I think I Have A Great Crested Flycatcher!...

 I woke up early today, September 2nd, and had a mission in front of me, a hardcore one.  The root of the mission was to bird along Sycamore Creek via the Old Beeline Highway north of Sunflower.  I had a strong urge in my gut to come here, and a strong urge to bird the surrounding area such as the juniper, chaparral, and pinyon-pine covered slopes, as well as Mt. Ord.  A big reason is because there is interesting movement from Jays in the last week.  Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays have been overly numerous, and Pinyon Jays are showing signs of irrupting into lower elevations this fall as well.  A few days ago, Jake Thompson had a big flock of Pinyon Jays moving around in the town of Duncan.  For today, I wanted to place myself in a position where I could possibly get them if they were to move through, as Pinyon Jay would be an incredible species to land in Maricopa County.  Clark's Nutcrackers have been reported in a few areas too that are lower-than-usual for them.  So today would be an approach that I like to call "combo birding".  It's awesome, and it not only gives you a chance at a great diversity of species, but it also give you more of a chance to find unusual species at key times of the year during migration.  My plan for today was to stand stationary at a few stops along the Old Beeline to listen for interesting species (alright, to listen for Pinyon Jays!) at dawn, bird along Sycamore Creek early, make a few stops in pinyon-pine and juniper after Sycamore Creek, and then go to Mt. Ord.

After turning onto the Old Beeline Highway west off of Highway 87 (signed off as "Sycamore Creek", adjacent to Mt. Ord, just north of mile marker 222", I pulled off at a few pull outs along the road that gave good views of the surrounding area and habitats.  I made two stationary stops, starting just before 6 A.M. and lasting close to 6:25.  I didn't have any Pinyon Jays, but there were many Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays, a Gray Flycatcher, and Gray Vireo still hanging around, and a good number (5) of Crissal Thrashers.  As I made my way to Sycamore Creek I was surprised to see an Osprey perched on a snag along the side of the road.

I arrived at Sycamore Creek via the Old Beeline at 6:31, as the sun was coming out, and there was clear weather.  As I had the vibe that it was going to be a productive morning with good numbers of birds, I slowly made my way south along the old paved road as it paralleled the creek (which is pretty dry right now).  Birds were indeed numerous and it took my awhile to get to the old and abandoned Sunflower Workstation.  As I was about to get there, I heard this rising and upslurred "wheeiiep" call that immediately struck me as being a Great Crested Flycatcher.  I listened closely and heard the bird again.  Wheep!  I stilll thought the same thing.  Even though I could hear the calls pretty well with my own ears, I knew that my phone wouldn't be able to record the calls from where I was, and I moved forward while listening carefully.  The call continued to come, and I knew I had to record the bird.  Great Crested Flycatcher is extremely rare in Arizona with 4 state records, and Maricopa County is without a record.  The last record was also in the month of September, but it was back in 2010.  Knowing this in the back of my mind made my heart beat pretty freaking fast, and luckily I got to a point where the bird was loud enough and close enough for my phone to pull off a recording.  The bird called three times while I recorded and as it was much closer, I now wanted to get my eyes on the bird.  It continued calling as I edged closer, and I got to a spot and expected to see it.  I looked a few feet too high on the juniper slope it was no calling from, and at the last second I saw it sitting on a branch.  It flew right when I was about to react by looking through my binoculars or trying to get off a pictures.  What I did see though was important, I saw that it was a Myiarchus flycatcher.  I stood on the road and played calls for Great Crested Flycatcher and it went completely quiet on me.  For a few minutes I looked up on the juniper slope it was calling from, hoping to detect it again.  All of a sudden it/a Myiarchus flycatcher flew out from the slope and past me and toward the riparian along Sycamore Creek before landing high in a tree.  I did get the vibe of a bright yellow frontside on the bird that contrasted well with a dark upper body and face area as it flew by.  When the bird landed, I had it in view from quite a distance and unfortunately, it had it's back to me.  Pictures that I took were worthless.  The bird dropped down into some thick riparian along Sycamore Creek.  I investigated further by using playback of an owl mob.  Lots of birds came in, and it was frustrating when an Ash-throated Flycatcher was one of those birds that came in.  It was around 7:18 when I heard the Great Crested/Mystery Flycatcher, and I looked around the area for close to an hour without any further luck on it.  I let the birding community know what had happened via the Group Me text messaging application in our group, "AZ Rare Birds.  Limited service prevented me from being able to send my audio recording of the bird to Group Me, but I was able to send the audio through Messenger to Caleb Strand, Nolan Walker, and Kadynn Hatfield.  All three of them, who are great birders, agreed taht it sound good for Great Crested Flycatcher. And sadly, I couldn't find or hear the bird again.  What was important was I saw a Myiarchus giving the call, which matched Great Crested more than anything and it's one competitor would be even rarer in a Nutting's Flycatcher.  I decided to put it on my list for the day and submit it as Great Crested Flycatcher, and if my recording wasn't good conclusive enough then I would chance my observation. 

