Vireo in it".  We were both pumped up.  After stopping at ponds and Paloma Ranch, the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher remained as our best highlight of the day.  To conclude our day, Caleb and I decided that we would bird together again on September 15th, which would be Caleb's 21st birthday.  Because of that, it was bound to be a great birding day, right?!.......  Look at this Barn Owl from Paloma Ranch, cool huh...

For his birthday on the 15th, Caleb opted to bird and hike south from the Kerkes Trailhead along the Hassayampa River.  This is a location that is in the town of Wickenburg, and is a few miles north of the famous Hassayampa River Preserve.  From the Kerkes Trailhead, the Hassayampa River has impressive stands of cottonwood and willow forest.  Caleb and I figured that it would hold something awesome and rare.  

At one of our first stops of the day, barely south from the trailhead, we stopped at a spot that had good bird activity and one that looked good for birds.   We started pishing and carefully watched for any birds to come in.  As we looked above us, we saw that a vireo flew in to a big cottonwood that we were standing in front of.  After a minute of more pishing, the vireo emerged and we immediately thought in the initial second that it was a Red-eyed Vireo.  And the bird was very bright...

Caleb got some better pictures than I did, and as the vireo foraged, he questioned why it wasn't the much more rare Yellow-green Vireo.  I looked at the picture above, and it according to the horrible picture I took, it almost resembled more of a Red-eyed Vireo face pattern.  But then I looked at the next picture, and the yellow sides on the bird were a bit striking for a Red-eyed Vireo. 

Looking at the bird closer live, it started to look more and more like a Yellow-green Vireo.  The bird came closer and gave Caleb and I some excellent views.  It was a Yellow-green Vireo, and became a life bird for both of us and an incredible find on Caleb's birthday.

You know what's incredible?!  The Hassayampa River corridor and some of the rarities it gets.  This was a welcome surprise and joined rarities like Green Kingfisher and Streak-backed Oriole.  It was only the second Yellow-green Vireo that's ever been found in Maricopa County, and the first was found by Gary Rosenberg at Paloma Ranch in the 1980's.  But here we were at the northwestern section of Maricopa County in September, documenting this remarkable bird.  Most records from Arizona out of the 14 previous records have come from southeastern Arizona in summer.  This bird is very similar Red-eyed Vireo in many ways, but it has a muted face pattern (one that's not sharply defined like a Red-eyed), a larger pale bill, and extensive yellow from it's underparts to it's ariculars.  Wow, this bird...

Once we reported it to the birding community, it got a good response, and Caleb got an outpour of birthday wishes.  For Caleb and I it was an epic lifebird.  For me personally, it was almost a nemesis.  It was a bird I had chased four times, and struck out each time.  Each of those times came with narrow misses:  one by a few minutes because I was photographing a Varied Bunting, one by a few seconds when I couldn't get on it while others in my birding party were a few feet luckier in their standing place than I was, one by 12 hours (it had been present all day the previous day, and it came right back the next day), and then another one by 15 minutes.  It was great to finally be on the lucky end!  Yellow-green Vireos can be quick wonders a lot of times when they do show up.  It was present when Caleb and I got back from a long hike further down into the Hassayampa River corridor.  Chrissy, Ryan, and Dara were able to get looks at it.  The following days resulted in empty searches by birders, although Erin and Derek Bowen probably saw the bird.

The Yellow-green Vireo's range consists of it breeding in tropical woodland and forest of Mexico and Central America.  Most United States records come from Texas, where it can be fairly reliable.  The bird winters in the Amazon.  Caleb's birthday was fun and had about 80 other species of birds, but none of them are really worth talking about after we found the Vireo!

 

 

 As I took Caleb home, we decided that we would bird again for a third straight day on September 16th.  After toggling back and fourth and back and fourth for a long time about where we should go, we decided to go to the Verde River to bird at the Box Bar and Needle Rock Recreation sites in northeast Maricopa County.  We felt like we were on a serious roll and wanted it to continue.  Box Bar and Needle Rock are two sites that are close to each other that have impressive riparian stands of willow and cottonwood.  We wanted to try our luck there.  Box Bar was our first stop, and would be our main stop of the day.  Birds were numerous to start things off.  I got to see my first Vaux's Swift of the year.  This Hermit Warbler was also cooperative.  

