Once again for a third straight year, Gila County consumed much of my birding in 2019. The thought of getting new birds for the county and exploring places in it's region to learn more about it's unknown bird life always adds to my heart rate. In the spring, several Bendire's Thrashers were reported at a location called Peridot Mesa on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. Caleb Strand and I made the trek up into Peridot Mesa, which is an isolated, peaceful, and plateau-like island of grassland-like weeds, desert scrub, and phenomenal views of lower surroundings. While Bendire's Thrasher was our target on the Mesa, we found that there were was only a smaller patch of habitat that looked like it could potentially host the bird. Caleb and I did discuss what else the Mesa could attract, and one bird that Caleb mentioned was White-tailed Kite. When we started to realize that the Bendire's Thrasher report wasn't on the side of being a believable report, it didn't really matter because Caleb looked up to spy Gila County's first record of none other than, a White-tailed Kite! It was a crazy event, and we got to see something much better for Gila County than a Bendire's Thrasher. Maybe the mimic will find it's way onto my 2020 Gila explorations.
Two weeks were set aside in late April and earlier May to go to Texas, Louisiana, and New Mexico with Caleb, Joshua Smith, and David Tonnessen. The southern part of Texas with it's entire west-to-east length was our main focus. It would be my first time to Texas, and the number potential for life birds was off the charts. Texas hosts an incredible array of birds, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley has it's famous selection of ABA specialties. They really are famous alright, and the Lower Rio Grande is the only place in the United States where these specialty birds are seen. Despite the fact these birds were to me like a child's first visit to the candy store, the bird I wanted to see the most on the trip was the Swallow-tailed Kite. My mindset seemed weird when I actually got to Texas, but it held true for the trip. When we got to the Kite's range in eastern Texas, my eyes and brain were peeled. On one of the last days of the trip, Caleb looked up and saw several Swallow-tailed Kites flying over a clearing at dusk. It would be our one sighting of the epic bird on the trip. The looks were brief, the lighting was bad, but the looks were still epic. All it does is give me more excuses to go further back into the range of the Swallow-tailed Kite.
On the Texas trip, another bird that was right up there in the higher levels of excitement for me and every other birder making their first trip to south Texas was the Green Jay. These birds are noisy and travel together in family groups, just like other corvids in North America. However, they are a well-named bird and are a striking and brightly colored bird dominated by green. To simply put it, the Green Jay is eye candy. In our first birding stop in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, it didn't take us long to detect Green Jays audibly. My curiosity made me run after them, and I got my first ever looks at an individual in fading light. I was in disbelief that I saw a Green Jay. Throughout three days of birding the Lower Rio Grande, we would commonly hear the noisy calls of the birds and would more often have glimpses of them than great looks. Things changed when we went to one of the most productive places that is in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, which is the Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. The location was a massive place to bird, and some memorable features it has for birders are boardwalks and lookout towers. These structures put you above and level with the canopy of the Rio Grande Valley forest. I'll never forget when a Green Jay perched level with me for several minutes, and gave me a photographic souvenir to remind me of how great it is and birding the Rio Grande Valley is.
Tonto Creek is a great place for birding in Gila County. It runs for a distance with it's headquarters being just south of the Mogollon Rim and flowing all the way south into Roosevelt Lake. There are stretches of Tonto Creek that have incredible stands of cottonwood and willow riparian forest. My favorite spot to bird along the creek is at the stretch that is adjacent to Bar X Crossing Road next door to the small town of Tonto Basin. It's a thick riparian jungle, and is one of my favorite places to bird in Gila County. What has always caught my attention most about it is the potential that I feel that it has for eastern vagrants, especially warblers. Prior to the fall of 2019, I had gone to Bar X many times in pursuit of eastern warblers during fall migration. Despite many visits, the best I came up with was a female American Redstart. I would think to myself, "that's it??". American Redstart is a pretty good find, but I wanted to find a much more rare eastern warbler at this spot that I love as much as I do. It seemed like forever, but there's a first time for everything. An interesting call note had me scanning a mixed flock in October, and there was Gila County's first record of Black-throated Green Warbler. I screamed out loud in celebration, for Bar X Crossing at Tonto Creek finally had it's first really good warbler. And I haven't seen a good warbler in several visits since!