Poor shot of the bird

Aside from the Great Crested Flycatcher madness, this area was spectacular for birding.  I detected a diverse 65 different species, and there were several other highlights that were very fun.  Close to my starting time, a Golden Eagle flew pretty low overhead, and I reacted late to blow my chance at getting a photograph.  2 Common Black-Hawks were present, and I got great views of a juvenile (which I think are cool-looking), and 2 Zone-tailed Hawks were also present.  A Great Horned Owl flushed from a wash I walk down while I followed the creek.  UP to 3 Gray Vireos were still present here, as all of them sand from the hillsides.  At least 20 Woodhouse's Scrub-Jays were along the route, probably many more (and I still did listen for those longshot Pinyon Jays!).  3 White-breasted Nuthatches seemed like a solid count for the elevation and with it being this early into gall.  Migrant warblers and vireos were pretty numerous, and I managed to find a Black-and-white Warbler foraging with a mixed feeding flock.  From where I parked, I walked south for over a mile, and ended not far north of the barricade to the Sunflower community.  Aside from birds were a few herds of Javelina.  When I walked back north, I took my time as I walked through the area where I had the Flycatcher.  No more extended luck, and it was a little discouraging.  It was getting hot out toward the end, and after about 5 hours, I called it a birding day.  I almost went to Mt. Ord, but I decided not to as I was getting tired.  As I have work tomorrow, this Flycatcher may have to be in the hands of other birders who might chase.  Almost definitely so...

juvenile Common Black-Hawk

Zone-tailed Hawk

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay

Bushtits

Virginia's Warbler

Wilson's Warbler

September 3rd, 2022:  The Best "Vicarious" Birding Of My Life

After the field yesterday, things got interesting for me.  All I thought abot was the Great Crested Flycatcher.  My recordings were ertainly intriguing to others.  Dave Stesjkal, a great birder, said of my recordings, "that they sounded like Great Crested to him over the next closest candidate for him, the Nutting's Flycatcher.  Caleb, a great birder, said too that I should partially consider a certain call from Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush.  While that would be a thousand times more rare, I still wouldn't put an Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush as impossible for Maricopa County and there's a chance that species could show up anywhere in Arizona.  The calls he referred to are similar, but would come across differently than a Great Crested Flycatcher in the field.  Plus I saw a Myiarchus giving the calls.  I was a bit discouraged, and hoped that people would go out and look for the bird.  After all, it seems to me like a bird with 4 Arizona records would attract a bit of a birding crowd. 

Early today, things got really interesting when Chris Benesh, a great birder, put the recordings from my bird (via eBird checklist upload) and compared it's sonogram with actual sonogram of the calls of Great Crested Flycatcher, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Brown-crested Flycatcher, and Nutting's Flycatcher.  He made it into a table, and mine matched almost perfectly with Great Crested Flycatcher!  The other ones weren't really even close at all.  Chris posted this before it was light out, and I knew that at least three birders in Ronnie Reed, Dara Vazquez, and Benjamin Guo, were going out to look for the bird.  During all of this time, I was at work, and was checking my phone regularly.  At 7:23, a great message came into Group Me from Dara:  Tommy's GCFL continues this morning.  It gave it's distinctive loud rising weep call.  Ben Guo recorded further audio.  Got good views of bolder plumage color than ATFL or BCFL with bright lemon belly rising high on chest.  Relocated initially in oak grove on west side of research station, then flew to sycamore and chaparral ridge on east side of canyon".

"Hell yes", I replied to the message.  I was stoked, I wanted to do backflips in front of all the hospital staff I was working with and patients who I was serving food to.  In the field, Dara and Ben located the bir barely south of where I originally found it, and Ronnie rolled up just in time to hear the bird too.  (We call him "Roll Up Ronnie" for a reason!)  Ronnie texted me not long after that Ben obtained diagnostic photographs of the bird too.

Birders asked if anyone had gotten pictures.  I took awhile, but Ben put 6 decent photographs and a sound recordinga much better than mine that showed the spectogram very clearly.  And Ben's photos, I practically had a heart attack when I saw them.  They were good documentation shots and they clearly showed a bright yellow belly-underparts extending up to upper breast, dark gray upper breast and lower face, extensive orange base to otherwise larger, sturdy black bill, brown on top of heard, and tons of rufous in the tail.  "Dang, a Great Crested Flycatcher, wow!", I thought.  And then I reminded myself I found the freaking thing 24 hours earlier.