 

Caleb and I got to an impressive stretch along the Verde after awhile, and it was one were I found my first Red-eyed Vireo about five years ago.  We stood at this one spot that had a dense clump of awesome habitat.  A call note emerged from the surrounding habitat, and we looked up to see this.

The white undertail coverts, smoky gray upperparts, yellow underparts, eyering, and as it turned it's body to reveal a streaked "necklace" across it's breast it resulted in us finding our own Canada Warbler.  We were shocked again, and with this discovery, I couldn't help but burst out laughing after I got a better shot.

A few days prior to this, Caleb and I were both searching in high hopes of a Canada Warbler that we were chasing.  And then we find our own!  The Gilbert Water Ranch bird was one that had me freaking out and when I got to see it, I was relieved.  Funny enough, the Gilbert bird wasn't seen on the 16th, as the 15th was the last day it was seen.  Caleb and my Canada Warbler stuck around for a few days, and allowed several birders who missed the Gilbert bird, to get on this one!  Erin and Derek Bowen are big year birding Arizona, and they were in Texas while the Eastern Kingbird and Canada Warbler were at Gilbert.  Our Canada ended up being Erin's 400th Arizona year bird on September 18th.  After our first minute of watching the Canada, we lost it and came back to find it foraging around, where it gave us great views.  

 

I also enjoyed these two birds a lot, as always!

At Needle Rock, I spied this Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet in midst of a bird flock.  It was only my 3rd of this species for Maricopa County, and Caleb's second.

After the Ty, we headed back.  At about 3 P.M. that day on September 16th, I dropped Caleb off at his house.  It was almost exactly a week after I had arrived at Canoa Ranch at 3:15 P.M. on September 9th, a tad less than a week.  What exactly happened in that one week?

-Two lifers were obtained:  Northern Jacana and Yellow-green Vireo

-I got three Maricopa County lifers on three straight days:  Canada Warbler, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and Yellow-green Vireo (Caleb got those plus Eastern Kingbird, so he had four straight days)

-Common Nighthawk was practically in the Maricopa lifer department, it was incredible.

-Eastern Kingbird was a second time only in Maricopa County for me.

-Aside from these highlights, the birding was awesome too.  I don't wanna write too much.

Thanks Caleb for the fun days.  Speaking of Caleb, on September 17th, he had Maricopa County's first Chimney Swift fly through his yard, and he documented it well.  Today he had a Least Flycatcher at the famous Dateland vagrant trap in Yuma County.  

For me, Maricopa County life birds are a huge deal.  In three days, my list went from 395 to 398.  It was something I didn't see coming, and the action kept coming.  The Canada Warbler was good enough to last for awhile, and the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher and Yellow-green Vireo blew things up.  Getting our own Canada Warbler was freaking crazy.  As I'm getting close to hitting my dream of 400 birds for Maricopa County, I'm hoping it'll get here soon.  It may happen soon, but it may not happen for a long time.  Who knows, time will tell and birding hardcore will tell too.  Till next time...

Gila County: Two Epic Birds

My last post recapped three trips to Gila County that were extremely fun for the most part.  Each trip had it's exciting moments.  The biggest loss was finding the first Jaeger of my life with distant looks on San Carlos Lake.  It was even on the Gila County side of the lake, and in the right spot.  I goofed up my chances at getting better looks at the bird, and I couldn't relocate it after I initially saw it.  For some reason, I thought it was over, but...

A few days after, Babs Buck went out to the lake and saw the Jaeger.  She had rather distant photos of the bird floating on the water, but structure-wise, it did not look right for Pomarine Jaeger.  And by the views I saw and a field mark I saw of the bird while I did observe it, it wasn't a Long-tailed Jaeger either.  That would leave us with Parasitic Jaeger as our main option.  I felt a lot better about the sighting I had, and it got even better when Dave Stesjkal, Mark Stevenson, and Molly Pollock went out to San Carlos Lake and confirmed it was a Parasitic Jaeger with Dave's photos.  It was exciting that the bird was still at the lake the day before my next Gila County trip, and a day that I was planning to go to San Carlos Lake again.  The Parasitic Jaeger quickly became my biggest target of the trip.  I wanted extensive looks at it, and I wanted to watch it and study it up close.

