A Little More California

I usually don't do my posts out of order, but, there is a first time for everything.  I've had some great experiences in Arizona lately and I honestly wanted to get those posted.  I do have a good closing post to complete my trip to southern California with my buddy Gordon Karre.  After our epic Albatross graced pelagic trip on Saturday, May 16th, we would head home on Sunday, May 17th.  Our goal was to get up early and spend much of the day in the Laguna Mountains.  We didn't get up too early and got more sleep, which was needed.  A Denny's breakfast was in order before the trip back towards the Laguna Mountains which was also in the same direction as home.  Once we got to Denny's, we heard a loud racket in the sky and saw parrots flying overhead.  We knew that these parrots were a strange life bird for us, so we took time to look at them.  These parrots are the Red-crowned Parrots.  They have established populations in different cities in North America, and San Diego is one of those cities.  In other words, they are countable under American Birding Association standards.  They are like the Rosy-faced Lovebirds that we have in the Phoenix area.  Gordon and I spent about twenty minutes observing these parrots.

Tick, tick, tick.  Another life bird in the bag.  I didn't care about seeing these parrots at first, but after seeing a different parakeet that we both thought was a Red-crowned Parrot at first, it made me a little more competitive towards getting the Red-crowned Parrot as a lifer.  After eating Denny's for the third time on our trip, we headed towards the Laguna Mountains.  The Lagunas have an interesting habitat array, and we were heading up the Sunrise Highway and were soon in conifer and oak forest.  It was awesome!

Our main target up in the Lagunas was a new life bird for both of us, the Purple Finch.  When Gordon and I got into appropriate habitat, we heard one singing and weren't able to get visuals for some time.  Gordon said, "I would really hate to give this a tick on my list as a heard-only".  And I agreed with Gordon, and the Purple Finches continued to sing up high and out of sight.  Eventually, we heard more singing by a trailer park and came upon a foraging flock of birds within the trailer park.  We had perfect views and study opportunities of this new lifer.

The Purple Finch was fun to see as a lifer.  We also enjoyed the coastal form of Western Scrub-Jay at this elevation as well as Pygmy Nuthatches coming to the same water feature as did the Purple Finch.  A good variety of forest birds were present besides these ones mentioned.

After exploring the higher elevations of the Laguna Mountains, we ventured down lower into the chaparral and oak woodlands within the mountain range and birded along Kitchen Creek Road.  Gordon and I hiked down a trail in search of Wrentits and more.  We heard a few California Quail.  After awhile, things got fun and we got to see a few Wrentits up close, and it was the first time Gordon got to see them well and photograph one.  Nevertheless, it's a bird I don't get to see much of at all, so it was a very neat encounter.

Seeing the Wrentits along Kitchen Creek Road in the Laguna Mountains was a nice way to end a fantastic trip.  Thanks Gordon for a great time!

A Case of Flam Fever

It's starting to get freaking hot out in Phoenix.  Summer and a lot of extra summer-like change will be in effect through much of October.  I'm not a fan of extreme heat, and I'm also not a fan of extreme cold.  I guess I like San Diego weather.  Yes, yes, yes, the San Diego trip is over and I need to get over it someday.  But I have had some unfinished business with a certain Arizona birding excursion that has bothered me over the years.  It's been a goal of mine that I really should have tackled a month or more ago but I didn't get around to doing it.  More than a month later, I got to attempting that goal last night.  I have been busy with life, so I have somewhat of a valid excuse for not being able to attempt my wanted goal.  There's one bird that I've seemed to hear in the woods a whole lot, but I haven't been able to catch any of my highly wanted glimpses of it that I have wanted.  Have you ever had a bird that seemed too hard to see?  One that always seems to get away?  One that is smarter than the others?  Luckily, this bird favors pine, oak, and fir woodlands in more cooler and forgiving areas within Arizona.  Even if this bird doesn't give any sort of hoot about it's fans, at least the weather is pleasant.  This is a picture from the Kendall Camp Trail in the Bradshaw Mountains.  The Bradshaw Mountains are in central Arizona's Yavapai County, and the Kendall Camp area is above and south of the town of Prescott.  It's a lovely area, both day and night.  A night picture can't do this location much justice, but a day picture sure can.  Pretend this picture as taken yesterday during the morning, and then fast-forward that to the night.  Kendall Camp Trailhead at 8:10 P.M. was where my next birding expedition took place.

