What's Up In Navajo!

On July 21st, I made my first real hardcore birding trek to Navajo County.  It was an exciting trip to go on, as I had never really done such in Navajo.  In my past birding history, I have had some awesome birding outings in Navajo County.  My family used to take camping trips to the well-known Fool Hollow Lake State Park, as well as Pinetop.  While I birded a lot, it was always within one location or two.  My parents now live in Pinetop, and whenever I go there I get to bird a few spots within Pinetop and Show Low.  And last year on a Gila County expedition with Felipe and Caleb during late fall, we dipped into Navajo County for a few hours.  We didn't bird it much, but Caleb found two Navajo County records in Trumpeter Swan and Baird's Sparrow.  For a county we didn't cover much at all, it was great to get two rarities like that.  As I entered Navajo on July 21st, I had 139 species on my list, and from there, I would try and cover a variety of habitats to increase the list and to get to know Navajo better.

The Vermilion Flycatcher is a good bird in Navajo County, and it is local in summer.  I took a photograph of the one above in a spot in the County that has lower elevations, and one that is a reliable spot for those Vermilion Flycatchers as well as species like Summer Tanager and Hooded Oriole.  While I birded at this spot, which was near Taylor, I was joined for some of the time by young birder John Wilson.  John is an awesome birder and he is really doing a great job in covering Navajo County.  He's also doing a Big Year.  John kindly took time out of his day to show me some spots and to give me tips on birding the Taylor and Holbrook Areas.  After this stop, I went to a place called Silver Creek Canyon.  John would show me a few more spots after that.  I knew Silver Creek would be good, especially since John found Yellow-billed Cuckoos there and especially since Caleb and John found Navajo County's first Northern Parula.  I went to the Canyon and it was awesome.  Steep cliffs are on both sides of the canyon, and without rock climbing gear, it is impossible to get down into the canyon.  It's filled with great riparian habitat.  During my 1.5 hour visit of walking along the canyon walls, I looked down into the canyon.  While I failed to detect the Northern Parula, I was stoked when I heard and then saw one of John's Yellow-billed Cuckoos.  It looks like this Cuckoo is gathering nesting material!

After Silver Creek, I went up to Holbrook and met up with John again.  John showed me around Navajo County's most productive birding spot, which is the Hidden Cove Golf Course in Holbrook.  This place is awesome, and the best spot in Hidden Cove is Blue Heron Lake, which is actually north of the golf course.  Michael O'Dell runs the lake and he is very kind to birders and lets them bird around the lake.  The lake is small, and it kinda reminds me of a mini Willcox.  It has good habitat for a variety of waterbirds, and it has good surrounding habitat for species like Scaled Quail.  John told me he has had Bendire's Thrasher in the vicinity before.  The lake also has surrounding vegetation that serves as a migrant trap, and some impressive vagrants in the songbird department have shown up too.  Right when John and I started birding the lake, there were a lot of birds to see.  It didn't take long to kick up a few Scaled Quail, which was a bird I really wanted to get for the region.  Scanning through shorebirds was fun and resulted in finding a Stilt Sandpiper, which was a life bird for John!

Western, Baird's and Stilt (far right) Sandpipers at Hidden Cove Golf Course

Between the first stop in Taylor, Silver Creek Canyon, and Hidden Cove Golf Course, they gave me 21 new birds for my Navajo birding well before noon.  John showed me another productive lake, Cholla Lake, which is shortly west of Holbrook.  The lake is closed for access, but a viewpoint off of Interstate 40 gives one an elevated view of the lake.  We didn't have any highlights, but the lake is hit or miss and can be very productive.  John told me of more and more awesome birding areas, and I decided to stop at one of them in the small town of Snowflake.  This place is the confluence of Silver Creek and Cottonwood Wash.  With exploring, it has vast amounts of good riparian habitats.  I didn't have a lot of time, but I did get to see several Barn Owls, which was awesome.

I went to a place near Taylor/Show Low called Mexican Lake next, which has awesome habitat for waterbird variety.  From there, I would go further southwest into Navajo County to camp and bird within the area of Black Canyon Lake.  On the way, I drove Zeniff Road to look for Burrowing Owls and Golden Eagles.  The powerlines are known for the latter, and there the latter was.  The former eluded me despite scanning through mounds and mounds of Prairie Dogs.