Dave, Mark, and Molly also found two other birds that would be Gila lifers for me that I was targeting:  American Redstart at Tufa Stone Tank and a Pyrrhuloxia at the San Carlos Sewage Ponds.  On September 19th, 2018, I started my day off early at Tufa Stone Tank with that American Redstart as my main target.  I had 64 species at the Tank during this time, my first time in four visits that I got under 70 species.  Despite a good effort that I put in, I wasn't able to relocate the American Redstart.  But an interesting call note that I heard in some dense vegetation could have been it.  Regardless, birding Tufa Stone Tank was a good occasion once again.  Highlights included Dickcissel and the continuing Grasshopper Sparrow for a third straight week, as well as the Tank's first known Semipalmated Plover.

After Tufa, I made a quick stop at the San Carlos Sewage Ponds to try for the Pyrrhuloxia.  No luck on that.  I thought, "Oh no, 0 for 2 on targets.  That leaves me with one target left, the Parasitic Jaeger.  If I can go 1 for 3 with it being the bird I land, that completes the trip".  About an hour later while at San Carlos Lake, I was scanning the same stretch of water repeatedly where I first caught sight of the Jaeger the previous week.  I wasn't having luck there, and I decided to go to another viewpoint that was about a half mile west and one that would put me closer the the water.  As I got to the spot, I had a great view of the lake, and with my naked eye, I saw that wanted shape close to the shore.  Right when I got there and before I could even get out of my truck..

I can remember saying, "oh shoot" and I quickly got out to observe the Parasitic Jaeger.  After snapping a few photographs, the Jaeger, along with hundreds of other birds, started to take flight.  I started to snap away.

The Jaeger seemed to stay up awhile, and learning from that valuable lesson from the previous week, I made sure to get scope looks of the bird in flight, take some pictures of it in flight, and once it would land on the water, keep good tabs on it.  And it didn't take long for the Jaeger to start harassing the heck out of gulls.

After I had some good looks from where I was at of the bird as it was in flight and getting some distant flight photos, I saw that the Jaeger was swimming very regularly off of a spit of land that carried out onto the lake for a good distance.  I decided to take a hike down to the spot to get closer and in hopes of the Jaeger flying closer.  The bird stayed on the water for a long time, and drifted off from the Pinal County waters into the Gila County waters while I was watching it.  From this point, Gila County came in further from the north and took up more of the lake from this point, limiting Pinal County waters.  I loved this spot on the lake because of that :)

After about thirty minutes, I got bored with the bird distantly floating out on the water.  As I looked over some of my pictures, I looked back up to see that it had left.  I didn't know where it went.  In hopes that it would come back, I decided to stay put.  It wasn't long before some terns decided to come and feed right by the spit of land that I was on.  There was a Black Tern, two Common Terns, and a Forster's Tern.  All of them were coming in close to feed, and I got some shots of the Black Tern, as well as both of the Common Terns.  It was fun to watch, observe, and study them up close.

The terns stayed for a long time.  I decided to wait in case the Jaeger would come in and harass them.  It wasn't a bad idea that I had when I saw that Jaeger flying in.  I looked up to see it at just the right time to get lucky with this photograph.  This is Arizona, folks, not a pelagic.  Although, the weather outside was a little rainy and windy, making it Jaeger-like weather with wavy water and dim lighting..

With swift flight and direct movement, the Parasitic came in like a clever pirate, the one I was hoping to hang out with.  And he headed straight for the terns.

From there, Parasitic decided to chase one of the Common Terns.  The sounds that the tern screamed out during the chase sounded like a monkey being murdered.  On the Jaeger's side, all he was simply saying was "surrender your meal".  The chase was amazing to see up close and 50-60 feet away from me at times.

Finally, the tern realized that he wasn't going to enjoy his meal, and he dropped the small fish that he had caught.  And the Parasitic Jaeger got a meal that he didn't work for, but worked hard to steal.

After the Jaeger left, the terns continued to fish more.  And I decided to wait again to see if the Jaeger would come back after he drifted further out onto that water, but still in sight.  The process happened again, and it was once again fun to watch.  This time, the chase took place further away from me than the first time.

After about two hours standing on the spit water level with the lake, I decided to leave.  The Jaeger continued further west out onto the reservoir and out of sight, and I decided that that was a SIGHTING!  I also got lucky with a new ode, this Striped Saddlebags.

After San Carlos Lake, it started raining hard and would continue to rain hard for most of the rest of the day.  I couldn't really do much birding in the weather.  Although I wanted to bird more and more, the Jaeger left me content.  I went to Roosevelt Lake, where I would spend the night again and camp out.  The next day was forecasted to be clear and sunny, and I had some decisions to make of where to go birding.  And there were many things I wanted to do, but one idea was sticking with me much more than others.