The Hill Country is a special region to go to when adventuring and birding in Texas. It is also the best place in the United States to see the range-limited Black-capped Vireo. These small vireos are found in shrubby habitat and are skulky and secretive. Getting clear views, let alone photographs, is a big challenge. When in the bird's right habitat, hearing one and catching a quick glimpse isn't an issue. On the Texas trip, my buddies and I had a bird singing within minutes after starting to bird. It didn't take long to get a quick view of the bird, who is freaking striking. Black-capped is the perfect name for this vireo, and that black cap really goes a long way as if darkness has finally found a way to glow. This initial Black-cap didn't give me a chance for a photograph, and due to taking the wrong trail at Lost Maples State Natural Area, I didn't have enough time to look for them there either. I was bummed out about not getting more looks and a photograph of the bird, as our plan on paper didn't have us birding in the Black-capped Vireo's habitat further. In the final days of the trip, the plan got awesomely altered, and on the trek back to Arizona, we drove though Black-capped habitat again. A road side stop with excellent habitat didn't take long for us to hear a bird singing. After a short wait I got on the bird, I got a good look at the bird, and I got a photograph of the bird. If borrowed time existed in birding, that is what this sequence was similar to.
I love major adventures, and the preparations and tasks people will attempt to bring different pursuits to completion. At Big Bend National Park in west Texas, Caleb, David, Josh and I were backpacking up into the Chisos Mountains for an overnight camping trip. Before the jaunt over to Big Bend, we stopped at a local grocery store in a small Texas town called Alpine. We bought the correct amount of supplies that we would need for such a trip. It wasn't till dark that we got to our destination after climbing high up into the Chisos Mountains for over five miles, where we would camp out at Boot Canyon. Oaks and conifers made up the canyon. Before our pursuit, we labeled ourselves to the public as hardcore birders who were chasing after a bird who has a very limited range in the United States, and the Chisos Mountains is really the one and only range where birders can see this bird in North America. "A what kinda Warbler?" some asked when we talked about the bird. When I woke up the next morning, I knew that this bird we spent the effort on hiking to would be worth it to go along with a handful of other birds. After seeing a fun vagrant in Slate-throated Redstart, Caleb called me down the canyon to where he heard and saw our target bird. I caught up, heard the song of it singing, and got my first look of it. The thought that ran through my mind was, 'I can't believe I'm looking at a Colima Warbler'. Throughout the morning, we would see a few of these range-restricted birds for the United States, and what fun it was. To have completed what is known as the "Colima Death March", is something I'm proud to say that I've done.
Birders love to look at birds, from common to mega-rare. It's fun for birders to follow up on rare bird reports and see the uncommon birds in an area on the side of what they usually see. When a mega-rarity shows up, birders from not only all over a state, but from all over a country will flock on in. January 9th provided an example of such excitement in Arizona when Linda Grant discovered Arizona's first White-throated Thrush near the base of Madera Canyon. This bird was the perfect example of a mega, and it brought in birders from all over the country. It's ABA ranked Code 4 gave it a big boost, and Arizona became the second state in the U.S. that it had been recorded in to go along with Texas. Usually a shy bird, the White-throated Thrush stayed for a long time and allowed hundreds of birders to enjoy it's presence. With sickness and other commitments sidelining me from seeing this Mexican vagrant for some time, I felt lucky that it was present when I went to witness it's action on January 30th. I enjoyed the White-throated Thrush to the extent that I wrote a detailed blog post on it on this blog, and for the first time, I had thirty other birders co-write it with me, including Linda. The variety of things birders will say about the fun of a mega-rarity is memorable! What was also crazy was that a second White-throated Thrush showed up in a Tucson yard later in 2019...