On the afternoon/night of July 21st, and most of the day of July 22nd, I spent birding the Black Canyon Lake area.  The camping there is awesome.  Black Canyon Lake has awesome locations nearby such as Hidden Tank, Baca Meadow, Gentry Canyon, and more.  I covered all of them.  Forest birds were in awesome abundance at these locations.  Baca Meadow had dozens upon dozens of hummingbirds.  I added species to my Navajo list like Common Nighthawk, Painted Redstart, Greater Pewee, Olive-sided Flycatcher, and American Three-toed Woodpecker.  A Zone-tailed Hawk at Black Canyon Lake amongst the abundant Purple Martins and a Bald Eagle was a nice surprise.  I hiked down into a drainage at night to owl.  It was kinda creepy since I was solo.  I was really hoping for Spotted, Saw-whet, and Flammulated Owls.  Due to an exploration in the previous week by Caleb and John, I knew that owls were in the area.  However, they were silent for me.  I searched carefully the next day in a drainage for Spotted Owls without luck.  As I knew I'd have plans to come back to this area more in the coming weeks, I knew I'd throw in more attempts for owls.

Painted Redstart

American Kestrel

Habitat near Black Canyon Lake.  I was scouring for Northern Pygmy-Owls and Montezuma Quail

Brewer's Blackbird

Zone-tailed Hawk

Bald Eagle

young Green-tailed Towhee, an interesting breeder for the area

Green-tailed Towhee

When my trip came to a close, I was happy with the results.  I took my time and stepped into Navajo County seriously for the first time.  I went from having 139 bird species to ending up with 169 species.  I knew more explorations were coming up.  The Black Canyon Lake area is one that I really love and made a pact to explore more of.

The pact to explore the Black Canyon area really went into full effect.  On August 6th, I chased a Northern Parula that was found by Brian Johnson in Gila County at Christopher Creek.  After an empty search for the Parula that lasted for over two hours, I decided to bail and go to the Black Canyon Lake area.  I would bird the lake, the Baca Meadow, Hidden Tank, a drainage and canyon, and Gentry Canyon.  After all, this wasn't far from Christopher Creek.  And at Black Canyon Lake, kayaking was the deal!

The high elevation forests and meadows of the area gave me county lifers of Townsend's, Orange-crowned, and Nashville Warblers; Calliope Hummingbird, and Cassin's Vireo.  Greater Pewee, loads of Rufous Hummingbirds, and young Williamson's Sapsuckers also provided some epic highlights.

I walked down the drainage/canyon location to search for day-roosting Spotted Owls.  This location was one I was told that Spotted Owls were present at, at least by night.  Finding them by day is a lot more challenging of course.  The canyon exploration was fun, but I was stunned to look up in an oak tree and see a pair of Spotted Owls.  I don't need to say much about it, a picture is worth a thousand words, right?  I will say that the Navajo County birding is growing on me.  There will be more to come in the near future regarding Navajo, like an echo in my mind.

Summer Birding in Arizona

This post will be the first of several to cover some of the birding I have completed in late June, July, and the earliest days of August.  A lot has happened.  I've gotten into county birding even more as I've worked toward getting my Coconino and Navajo County lists to 200 or more, as well as explore both of those counties even further.  An eastern warbler has seemingly invaded the southwest, and it's invasion is nothing but a good thing.  An organized field expedition with many birders was a fun adventure.  On a down note, the Tonto National Forest was closed for a month due to extreme fire danger.  Further exploring in Tonto had to be put on hold.  Aside from birds, other wildlife like some of the larger mammals have given a great show.  These examples and much more will be included on this blog post.

Back in early May, I and dozens of other birders enjoyed the presence of an adult male Hooded Warbler on the Arizona State University campus.  It was a stunning bird, but it was only one of about twenty Hooded Warblers recorded in Arizona in spring (Andrew Core's researched numbers).  Toward the end of June, Brian Ison reported having the strong possibility of two different male Hooded Warblers singing in Gila County's Pine Creek Canyon.  Looking over Brian's information, I knew that I really wanted to get a Hooded Warbler as a lifer for Gila County.  And also, I hadn't been to Pine Creek Canyon in a good amount of time.  Brian gave me tips on locating both male Hooded Warblers.  On July 1st, I tried for the birds.  Luckily, I was able to go one day before the Tonto National Forest was to be shut down on July 2nd through the remainder of the month.  I took a hike on the Bearfoot Trail to Pine Creek Canyon.  Once I reached Pine Creek Canyon, I enjoyed walking through a thick forest of both mixed conifers as well as deciduous trees.  As I had coordinates plugged in for both locations where Brian had Hooded Warblers, I heard a Hooded Warbler singing as I approached the first spot.  It favored a steep slope that had some dense deciduous components below the conifers.  I was able to get some good looks at this striking species, as it became my latest Gila County addition.