I got in contact with my friends Kurt and Cindy Radamaker, and they had the same highly wanted goal that I was wanting to achieve.  That goal was to not only hear, but SEE and hopefully PHOTOGRAPH a Flammulated Owl.  The Flammulated Owl is a very small owl that ranges throughout western North America from southern Canada in it's northern range south to Mexico.  It is our only small owl that has dark eyes, and it is the second-most smallest owl in North America behind the Elf Owl.  While the Elf Owl is 5.75 inches in length, the Flammulated Owl has one on the Elf with a length of only 6.75 inches.  The problem with Flammulated Owls is that they are very difficult to detect due to their small size, quieter voice than most owls, coloration, retiring behavior, and the main fact that they like to sit up high against tree bark on average with the camouflagey of camouflage postures.  As expected with these birds, Kurt, Cindy, and I knew we would most likely have our work cut out for us and that we would have to get extremely lucky to have any sort of encounter with the Flammulated Owls beyond hearing them.  When you decide to attempt at seeing a bird this elusive and difficult, you've gotta have a little fun in the process!

Flashlights can do some crazy things to people.  We don't quite look like ourselves, but are still freaking awesome even in this lighting situation.  Here's another picture of our trio!  Look how freaky I look.  

After Kurt, Cindy, and I arrived at the trailhead at about 8:10 P.M. we got our stuff together and started our night birding quest.  While the goal was a visual of a Flammulated Owl, we did take a try at locating Mexican Whip-poor-wills.  Although a few of them were heard calling in the area, we weren't able to get very close to them, yet alone get a sighting of any of them.  We then moved onto Flammulated Owls and started to listen for them with full intent minutes later.  It didn't take long for us to hear a Flammulated Owl.  As we were along a steep bank, the Flammulated Owl was in it's traditional spot, which was on the other side of the bank.  We worked out a detour and got to the spot where we had the owl calling, and of course, the bird decided to stop calling.  And then it would start calling a few times.  Things started to look like the same old heard only stories that we have had with Flams in the past as we would get near to our target and we would find the correct tree, only to have the bird be seemingly invisible despite being close by.  Things then got a little interesting.  After shining my light in a tree where our source was calling from, we saw the bird take off and fly close by in a different direction.  The bird then started to call from a dense oak tree after we waited for it for a minute.  This oak tree was above the trail after we had been walking off trail to other places where we had heard birds calling.  After scanning for a minute, I got lucky and caught the correct movement from the Flammulated Owl.  And there it was, finally!  It wasn't easy to spy even with lights on it but once we figured out where it was, the three of us had our first ever enjoyable looks at a Flammulated Owl.

The bird sat there still and called away.  The voice of a Flammulated Owl is soft, and it gives a single-note "poooot" or a double-note "poodoo-pooot".  It looked around back-and-fourth, and every once-in-awhile, it would take a glance down in our direction to show off it's big black eyes.

It was hard to believe that we were finally looking at our wanted bird!  The picture above clinched a new photographic life bird for me as well as give me a photograph of each and every one of the 13 owls that are known to occur in Arizona.  I've heard plenty of Flammulated Owls in the past before this and I also saw one in flight three times at Maricopa County's Slate Creek Divide last year in one night.  Despite the past, this was my first good look at this neat owl.  After we observed it for a few minutes, it flew over our heads, across the trail, and over a hillside that we were standing by.  It landed close by on the hillside, which was covered in oak and shorter pine trees.  I climbed up a steep slope after the owl as Kurt and Cindy continued to look from the trail.  After a few minutes, I heard the owl calling a few trees away from me once I got level on the slope.  I felt like I was in a great position to get killer looks at the Flam this time, and honestly, my heart was racing.  When I came around the corner where I suspected the Flammulated Owl was going to be, I was shocked to see that it was sitting up and right out in the mere open for me.  And it didn't budge!

Even though the Flammulated Owl was sitting close to me and was right in front of me, it also gave a sense of how well it may camouflage with it's bark coloration.  Imagine if this thing was thirty feet higher than this?  A lot of times, that is the case with these micro owls.

