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...

In The Gila: Warbler Neck to Scoter Scans

Fall is one of my favorite times of year for birding in Arizona.  Songbird migrants that are common to rare can show up in any given habitat, and it's also a great time to scan water bodies for a variety of waterbirds.  The time frame of fall lasts from September through November in the birding world, and the best thing birders can do is get themselves out there to search different habitats.  For my Gila County birding trips, fall was greatly welcomed.

As I wrote in my last post for In The Gila, most of my summer was consumed by birding in high elevation forests and canyons in the Mogollon Rim and Sierra Ancha Mountains areas.  I went to San Carlos Lake with Caleb a few times.  As the early fall rolled in, I found a fun migrant in a Gray Catbird along the East Verde River (see last post), and Gila lifers that I got at San Carlos Lake that I wasn't able to photograph were Cave Swallow, Laughing Gull, and Lesser Yellowlegs.  All three of these San Carlos birds were seen with Caleb, and the Lesser Yellowlegs was my 315th bird for Gila County (It was a bit overdue).
I began my fall searching for warblers and other songbirds in late August.  Riparian habitats right in Payson were a starting point, and it was still hot enough to retreat to higher coniferous forests later in the day.  While one might look upwards for most warblers, I caught sight of a rare Northern Waterthrush as well as a cooperative MacGillivray's Warbler at American Gulch in Payson.  Both of these warblers stay low to the ground on most occasions.

An exploration of the San Carlos River with Caleb also produced another Northern Waterthrush.

Once September hit, I wasn't able to go birding until September 16th in Gila County.  That California trip took place and took four days which would equal my days off of work for two weeks.  When I did get back into things, I searched this awesome riparian area within Rye Creek, which is just north of Jake's Corner.  Rye Creek has thick cottonwood and willow habitat nestled in a valley.  Something that I really like about it is that most of the habitat is right along the creek and it doesn't take very long to cover the area.  The spot is lush and I can see it producing some great birds in the future.  I birded Rye Creek some during the summer, and my first fall visit gave me a variety of over fifty different bird species.  Migrants were abundant, and the rarest bird that I was able to find was a Black-and-White Warbler.

Plumbeous Vireo at Rye Creek

Tonto Creek via the towns of Tonto Basin and Punkin Center is a great place to bird.  On September 21st, I birded the creek via A Cross Road.  It was incredibly birdy, and I had 64 species in just over 4 hours.  I spent a lot of time looking up for warblers and it resulted in the classic sore "Warbler Neck".  A Cross Road at Tonto Creek is a spot I haven't started my day at very often, but this time proved to show how productive it can be.  Here is a link to my eBird checklist:

https://ebird.org/checklist/S59979986

Mary McSparen found the astounding Long-tailed Jaeger at Lake Pleasant also in late September.  It took up the first of my two days off to begin October, and I ended up with great looks at the Jaeger, which is still my latest life bird to date.  After being content with the Jaeger on October 2nd, that same day resulted in Keith Kamper and Doug Jenness finding four rare Roseate Spoonbills at San Carlos Lake.  Keith and Doug were scanning from the south side of San Carlos Lake, which is in Pinal County.  Even though they were in Pinal County, I knew it wouldn't take much for the Roseate Spoonbills to fly north into Gila County.  Doug and Keith also reported low water levels that would result in the lake being void of water throughout most of the eastern half of the lake.  This aspect makes the birding and bird-finding a bit easier.  On October 3rd, I left early and headed straight for San Carlos Lake.  I headed for the eastern side of where the water was on the lake, in the spot where Keith and Doug told me to look for the Roseate Spoonbills.  Once I started searching, it didn't take me long to find my target birds.  And luckily, they eventually took flight and flew into Gila County and became my 316th county bird!

During mid-October, I took camping trips to Gila County, where I would camp out at Three Bar Road on two Wednesday-Thursday "weekends" of mine.  The first trip took place on October 9th and 10th, and combined a variety of focused riparian birding with a lot of "warbler neck" involvement.  I didn't find any unusual warblers.  There were lots of times I scanned Roosevelt Lake on each trip.  The best bird I had was a Common Tern.  I also went northeast of Payson to bird some of the spots below the Mogollon Rim to try and get some dates for American Dipper and American Three-toed Woodpecker.  The high elevation targets were void, but a Cassin's Finch was kinda cool.

Something fun about birding is how quickly trips can turn around.  The next around the corner can hold an amazing bird.  That's why we always need to keep birding, and that's why we always need to bird our butts off.  On October 16th, I reminded myself of that when I riparian and warbler-necked Tonto Creek via Gisela and then later at Roosevelt Lake.  I didn't find anything notable outside of expected species, but I had a lot of fun.  Views of Roosevelt Lake from camp were epic.  And then there was the 17th coming up too...