I woke up early the next day on September 20th and headed north to the Mogollon Rim to bird the high country for awhile.  I wanted to make another attempt at American Three-toed Woodpecker for Gila County, something that I've done a few times already without success.  Something else I really wanted to do was listen to the Elk bugle up in the mountains there, something that I haven't enjoyed in at least four years.  Elk are one of my favorite animals, and hearing them bugle all over the place and in good quantity is remarkable.  And as I pulled up to my destination, Colcord Road, and started driving along it, Elk were heard everywhere.  Wow!

American Three-toed Woodpecker is a species that I love to see in Arizona.  The are generally a Rocky Mountain species in the west and in Arizona, they typically stay above the Mogollon Rim, which is the southern boundary of the Colorado Plateau.  On eBird, there are a few reports of them in Gila County in places just below the Rim (in which anywhere above the rim in this region is Coconino County).  Two of those three reports have come from the Colcord Road vicinity.  While I've tried about three times in this area, I've come up empty.  However, there is this road/path that follows a telephone pole line that I noticed on Google Maps.  It extended up towards the Rim, and went through some patches of burned forest (which ATTW thrives in).  I decided to give it a shot.  The road was pleasant and climbed up steeply in places, and it was beautiful.  Elk could be heard everywhere.  As I scanned the path before me, a female Elk was in sight.

Forest birds and the sounds of elk were everywhere.  Hairy Woodpeckers were quite common, and I chased down some pecking sounds that would reveal to be Hairy Woodpeckers.  I was checking anything that I could to land my hopeful target.  And then I heard it.  The loud, hollow, rather low and outbursting "pwwiiiieeek" call I have heard many times in the past of the American Three-toed Woodpecker!  It was distant, but as I cupped my hands to my ears, I could hear it much more clearly.  The bird talked for about 30 seconds.  I continued up the path further where there was more burned timber mixed with live timber.  I wasn't able to hear or find anymore Three-toeds past the original point I heard them.  A crack in the woods by me had me curious and as I paused I realized that a big bull elk was lurking in the woods.  He was a full grown Elk, one of those with six points on each antler.  Before I got to the spot he was at, I heard some powerful grunting bugles coming from an elk right in the area, so it had to have been him.  I knelt down to keep him from seeing me while enduring a swarm of mosquitoes, and the bull must have caught my scent.  Somehow, I watched him drift off and then completely dissapear without making a sound.  I was blown away at his intelligence when it came to escaping.

On my way back down, I heard the sound of the Three-toed Woopecker again, and this time it was closer to the trail.  After hearing it call, I worked my way into the woods where the sounds came from.  While moving in pursuit towards the calls, I heard tapping on wood.  It made it easy for me to track down.  And before I knew it, I had my first ever look at an American Three-toed Woodpecker in Gila County, my 298th bird in Gila!  It was fun to watch the woodpecker flake off bark in typical fashion, and Gila County joined Coconino, Greenlee, and Apache Counties for counties I have this woodpecker in in Arizona.  This bird was probably a fourth of a mile below the rim and Coconino County.

Another Three-toed Woodpecker called as I watched this one, giving me two of them.  And then one started drumming, which is always awesome to hear.  Working my way down the trail slowly I enjoyed more birds, including good looks at both Townsend's and Hermit Warblers.

For the remainder of the day, I hit some spots up around Payson and went to four spots at Roosevelt Lake.  Roosevelt didn't give me anything super exciting as further editions, but I enjoyed the continuing Reddish Egret, Red-necked Phalaropes, a large flock of American Avocets, American White Pelicans, and five Caspian Terns.

South side of Roosevelt Lake via Schoolhouse Point Rec. Area.  Salt River 

These two days were another great two days of birding in Gila County, resulting in another great trip.  The best highlight of the trip was by far the Jaeger, which is my bird of 2018 so far.  Before the trip, I decided to count it as Parasitic Jaeger based on my observations and I what I noted in the field as well as the fact that others refound it as a continuing bird.  While it would go down as my Gila County bird the previous week, it felt like I really officially got it as a lifer this trip.  What an incredible time it was enjoying it.  The American Three-toed Woodpeckers have now put me up to 298 species.  As I continue to bird the County, it keeps getting funner and funner.  What will my next few trips hold?