Right after I found the owl, I called down to Kurt and Cindy, "hey, I've got the bird and have killer views!".  Luckily, the owl continued to sit there.  Kurt and Cindy ran up the slope and the three of us were having a blast while enjoying views of Flammulated Owl that we didn't think we'd ever have by the end of the night.  Don't you love scenarios like this?

 We all took turns holding flashlights and each getting our own awesome shots of the dreaded and hard-to-see Flammulated Owl.  Looking at this bird live in the field really gave me an appreciation of how mysterious and awesome nature really is.  With owls like the Flam who are hard to see, it makes me think about how much of their lives we still have yet to learn about.

The behavior of this small owl is poorly known overall, although it is thought to be similar in it's behavior to that of Screech-Owls.  Flams are completely nocturnal.  Their main source of prey consists of insects, as well as moths and arachnids, scorpions, and spiders.  It occasionally preys on small birds and mammals.  

The habitat makeup at Kendall Camp Trail is rather diverse.  It consists of ponderosa pine, Gambel's oak, aspen, white fir, and Douglas fir.  In the past when I've birded here at night, Flams often perched higher in the firs and ponderosa pines, which made them practically impossible to see.  While this is a good habitat combination, the dominating habitat sequence for Flammulated Owls in Arizona come from ponderosa pine dominating forests with some Gambel's oak in the mix, as well as forests that are completely dominated by ponderosa pine (Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas-by Troy Corman and Cathryn Wise-Gervais).  It is in these habitats where Flammulated Owls may be very common and numerous in places.  Although common in numbers and constantly heard, they are rarely seen by observers as mentioned before.  

Kurt, Cindy, and I got extremely lucky with our observations last night of the Flammulated Owl.  This bird is an awesome one, and I'm glad to say I've now gotten to see and observe one well.  There's a lot left to learn about this owl, and after seeing this one, I want to see another one soon.  Whenever I have tried for these birds in most cases, it has been in the earlier stages of their breeding season.  When this has happened, the Flammulated Owls have been very high up in trees. Perhaps this is because they want to have their voice carry further to establish territories, or perhaps I'm completely wrong.  This time around when we were chasing this bird, it didn't hug the tops of trees as much as it would in most of the other times that I have gone.  This time was the end of May, while other times were mid to late-April.  Just one mans thoughts I guess.  Anyways, this was an epic night to remember.  Whether I see a Flam again or not, I am grateful for this sighting and photographs.  Thank you Kurt and Cindy for an awesome night of birding!

Tufted and Code 5 Rare

Carr and Ramsey Canyons.  Two gem canyons for birding in southeastern Arizona's Huachuca Mountains.  Birders by the thousands flock here annually.  This past Saturday, May 23rd, 2015, I joined the birder statistic and entered these canyons.  We were after a much smaller statistic, which was a Tufted Flycatcher in Ramsey Canyon.  The bird was discovered by Mark Phillips on May 22nd, 2015 and was just over two miles up Ramsey Canyon from the visitor center at Ramsey Canyon Preserve.  Tufted Flycatcher is extremely rare in the United States, or ABA Area, with only 7 previous records between Texas, Nevada, and ours truly, Arizona.  I teamed up with Gordon Karre, Chris Rohrer, and Magill Weber and the four of us entered the canyons with dozens of other birders in hopes of catching a glimpse of the coveted Tufted Flycatcher.

We parked at Carr Canyon and took a long hike of about nearly three miles on a trail until it met up with Ramsey Canyon.  We thought this route would be easier than just going up Ramsey Canyon, but it wasn't.  The choice was not regretted in any way, shape, or form, however as the hike was filled with birds and epic scenery.  There was a bad fire around Carr Canyon some time ago, and some of the results of the fire have really shown there can be beauty from ashes.  Look at that green up there!

I wasn't too focused on photography during this trip, so the main focal point of the story will be accessed right now.  The Tufted Flycatcher!  Once we made it down from the trail, we accessed Ramsey Canyon.  A beautiful stream flowed through the canyon when we got to this spot, and I found myself looking for Spotted Owls and telling others to look for Spotted Owls because the habitat was perfect for them.  We soon came up upon a crowd of birders, with Andrew Core and Bryan Holliday being some of them.  The four of us joined up with Andrew and started to listen for the bird.  Luckily, a group of birders had the Flycatcher earlier in the morning for a consistent thirty minutes and Andrew informed us that he had it about 40 minutes before we got there.  It's always cool to run into some of Arizona's coolest birders on these trips.  As we visited and listened, I heard the flycatcher calling and eventually spied it coming into the birder crowd's immediate area.  Andrew and I pointed out that it was coming and eventually the bird landed in the open for everyone.  It landed on a shady and poorly-lit perch for Gordon, Chris, and I to get photographs, but sometimes an identifiable picture in a case such as this is somewhat of a great picture!

