My thoughts of five hundred started at the end of November. By looking back a few posts on my blog here at the Bucephala Boys write up, that was a part of the start. The Barrow's Goldeneye was a year bird, and I wanted it on my 2019. More so than it being a boost to my goal, it is a freaking cool bird that I want to see every year.
 |
| Barrow's Goldeneye leading the flock |
Up next was the rare-in-Arizona Palm Warbler that showed up in the vicinity of the Butcher Jones Beach Recreation Site, which is part of the Lower Salt River Recreation Area in Maricopa County. The Palm Warbler behaves more like an American Pipit than an average Wood Warbler, and it is an interesting bird to observe. After looking for it once on an outing that wasn't a chase without any luck, I hoped that this instance would produce a different result. Other than the warbler, I knew that there were several Long-eared Owls in the vicinity. At the start of the day, the bird activity was a little quiet where the Palm Warbler was typically seen, and I went to look for the Long-eared Owls. Luckily, I found some of them before they flushed, and they gave me solid views. Freaking awesome.
After the Long-eared Owls, I started to focus on the Palm Warbler a lot more. With some patience and an hour later, I crossed paths with my target and enjoyed it for about ten minutes before I lost sight of it. It foraged on the ground a lot of the time or on the lower reaches of trees as it went along. True to the typical behavior of Palm Warbler, this bird constantly bobbed it's tail up and down.
After Butcher Jones and Saguaro Lake, I stopped at Fountain Hills Lake on my way home. I had one of the coolest sightings I have ever had with a Bald Eagle (see last post), and that was the highlight of the day. What I went for at Fountain Hills Lake was to look for a duck that I surprisingly hadn't seen yet in 2019, and that was Hooded Merganser. The lake is one of the best spots to see Hoodies in Arizona. During my walk around the lake I got to see plenty of them, before and after enjoying the close up Bald Eagle.
The Palm Warbler, Bald Eagle, Long-eared Owls, and Hooded Mergansers were all seen on the date of December 11th. It was really an awesome day to cram four epic birds into. On December 12th I was after my 497th bird of 2019, which was the Ruddy Ground-Dove. In the Buckeye/Palo Verde area, there is a kind woman who owns a farm and that farm has attracted impressive numbers of Ruddy Ground-Doves. Last year she had a lot of birds and kindly let dozens and dozens of birders come onto her farm to see the birds. She was telling me that the visitors ranged all over the world who pursued the birds. Recently, Caleb Strand and Mark Brogie went to her farm to discover that the birds had come back to her farm and this time they counted five of them. Ruddy Ground-Dove is a Mexican species, and they are most often observed in the southern half of Arizona in fall and winter. When I went to the farm to look for the birds, it took me awhile to find them, but I eventually did. The small doves were elusive at times, but a few of them gave me solid chances to shoot photographs.
 |
| Ruddy Ground-Doves and Inca Doves |
December 18th and 19th would be my last "birding days" off for 2019. Christmas was approaching fast, and so were plans that were made for the holiday. For these days I made plans with Caleb Strand and Jared Conaway to go on a birding trip to southern California. The agenda was to spend most of the first day at the Salton Sea and then the following day in the San Diego area. From the start, one of the awesome factors of going on this trip was the fact that a very rare duck called a Garganey was being seen reliably at the Salton Sea. Birders were getting great looks at this bird, and we hoped that it would result in a similar story for us too. Garganey is a species that that breeds throughout much of Europe and in East Asia, and it is completely migratory. It's whole population moves to winter in south Africa, India, Bangladesh, and Australasia. In North America, the Garganey is considered casual and birds that show up are pursued by many birders. I believe this was about the 10th or 11th Garganey for California if I remember right in what Caleb said, and in the past, Arizona has had a single accepted record of Garganey. For the three of us, it would be a highly wanted life bird.