When birders go on long road trips with a big cast of birds they want to see, successful searches can bring out the best in all of us. Once again, I'm talking about the birding trip to the massive state of Texas. Josh, David, Caleb, and I all had big lists of birds we were hoping to see. Every life bird was awesome, but some of them stood out more than others. One bird that really had us going was Swainson's Warbler. Towards the latter stretch of our trip, we had covered most of the ground that we would cover heading east, before we'd have to retrace all the way back west. The ninth day of our trip was coming to a close, and we were standing along a wooded creek looking for the reclusive Swainson's Warbler. Time of day was not on our side, and as the day was quickly fading, so was bird activity. Our eyes-peeled-hopes of getting a Swainson's was something that wasn't going anywhere, and we believed we'd find one. Gore Store Road's intersection with Beech Creek in eastern Texas was where we were. A call note emerged from dense vegetation and we knew it was our target. The four of us stood near the call and we were lined up along Beech Creek. Caleb got on an overhanging log over the creek and played something that was enticing to the warbler. The Swainson's finally emerged and came right out into the open for a half-minute, and gave us the views anyone would ask for. It was the top celebratory bird of the trip, and it was one we worked hard for and drove a long way to try for. On top of that, it was BOTH David and my 50th wood warbler species for the United States-freaking awesome. I love wood warblers, and after the Swainson's addition the three regularly-occurring warblers I'd need for the United States were Worm-eating, Connecticut, and Cape May Warblers.
Mega-rarities from Asia and other places in the Old World excite me more than Mexican vagrants when I get the chances to chase them. In January, Caleb and I had an expedition planned to bird the Salton Sea for two days. When we met up to go on the trip, Caleb mentioned going to Orange County for one of the days instead to chase a Red-flanked Bluetail that had shown up in the garden of a Los Angeles library. After some ocean birding, we went to the library when it opened. The Red-flanked Bluetail, an Asian songbird in the family of Chats and Old World Flycatchers, would be the first bird of it's family for Caleb and me if we could land it. It was also California's third record of the species, but yet the first chase-able bird for the state. Crowds of birders came from all over the United States to see the bird, who was turning out to be cooperative for most. When it was our turn, the Bluetail remained cooperative. It was a fun bird to watch that had an interesting behavior of foraging on the ground as well as a variety of heights in trees. Caleb came up with a good description that it seemed like a hybrid mix of a Hermit Thrush and an Empid Flycatcher. We enjoyed this mega-rarity up close for about two hours, and the time went by fast. The Bluetail also had a thrill of using a combination of plants, trees, and human-made structures for it's foraging efforts. What a cool bird.
As a year in birding goes along, I figure out where I want to go for trips and birds that I decide to go for along the way. Others I decide on well in advance. In 2019, I made it a point that I wanted to go on another pelagic trip after my last and only still-to-date pelagic trip I went on off of San Diego in 2015. I teamed up with Gordon Karre and we decided to sign up for one of Debi Shearwater's trips for her last year of doing famous ocean birding tours. A big effort that we put in to go and time and money spent resulted in our trip getting cancelled on the day of when Debi announced to us that the weather was violent. It was awful. One of the things I was looking forward to most was to study Jaegers on the trip. During the September time frame, Debi's tours would usually see Long-tailed, Pomarine, and Parasitic Jaegers, as well as South Polar Skua. After the California trip, Mary McSparen found a young Long-tailed Jaeger while riding her boat at Lake Pleasant on the border of Maricopa and Yavapai Counties. The bird made dozens of birders search and search. For me, it was a frustrating ride. I scanned for the Jaeger for a LONG time. On my 5th attempt of a combined 18 hours, I finally got to see it in fading light. I was stoked at sight of the Jaeger, but I wanted to see more of it because it was a lifer. The next day, I had the right crowd of birders with me. While the Jaeger was very distant on Lake Pleasant, I asked fellow birders Steve Hosmer, Harold Bond, and Terry West if they'd like to get closer to the Jaeger by renting a boat for an hour and splitting the cost of the rental four ways. They quickly agreed, and we rented a boat. Even though I didn't get to see the quantity of Jaegers I wanted to see on a Shearwater pelagic, the quality of a lifer Long-tailed Jaeger in my home county of Maricopa was extremely powerful. The bird "met us" as we drove the boat in it's direction, and it gave us the views that we craved.