I was obvious to everyone my bird is a Great Crested Flycatcher, Arizona's 5th and Maricopa County's 1st.  It is my 485th bird for Arizona and 409th for Maricopa County.  For Maricopa County overall, I think it's the 463rd bird.  Funny thing is, Tyler Loomis found my Maricopa nemesis-a Downy Woodpecker-while chasing the Great Crested Flycatcher.  Hopefully it sticks around!

Northerly Treks: What Else Is In Crawford?

The date was June 1st, 2020 and it was getting close to being mid-morning.  I had just completed the biggest goal of my trip in getting great looks and observations of the Kirtland's Warbler.  And considering the date, my trip was still in it's very early stages.  I was pumped, and I still had plenty of targets left to see.  The addition of Kirtland's Warbler made it official that the last regularly occurring warbler that I had left to see and photograph in North America was the Cape May Warbler.  By looking at the Cape May's range map, they occur in the northern boreal regions of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota.  As I got my Connecticut Warbler in Wisconsin and Kirtland's Warbler in Michigan, I thought it would be pretty cool if I got Cape May Warbler in Minnesota.  Although Minnesota would hold the greatest opportunities, getting one in Michigan was thought to be awesome too.  I also had good potential in getting Mute Swan as a life bird in Michigan, if I put the effort in for it.  Mute Swan is an established introduced bird, not native to North America.  As they are more widely established and have more numbers further east in North America, I decided that they were not a priority.  If I happened to encounter some of them by chance, that was thought of to be cool!  As it was mid-morning, it was time to bird around Crawford County.  I had close to ten more hours of birding time, and what I liked about it was that the locations were close to one another.  It would be a day of more birding and less driving, hardly any driving at all!  I asked myself, "What else is in Crawford County?"

I went to the Crawford County main overview page on eBird and looked at hotspots and species of interest.  One of the species of interest that I had in mind was Alder Flycatcher.  I figured that with all of the remaining ground that I had remaining to cover throughout the rest of my trip that Alder Flycatchers would be extremely common.  But I was still craving to see my first one, as well as go to a productive birding area on top of that.  I found a recent report from a location called Dyer Swamp, which is northeast of Grayling and was a 15 minute drive from Staley Lake Road.  Dyer Swamp seemed like a good location to see a variety of birds, and a guy had reported four Alder Flycatchers a few days prior.  I went for Dyer Swamp, parked at the entrance to the road that goes along the location, and walked for about a mile through swamp and bog habitat, as well as mixed deciduous and coniferous forest.  My efforts lasted for 1.5 hours, and I hiked for over a mile.  I didn't have any problems finding Alder Flycatchers.  There were at least eight of them detected, and I obtained solid views of them, and I really got to listen to their distinctive song and several different calls.  Alder Flycather looks almost identical to Willow Flycatcher, and the two species used to be one.  But Alder Flycatcher averages more of a greenish tint to it's back than Willow Flycatcher, and some Alders may be identifiable based on that.  In the long run, most birds have to be safely identified by voice where there is range overlap.  Alder Flycatcher's range is further north than that of Willow Flycatcher, and Willow would be absent from most of the areas I would be covering on the trip.

Throughout their range, Alder Flycatchers prefer bogs, alder thickets, damp brushy habitats, and wet woodland edges as the habitat choice.  I also took video of them vocalizing, give them a listen.

Other than Alder Flycatchers, I recorded a total of 37 species at the Swamp.  An Eastern Kingbird was another bird that I photographed.

Lastly, here are a few pictures of Dyer Swamp, which turned out to be a fun location to bird at.

Up next, I looked on eBird again at hotspots that were close by.  The next spot that caught my attention was another neighboring location called Wakeley Lake.  I thought that the location seemed to be a promising one by looking at eBird data.  When I pulled up to the parking lot to the area, it was a walk-in only area that had miles of interconnecting hiking trails.  I was pumped about all the different trails, and it was a location that was "my kind" of location.  By looking at the trails and glancing at the habitat, it seemed to be a spot where one could spend an entire day.  Quickly after starting to walk on the main trail through the woods and to the lake, I heard a Winter Wren singing.  I managed to get a view of the tiny songbird.

As I continued to the lake, a variety of birds were present, mainly detected by their many songs and calls.  When I got out to Wakeley Lake, I could see that there was a flock of swans out on the water.  When I raised my binoculars up I thought that they were gonna be Trumpeter Swans, but when I looked through my binoculars, I could see that they were a flock of Mute Swans.  This was a lifer that I was not expecting to get on the hike!

Mute Swans are a European species who have been introduced into North America.  The northeastern United States along the Atlantic Coast is a strong area where the species has become established, and so has the Great Lakes region.  When looking at a Mute Swan, it's curved necks and orange bills with a black base to them are distinctive.  These swans are known for being aggressive and protective in their territories.  They will attack most intruders who come near nests or territories, and those intruders do include humans.