On October 17th, I woke up and went to Tonto Creek via Bar X Crossing Road.  The endless stands of riparian habitat make it one of my favorite places to bird in Gila County, as well as for the practice of Warbler-Neck.  For some reason in my mind, I had a feeling that something awesome was going to happen in the Bar X riparian jungle.  When I started searching through the stands of cottonwoods and willows, it didn't take me long to find an American Redstart.

It was my second American Redstart for Gila County, and right up ahead from the bird came an interesting call note from a warbler that needed immediate attention.  I knew it was from the Black-throated variety, and as I caught sight of the warbler up in a group of tall willows and cottonwoods, a blurry glimpse gave me the impression of a Townsend's and Hermit Warbler hybrid.  The bird flew to the next tree and I worked to get on it again quickly for the next view.  My second look wasn't a glimpse and was a clear glance, and this followup look gave me ideas that it was an Arizona-statewide-rare Black-throated Green Warbler.  I snapped pictures away with the thought of it being that species as documentation was the highest need.  The warbler was fairly cooperative, and it allowed me to get a few pictures over the course of a few minutes.  My heart was pounding and the few minutes felt like an hour.  The call note the warbler gave reminded me of the call note I heard from a Black-throated Green Warbler a few years ago near Phoenix.  It's how we would locate the bird a lot of the time.  Knowing that the species hasn't been documented in Gila County before had me going, and as I reviewed my pictures, I screamed "Yes" out loud at the results.  It was a Black-throated Green Warbler, and it appears to be the first Gila County record.

The dull olive ariculars, greenish back, and yellow across vent are good field marks for this Arizona rarity.  After many times of birding Tonto Creek via Bar X, this was finally the time I found a really good warbler for the location with the understanding that the really good warblers certainly pass through.  That is a fun aspect of birding and one has to keep putting in efforts and time to find the things that are really wanted to be found.  

After enjoying the warbler, I still had a lot of habitat to cover.  The jungle of Bar X can be intimidating, and when I choose to bird it, I know that I have to be prepared to do a lot of bushwhacking.  Sometimes, one focused limb at a time...

It's good to look ahead sometimes too.  In this case, can you see the Great Horned Owl roosting near the ground? 

If I walked a few feet closer without catching sight of the bird near the ground, it would've flown up and surprised me that it was there all along.

After this first Great Horned Owl, I stumbled across several others too.  An owl is an owl, which always equals out to being incredible!

The 17th was full of riparian and scanning Roosevelt Lake, and that week would carry into the next week of October 23 and 24.  It was to be my third consecutive week of camping out in the Roosevelt Lake vicinity as my base for the birding trip.  I was still on a high from finding the Black-throated Green Warbler at Tonto Creek via Bar X, and I decided that it would be my first stop of the trip.  While tremendous luck was on my side six days prior to my last visit to the location, this visit gave me a 180 result.  The location was slow and lacked diversity in bird life.  It was a perfect example of how a location can have a bit of everything one day and then not have much the next day.  You gotta love migration.  After a few more stops, I hit started to bird Roosevelt Lake.  Because I was on a two day trip, I planned on birding the east and south half of Roosevelt Lake the 1st day, and the west and north half on the second day.  The Grapevine Group Site Recreation Area was second in line, and it's a spot where one walks out on a peninsula to get good overviews of the lake.  Things got exciting when I found a few Sagebrush Sparrows along the route out to the lookout.  This sparrow's status in Gila County is one that is quite the mystery, and these birds where my second personal record for Gila County, and I believe they are the third record for Gila County overall via eBird.  For my Roosevelt Lake patch, it was also fun to get these birds.  

Once I started scanning the lake, I picked out a Scoter floating and sleeping on the water with it's head down.  I was stoked to have a Scoter species, but it took awhile for it to lift it's head up.  From what I could see, it had a lot of white on it's face.  When it did lift it's head up, I was pumped to see that it was the rare Black Scoter!  It was an adult female plumaged bird, and it gave me solid scope views but was yet too distant to obtain photographs.  In Gila County, this was the first ever sighting that I could find of Black Scoter, and I was looking at it.  I scrambled around for the next few hours trying to find some sort of vantage point that I could walk out to to attempt photographs without luck before it got too dark outside.  Here are some notes that I wrote about my observation, and I hope to write a report to the Arizona Birds Record Committee soon about this statewide Arizona rarity.  It is a review species.