This post might sound like it's all over the place. Actually, it is all over the place. In the hobby of birding, different birds take us to different places every year. When talking about favorites, they can come from a variety of locations. Every year, I like to write a summary recap of each year in my birding. This is my recap for 2019, and what I started the post off with was my top ten birds of the year. From ten to one in a countdown, the ten, once again, went White-tailed Kite, Swallow-tailed Kite, Green Jay, Black-throated Green-Warbler, Black-capped Vireo, Colima Warbler, White-throated Thrush, Swainson's Warbler, Red-flanked Bluetail, and Long-tailed Jaeger. For that top ten to be my top ten, it meant that I had a lot of different trips and goals during the year. It turned out to be one of my most productive years for birding. For a second straight year, the year's top bird was a first-year Jaeger up close and personal in Arizona. Besides this Top Ten, there were many highlights and other stories from 2019. I will share some more of them. With me writing this summary as well as past summaries, I will say that this Top Ten was the hardest to think of, and there are many epic birds (probably twenty more species), that deserve honorable mention or a place in the ten for 2019.
2019 was a year full of highlights. The reel consisted of a lot-from exploring loads of new locations that I have never explored before, seeing birds I have seen before in ways I haven't seen them, and of course the major lifers. In the latter mentioned, I call it the Major Lifer Highlights. There are four categories or lists that I've been thrilled to add to, and those lists are in actual order of importance: Overall Lifers, Maricopa County Lifers, Gila County Lifers, and Overall Arizona lifers. As my overall life list has grown above 600 species, every new life bird is a fun accomplishment. Maricopa County is my home county and is my favorite county to list in. I've birded Maricopa a lot. I still love it, but gosh I've birded it a lot. Gila County, (my newest category to Major Lifers) is now my favorite county to bird in, but because it is a two hour drive away for me at the very minimum, I can't access it easily. Getting new birds on a state level in Arizona is always fun, but it isn't prioritized nearly as high as the other categories. I became a birder in 2000, and up until 2009, I had never met or birded with another person. My birding was solo and most of it came from under-birded areas of Apache County's White Mountains. Birding solo for all of that time made me appreciate birds the way I do now, as I've always looked at birding as a journey in life. In 2009, things changed and I joined the Arizona birding community and have met plenty of great people and friends who are awesome birders. It was the first year I became serious about birding and made it my dominant hobby in my life, and I haven't looked back. Other birders have made me a much better birder than I ever was on my own, and I am thankful to them for it. When I got into Gila County birding in 2017, one of Arizona's most under-birded counties, I've birded it solo for a large percentage of my trips. It's brought me back to what I appreciated about my first eight years of birding when I'd be exploring areas alone. At times, I've had company in Gila County and it's been awesome. The Gila County interest of mine has had one of the most positive effects in my life, and it's always something that I look forward to whenever I get the chance to go. It reminds me of the times when I first started birding, only on a much more advanced level. From 2000 to 2008, I didn't know much. And now, I still have loads to learn. With the combination of my birding years from looking back at the start of it all in that millennium year, I'm glad to say that I have had a well rounded assortment of experiences from my first 19 years.
I can't say where 2019 ranks among my other years of birding. I wouldn't call it my favorite, but it was certainly one of the most impactful years in my "birding career". Birding in Texas was my biggest trip of 2019, and was my main vacation. Several key trips to California, dissecting parts of Gila County, and of course, seeing a variety of birds in my home state of Arizona added to it all. For me, the Texas trip gave me 353 species in less than two weeks, and it outnumbered my species total for all of Arizona in 2019. And for the first time in a birding year, I recorded over 500 species in the United States for one year.
On January 1st in 2019, the first major highlight was a lifer in a Black Rosy-Finch. I went up to northern Arizona with Caleb, Jeff, and Jared. It was freezing cold, but Rosy-Finches are worth it!
The last major highlight of 2019 came while I was on a trip to the Salton Sea with Jared and Caleb. We successfully chased a duck that was a life bird for all three of us. The Garganey!
The differences between birds and locations of the year's first and last major highlights were major. Rosy-Finch versus Duck. Snow mountains versus a gigantic swamp. A few species of birds on a mountain versus a pond full of a variety of different birds. There are plenty of stories from in between these two birds, here are a few more of them.
Remember the Black Rosy-Finch I just mentioned? Well, there were sixty of them and they also had a few Gray-crowned Rosy-finches mixed in with them, which was also a lifer. Jeff's balancing act that took forever after he tripped on the icy snow without ever falling was hilarious enough that it delayed our clinching looks at the Finches for a minute-true evidence that something is freaking funny enough to not look at a life bird right away.