I caught sight of the Mute Swans immediately upon accessing Wakeley Lake.  Once I viewed the lake, I saw that it was beautiful and added a lot to the hike.

I continued along the trail after looking at the lake and photographing the swans further.  Two Ruffed Grouse flushed off a clump of logs and went further back into the woods.  I wanted to follow them further, but bushwhacking in any eastern forest is a lot more difficult than bushwacking in a western forest.  After letting them be, I continued on the trail, and deciduous forest had become the dominant landscape during a stretch.  Things got exciting when I heard the call of a Black-billed Cuckoo.  In 2017, I had this bird for the first time right by Gretchen's cabin, and it was a heard only bird.  As I walked quickly up the trail for this bird, I was hoping to catch a glimpse of my second Black-billed Cuckoo detection.  When I got in the area, the bird vocalized some more, and I was able to see it move and therefore, locate it!

For starters, the Black-billed Cuckoo is well named, and it has a black bill.  I've seen a share of it's cousin, the Yellow-billed Cuckoo.  Like the Yellow-billed Cuckoo, the Black-billed Cuckoo is a secretive bird that lurks inside forests.  If the bird doesn't vocalize, it is hard to locate.  As you can see here, this bird also has a red eye-ring, and a grayish tail that has small white tips on it.  The Black-billed Cuckoo does have a smaller and thinner bill than  the Yellow-billed Cuckoo does.

Nest parasitism is the way of life for most Old World Cuckoos, as they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds for the other birds to raise their young.  While Black and Yellow-billed Cuckoos incubate their own eggs and raise their own most of the time, they will at times but rarely lay eggs in the nests of other birds, including each other.  Young cuckoos rear quickly and it doesn't take long for them to appear adult-like.  Seeing a brood with both species in it would be interesting.

Getting a visual of this species for the first time and a detection of the species for only the second time was a huge accomplishment for me, and before the trip started, seeing a Black-billed Cuckoo was one of my major trip targets.

After the cuckoo, I started to head back to the truck and had about a mile ahead of me.  I didn't have lunch with me and decided to go back to Grayling to get Subway.  When I got back to the parking lot and trailhead of Wackeley Lake, I noticed another trail that went along the south side of the lake.  This trail would bring me to the lake much more quickly than the other trail did, and I decided to check it out.  Something remarkable about the trail was it's change in habitat.  The understory was thicker and there were more coniferous trees, and even somewhat of a boggy area.  In this area, the trail turned into a boardwalk.

As I officially started to head back to the trailhead to drive to Grayling for lunch, I ran into one more neat bird.  And that was the awesome Canada Warbler!

After lunch, I didn't photograph many birds, but I went to several more awesome places near Grayling.  The weather became cloudy and overcast, and at times rain would come at a light drizzle.  I explored an area called Mason Tract, which had the AuSable River nearby.  I didn't know what I was doing when I birded this area, but it was still fun.  One stand of aspens had what I thought was a young Northern Goshawk calling from, and I entered the stand.  I couldn't find a Goshawk, but I did find a few Porcupines instead.

I hiked up a road near Mason Tract, and it was awesome.  With thick stands of woods in all directions that had regular openings to the forest in the mix, it reminded me of a place where I could find wolves on the hunt.  Even though it's rare to get lucky enough to see a Gray Wolf, my eyes were always on the lookout for my favorite animal.

The next place I went to was this place called Hartwick Pines State Park, which is one of the top birding hotspots in Crawford County.  While the overcast conditions continued as I entered the park, I could see that the park was awesome.  I decided to hike this epic loop trail called the Old Growth Forest Trail.  This trail went through impressive stands of old growth forest, which in Michigan is one of a few remaining stands of such forest.  It was worth the hike.

Near the entrance to the trail and at the park headquarters where a pair of Great-crested Flycatchers.

A stop at two small lakes within the park gave me a singing Northern Waterthrush, and more scenes to enjoy.

In the last hour of light, I stopped at Goose Creek Road west of Grayling.  This was one of the roads that I had mapped out for Kirtland's Warblers.  Like Staley Lake Road, Goose Creek also has a lot of Kirtland's Warblers.  By this time rain was coming down periodically, and there wasn't much left for birding.  A stop along Goose Creek itself was fun to bird for a few minutes, and driving out of Goose Creek Road I stopped and listened along a young stand of jack pines.  It didn't take me long to hear my last Kirtland's Warbler of the trip sing a couple more times, and it was a good conclusion to the day.

Crawford County was a fun place to bird and explore for a day and a half.  The following day, June 2nd, was planned out to be a travel day back to Spooner.  But the day would include a few stops in Michigan's upper peninsula, and one of those stops would be very good!  Northerly Treks will have more of that story next time.