Notes:  Adult female plumaged bird. Spotted west of Grapevine Point and not far, but considerably east of Windy Hill Recreation Site. Bird was resting it's head a majority of the time, but luckily lifted it's head for about five minutes. When resting, what caught my eye was the bulky shape of the bird, the short tail sticking up (not nearly as long as a Ruddy Duck), dark cap and nape to the bird's head, and a considerable amount of white on the face and an obvious short neck to it's resting posture to easily stand out from the Western and Clark's Grebes that were nearby. When the bird lifted it's head, the bill shape immediately caught my eye while my eyes were adjusting to looking at the rest of the bird. The bill was thin compared to other Scoter species, overall concaved shaped, and pointed upwards at the tip. To nail the identification for female Black Scoter, the birds face below the eye and cheeks were a wide and striking white coloration, which contrasted neatly with the birds dark thin looking cap and nape as if viewed from the profile. Aside from the contrasting head pattern, the bird's overall coloration when sitting on the water was dark. Other Scoters wouldn't show this much un-interrupted white on the face. When the Black Scoter flapped it's wings briefly, they were dark without any white on them. This bird was bulkier and longer bodied than a non-breeding adult male Ruddy Duck, and had a longer neck than a Ruddy.

I planned my next day around trying to relocate the Black Scoter, and after some intense searching, I wasn't able to find it.  

During the following week, I initially had plans to bird on October 30th and 31st, again.  Sickness came over me and it kept me down on the 30th.  Even though I still felt a bit on the bad side on Halloween, I still went out to bird at Bar X and Roosevelt Lake.  Bar X was pretty slow for a second straight week.  I spent 2.5 hours there and the bird activity never really got going, kinda like most of Arizona's sports teams nowadays.  Roosevelt Lake was a different story.  In Arizona, late October and early November is prime time for waterfowl migration, and Roosevelt Lake was a perfect example as I started to cover the lake.  Because I had family plans for Halloween, I had to leave the lake by 4 P.M., and when I saw the numbers of waterfowl on the lake, I was stunned.  I regretted my start at Bar X rather than going straight to Roosevelt Lake, because rafts of waterfowl were everywhere.  There were scattered rafts of ducks everywhere, and one raft contained about 400 Gadwall, and about a hundred each of Canvasback and Redhead.  That was just one example.  Schoolhouse Point came up big when I picked out a Scoter among one of the duck rafts adjacent to the boat launch.  At one point, I thought I saw a glimpse of a white patch on the Scoter's secondaries.  As with the Black Scoter, this scoter had it's head down too.  Because I thought I saw a glimpse of a white patch on the bird, I started hoping that it would be the third and last Scoter I would need for Gila County-the White-winged Scoter.  After a patient watch through my scope, the Scoter finally lifted it's head and moved it's body more to show off white panels on it's secondaries.  It was a White-winged Scoter, and my sickness was numb during the two hours that I spent trying to document the Scoter.  I threw my fists up in the air and shouted, "yes!".  Here is the crappy but diagnostic documentation I was able to obtain of the White-winged Scoter, my 319th bird for Gila County.

Because it took me quite an few extra seconds to document the White-winged Scoter, I lost a lot of time I could've scanned elsewhere at Roosevelt Lake.  All I could think was that I wished I would've scanned the lake during my entire trip.  I had never seen it so full of waterbird variety, especially with high numbers of migrating waterfowl.  My last stops were planned out to be at the northern and western side of the lake at Vineyard Canyon Recreation Site and Bermuda Flat Recreation Site.  The planned second-to-last stop was at Vineyard Canyon, and I quickly had a bird of interest there too.  A flock of six white geese were distant and were across the lake from Vineyard Canyon.  From what I could see, there were five Snow Geese and a much smaller adult white goose, which I knew was either a pure Ross's Goose or a Ross's and Snow Goose hybrid.  The views were tremendously distant at first, and heat waves made it difficult to get a real feel on the smaller goose.  But luck would hit me for the second time of the day, and the geese swam much closer.  As they closed in, the smaller goose got more and more Ross's like and when it got within my scope's view, there wasn't any doubt it was a pure Ross's Goose with a steep forehead and small, stubby bill.  It was my 320th bird for Gila County, and an exciting one!  By looking at the picture below, the Ross's Goose is the only bird facing left.  Compare the size and structure with the adult Snow Goose facing right.

Halloween birding came through big time for me, it's not too often I get double Gila County life birds in one day.  Fall is an epic time of year for birding, and I was satisfied with what I was able to get in the Gila during the time this year in 2019!