On December 18th, Caleb and I picked up Jared super early, and we got to Salton Sea early. Our first stop was at a farm area that had a lot of ponds. Caleb got to see a Black-headed Gull at the location earlier this year, and we were hoping that the gull would be around as it had wintered in the Salton Sea area for several consecutive winters. We didn't have any unusual gulls in the farm, and we went to the Salton Sea Headquarters and Campground to where the Garganey was being seen. Pulling up, we saw right away that there were an impressive array of birds on the water. The headquarters featured a small lake/pond that was made from an inflow of the Sea, and this location attracts A LOT of birds. Bonaparte's Gulls were everywhere when we pulled up. Caleb estimated over a thousand of them.
 |
| Garganey in front of Blue-winged Teal |
 |
| Garganey with Bonaparte's Gull and Blue-winged Teal |
 |
| Garganey with Blue-winged Teal pair |
 |
| Caleb and Jared's thumbs up to a successful lifer chase |
Other than the Garganey, a few other cool ducks were present at the Salton Sea too among a diversity of waterbirds. One was a Eurasian Wigeon that was too far away to be photographed. The wigeon brought me to 499 year birds. Surf and Black Scoters were also present near the Garganey, and they are always fun to see.
 |
| Surf Scoters and Black Scoter joining Blue-winged Teal and Bonaparte's Gull |
 |
| Scoters and Bonies in flight |
After birding a few places along the Salton Sea, we decided to head for San Diego County to bird in higher elevation forests within the Laguna Mountains. The Lagunas would put me over my 500 goal easily. The pine and oak woodlands that we birded in a recreation site gave me four year birds alone: Nuttall's Woodpecker was the knock-on-wood for 500, Oak Titmouse, Purple Finch, and heard only of Mountain Quail. After birding an ugly Salton Sea, pine forest was a welcome addition to the day.
 |
| crappy shot of Purple Finch |
 |
| Nuttall's Woodpecker |
We stayed in San Diego near the coast, and on December 19th, we spent an entire day birding in San Diego County near the coast. There were many birds to be seen, and our first stop was La Jolla Point. This is an awesome area for scanning the ocean and finding sea birds from shore. In about two hours of scanning, we didn't have anything rare, but hundreds of Black-vented Shearwaters were noteworthy while we scanned from the point. They would be another year bird for me. This species of shearwater is one of the only shearwaters that can often be seen from shore. The birds were too far out for photographs, but it was fun to see California Sea Lions, nearby Allen's Hummingbirds, Black Turnstones, and a handful of waterbirds flying over the ocean waters.
A rare bird chase took us away from the coast to search for rare-in-the-west Rusty Blackbird. It was hanging out at a park alongside the San Diego River with other blackbirds. We pulled up and scanned some lawns and baseball fields within the park and it didn't take long for Caleb to pick the bird out. Rusty Blackbird is a bird that I haven't enjoyed often enough, and this bird allowed me to get the best looks and photographs that I have gotten of the species. Most birds don't look they're best when they are in basic plumage, but the Rusty Blackbird is certainly an exception.
Close up views of Brewer's Blackbird and Red-breasted Nuthatch were also fun to obtain in stops we made throughout the day. We searched for two rarities that were in one spot without luck: Thick-billed Kingbird and Scissor-tailed Flycatcher.
Another place that we visited was the Tijuana River Open Space Reserve to look for some local land birds such as California Thrasher and California Gnatcatcher. In the beginning stretches of exploring this area, a Red-shouldered Hawk greeted us with an up close encounter.
Other than the Red-shouldered Hawk, all of the action turned out to be along Monument Road in the vicinity. This road had coastal chaparral along it typical to California, and it rose in elevation to give neat views of the ocean and surrounding area. During this walk, I was able to get my final three birds added to 2019: Golden-crowned Sparrow, California Gnatcatcher, and California Thrasher. The two California birds were especially enjoyable, particularly the Gnatcatcher. It was my third observation of the species, and it was by far the best views and looks I have had. Another bird I enjoyed just as much as the California named birds was the Wrentit. A few of them gave us a show and they are a unique bird to North America that is always a pleasure to see.
This flock of Surf Scoters closed out the day in San Diego.
It was a fun birding trip with Caleb and Jared, and we had an assortment of different birds seen on the trip. Most of them aren't mentioned on this post. We all shared a Garganey lifer, and Jared had over twenty lifers for himself on the trip. Caleb is close to 600 in the United States, Jared is getting closer to 450, and I have reached 609. Fun freaking stuff.
As of now, I have recorded 508 bird species for myself in the year of 2019. It was a fun number to reach, and one that I didn't really care much about until the final few weeks of the year. It'll be the likely number I end with unless something crazy shows up to chase on the 31st. Birding wise, 2019 has been a productive year for me and there have been many highlights. Every year I like to write a recap and summary post of each year, and I plan to do so for 2019. Happy New Year!