In this spot, this Hooded Warbler was the only one of it's species that I was able to detect.  I moved up to the other spot where Brian had the second singing bird.  It took some time, but I eventually heard that male singing too.  When I heard him singing, I heard the loud "chink" call coming from a Hooded Warbler, and it was pretty close to me.  I scanned the bank where I heard the call coming from, and I found an adult female Hooded Warbler.  Not long after that the male did come into view.  Furthermore, I heard what I thought were two more Hooded Warblers calling not far back down the trail.  I believe I had 4-5 birds.  Here is a picture of that second adult male.

Along with Hooded Warblers were other birds too, some of them awesome warblers too, such as this Red-faced Warbler.

The Coconino County expeditions started out fun.  It began with me having 174 species in the county.  I went to a location called Marg's Draw Trail.  The trail is on the south side of the scenic Sedona.  It is on the southwestern corner of Coconino County, and it is below 5,000' in elevation.  My list shot up quickly as this location produces chaparral and desert species such as Verdin, Ladder-backed and Gila Woodpeckers, Black-chinned Sparrow, Gray Vireo, Northern Cardinal, Gambel's Quail, and Crissal Thrasher.  Marg's Draw gave me 13 additions alone.  While most birds weren't cooperative for photographs, the scenes of the place were.

My Coconino list went from 174 to 193 on June 24th.  I was interrupted my the Hassayampa Streak-backed Oriole and went back home to Peoria later in the day to try for that.  I was gonna spend the 25th in Coconino hadn't the oriole had shown up.  In the remainder of the day on the 24th, I stopped at a few more places in Sedona, explored the high country near Flagstaff around Shultz Pass Road and Weatherford Canyon, and I also stopped at Lake Mary.  For one day, it was successful and I knew that one more solid Coconino trip would bring me to 200 or more for that county.

Coming back from Flagstaff along the 1-17 it was fun to see these Pronghorn Antelope.

On our way back from the Salton Sea, Ronnie, Caleb, and I did some birding at a few ponds in Yuma and Maricopa Counties.  It gave me some good and new ones for my Yuma County list, which included Snowy Plover, Red-necked Phalarope, and Whimbrel.  You can see how hot it is by the Whimbrel's appearance in this picture.

Felipe and Mara got married and had their reception dinner in Prescott.  It was awesome.  Before the party started I went to Granite Basin Lake, where two more male Hooded Warblers had been reported.  After a pourdown of rain, I was able to locate both of them.  Add yet two more Hooded Warblers to the outbreak, plus another Caleb and Jared found in Apache County.

A Thick-billed Kingbird showed up in Yavapai County at the Agua Fria National Monument.  TBKI is an epic bird for Yavapai, and I decided to give it a shot.  When I saw this creature come down to get a drink, I should've known that I was going to get skunked like I eventually did on the Kingbird.

Despite missing the Thick-billed Kingbird, this Yellow-billed Cuckoo was a great highlight.

In mid-July, Caleb organized an expedition with teams of birds to cover the Pinaleno Mountains.  It was awesome, and we were all assigned to different areas.  I teamed up with Ronnie and Kav, and my team was the best team!  We covered the high elevations of the Pinalenos, as well as a rough trail on the western side of the mountains.  The trail took most of our energy for the trip.  Our main highlights were Northern Saw-whet Owls near camp as well as a family of Spotted Owls on the second day of the trip.  We surveyed many locations along Road 366, and gave the mountain range more and more data that it needs.  Caleb and Ryan found Graham County's first Lucifer Hummingbird, as well as a number of Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers and Varied Buntings in the foothills on the south side of the range.  Here is a selection of Spotted Owl photos, as well as one of the Saw-whet.  There were two adults and two young, and it was awesome to see a pair of Spotted Owls with a brood.

I never get sick of Spotted Owls.  Every sighting fills up a good portion of both time and of a memory card!  More summer birding in Arizona coming up soon, with more focused county birding. 

Also, Brian Ison confirmed breeding for the Pine Creek Canyon Hooded Warblers!