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| Black and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches |
In 2002, I saw a California Condor at the Grand Canyon. For a long time, they weren't countable according to American Birding Association listing standards. Once Condors bred in the wild, they became countable on sightings starting in 2003 and after. It had been years since I missed the cutoff by a year, but Day One of 2019 also had California Condor on the agenda. Finally!
In Gila County, a flock of White-throated Swifts flew in low and close for Mark Brogie and me. These views were the best I have had of a swift.
In 2016, I got to see all 19 owls that breed in the United States in an owl big year. My biggest helper was Josh Wallestad. In 2019, I got to help him get his final owl along with Gordon and Caleb, the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. A great year for Josh to get his 19th owl!
The Scissor-tailed Flycatcher is an elegant bird. It's a bird that I've chased several times in Arizona without any luck. When we got to Texas, we saw dozens upon dozens of them. And I didn't tire of them, they are that cool...
I'll never forget the climb and hustle up a path into the Texas Hill Country when I was following the song trail of my first Golden-cheeked Warbler, and it was great when I reached the end of the trail.
Arizona's first Ringed Kingfisher showed up in 2019. I chased it twice, and both times, I went without luck. Texas was the remedy for the miss in Arizona, as the Rio Grande Valley is the prime range in the United States for Ringed Kingfisher. We detected a few of the Kingfishers, and even though this bird was distant to photographs, the scope views and experience were hard to beat.
And the rest of those classic Lower Rio Grande Valley birds, they were sure a lot of fun!
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| Morrelet's Seedeater |
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| Long-billed Thrasher |
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| Plain Chachalaca |
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| Buff-bellied Hummingbird |
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| Altamira Oriole |
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| Common Pauraque |
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| Great Kiskadee |
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| Olive Sparrow |
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| White-tipped Dove |
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| Clay-colored Thrush |
David and Josh also found quite the rarity and an epic Wood Warbler for the United States, a Gray-crowned Yellowthroat. This bird was on the Mexico side of the Rio Grande River but did cross into Texas a few times. It was our rarest bird of the trip.
In the Rio Grande, we also crossed paths with this Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. It's the second subspecies I've seen of this bird, different from the Cactus subspecies in Arizona. This one is a brighter ferruginous, and is better than the Arizona ones. For me, owls still steal the show.
These are the "McCall's" subspecies of Eastern Screech-Owl, also in south Texas.
The Aplomado Falcon is one that is been re-established in southern Texas. After getting looks at a pair of Falcons, the others went to look for some Texas Botteri's Sparrows. Once I got a look at these birds, I stayed put and asked to be picked up on the way out. It was a good decision, because I got to get extremely close to this gorgeous raptor.
South Padre Island was an excellent location for birding in Texas. Passerine migrants were everywhere, and they included my lifers of Philadelphia Vireo and Kentucky Warbler.
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| Blackpoll Warbler |
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| Blackburnian Warbler |
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| Scarlet Tanager |
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| Philadelphia Vireo |
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| Kentucky Warbler |
At a place called Anahuac Wildlife Refuge in east Texas, I lifered on the Seaside Sparrow. With that lifer, the only regularly occurring bird in North America I need from the sparrow family is the Saltmarsh Sparrow.
Bolivar Flats Shorebird Sanctuary was a spot in eastern Texas that held an abundance of waterbirds along the Gulf Coast. Terns and shorebirds were abundant, and while birding in the namesake "Shorebird" sanctuary, it was a good story to end up getting three different life birds from the shorebird family.
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| Piping Plover |
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| Wilson's Plover |
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| Buff-breasted Sandpiper |
Texas almost had too much. We caught up with a few Whooping Cranes too who had lingered longer than usual before their migration northward to Canada. What was epic about this sighting to me was that these birds are part of the self-sustaining population, while others are re-introduced.
The Brown-headed Nuthatch became my 600th lifebird, and soon after...
The Red-cockaded Woodpecker completed my woodpecker list for the United States.
Louisiana was stepped into for about a day, and it was fun to bird in a new state. Among the 128 species that we recorded, my favorite was this King Rail who emerged while we were looking at a beaver-like rodent called the Nutria.
Once back in Arizona and for the summer, high elevation Gila County camping trips took over. The highlight was this pair of Spotted Owls.
A California trip with Gordon resulted in our pelagic trip with Debi Shearwater being cancelled. The trip was still fun. Out of five lifers, they were highlighted by two different Ruffs and the California-endemic Yellow-billed Magpie.
After getting two Ruffs in California, it was remarkable to get one in Arizona. This is truly an awesome shorebird, and the downside was that it was in Yuma County.
This Caleb Strand-found Sprague's Pipit was one of twenty Gila County lifers I got in 2019. It was a remarkable year for birding in the Gila, and this Pipit was found on an epic Gila expedition that Felipe, Caleb, and I planned.
A Jared-found Baird's Sparrow and Caleb-found Hooded Warbler highlighted a trip the three of us took to the mysterious Greenlee County. There are many many many many many birds that still need to be unlocked in Greenlee, kinda like all the dragons in Spyro the Dragon.
The Fountain Hills Bald Eagle was one of the coolest sequences of the year.
And there's the save your favorite bird for last. The Northern Goshawk showed up twice this year, and it always comes at the right time!
There were many more awesome highlights from 2019 that I didn't include, but I in a recap post things will be more brief. By looking at the blog archives back into 2019, everything is described in a much longer story on past posts with more detailed stories. I don't know what goals I have yet for 2020, but at this time next year, I hope to have another set of stories to tell about birding. In the lists below, they show all of the lifers that I got in the four categories that I love to add to. Every addition was fun and great, and thank you to everyone who shared these birds with with me!
2019's Major Lifer Highlights
Overall Lifers: Black Rosy-Finch, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, California Condor, Red-flanked Bluetail, Pacific Golden-Plover, American Oystercatcher, White-throated Thrush, Cave Swallow, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, Black-crested Titmouse, Golden-fronted Woodpecker, Colima Warbler, Black-capped Vireo, Blue-headed Vireo, White-eyed Vireo, White-tipped Dove, Carolina Chickadee, Olive Sparrow, Golden-cheeked Warbler, Northern Bobwhite, White-tailed Hawk, Plain Chachalaca, Red-billed Pigeon, Great Kiskadee, Couch's Kingbird, Green Jay, Long-billed Thrasher, Clay-colored Thrush, Altamira Oriole, Morelet's Seedeater, Common Pauraque, Ringed Kingfisher, Audubon's Oriole, Buff-bellied Hummingbird, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Green Parakeet, Mottled Duck, Gray-crowned Yellowthroat, Aplomado Falcon, Clapper Rail, Sandwich Tern, Philadelphia Vireo, Kentucky Warbler, Tufted Titmouse, King Rail, Seaside Sparrow, Boat-tailed Grackle, Wilson's Plover, Piping Plover, Buff-breasted Sandpiper, Swainson's Warbler, Swallow-tailed Kite, Chuck-will's-widow, Red-cockaded Woodpecker, Brown-headed Nuthatch, Bachman's Sparrow, Fish Crow, Ruff, Yellow-billed Magpie, Common Murre, Marbled Murrelet, Pigeon Guillemot, Long-tailed Jaeger, Garganey. 64 SPECIES TOTAL
Maricopa County Lifers: Mexican Whip-poor-will, Long-tailed Jaeger. 2 SPECIES TOTAL
Gila County Lifers: Cackling Goose, Sagebrush Sparrow, Long-eared Owl, White-tailed Kite, Harris's Sparrow, Cave Swallow, Black Vulture, Laughing Gull, Gray Catbird, Lesser Yellowlegs, Roseate Spoonbill, Black-throated Green-Warbler, Black Scoter, White-winged Scoter, Ross's Goose, Lesser Black-backed Gull, Northern Goshawk, Sprague's Pipit, Scaled Quail, Dunlin. 20 SPECIES TOTAL
Arizona Lifers: Black Rosy-Finch, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, California Condor, White-throated Thrush, Cave Swallow, Pacific Golden-Plover, Laughing Gull, Long-tailed Jaeger, Ruff. 9 SPECIES TOTAL