Tufted Flycatcher!  Code 5 Mega rarity for North America.  Life Bird-I've never been to Mexico.  The bird went out of sight in a tall Cypress tree and we were waiting for it to show itself again.  Since this post doesn't have many pictures, I have a funny story to tell to make this post a little more fun.  I'll put two facts in mind.  One, Andrew Core is an awesome birder who takes a lot of his time to help other birders with resources such as detailed maps to help them find birds, as well as constantly alert the birding listserv when mega-rarities like the Tufted Flycatcher who show up.  Second, I heard and detected the incoming flycatcher and immediately informed everyone it was present.  Some of these people don't do their homework and don't even know the bird's vocalization if it is practically sitting on top of them and calling.  Some of them, just some of them.  Andrew and I were whispering back-and-fourth about the bird and were barely making any noise when this depressing old lady confronted us and told us we were being disruptive, rude, were keeping others from hearing the bird, and didn't have any etiquette.  I assume she didn't listen to the Tufted Flycatcher before she came.  She was already making twenty times more the noise we were making.  A fly flying by, the Elegant Trogon that was calling, or even the bad breath this lady breathed was louder than us.  Birders were shocked she was acting like this to us especially considering that Andrew was the reason she knew where to find this bird in the first place and that I was the reason the bird was detected during this time frame of observation.  It was pretty funny, some birders take birding way too seriously, and she was a wack job who had no clue of who she was talking to.  Andrew tried to be very nice to her and calm her down because he is a cool guy and I was going to let the whole thing slide back down canyon, but she kept becoming more and more evil.  Then we stuck up for ourselves and encouraged her to move along a few more feet down the trail so our whispering wouldn't bug her anymore.  I laughed at her and said, "then what's your etiquette?", when she told us we should have etiquette.  I'm not as nice as Andrew.  She just kept going and going.  I had the closing words, which I said loud, "well Andrew, I guess there's one in every group".  I looked down at my party and it was quite funny.  Gordon was trying not to laugh, Chris looked like he wanted to murder her, and Magill wasn't even aware of what was going on.  The lady then let out a disgusting "ugghhh" and threw her hands up in the hair and soon left the canyon and luckily wasn't seen again.  All we could really do was laugh it off, because it was funny.  And Andrew and I were then motivated to help her find the bird.  But she was just gone a few minutes after the confrontation.  This lady walked two freaking miles up canyon in pursuit of this bird, embarrassed herself, and then walked right back down canyon.  LOL!!!!

And then the Tufted Flycatcher came back ten minutes later.

This time, everyone was very nice in the crowd.  Gordon, Chris, Magill and I all enjoyed fanstastic binocular looks although getting pretty blurry and not-so-good photographs of the bird.  The experience was amazing and the drive and attempt at this bird was well worth it.  I even saw Andrew walking back down canyon to look for that lady, because he is a cool dude.  Even after the way she treated him, he was still trying to help her out.  The Tufted Flycatcher is common in Mexico and favors pine forests in it's highlands range from northern Mexico to Peru.  This flycatcher is tiny, and it isn't much larger than the tiny Tyrannulet.  The Tufted Flycatcher called often, which sounds like a rolling and emphatic cheery "turree-turree".  It almost reminds me of a mix between a Pewee and a Tyrannulet, and that is where it is placed in it's taxonomy.   

Through the grapevine, we heard several things about the Tufted Flycatcher through different people.  Magill received pictures of the bird and also heard about the possibility of it sitting on a nest, which someone claimed to see.  In the pictures we were seeing of the bird, it almost did look like it was two birds sometimes.  It was ratty in one picture and well-toned in the other picture.  The comments were in our mind about the nest.  Interestingly, when I was watching this Tufted Flycatcher flit around, I saw another tiny cinnamon bird fly out of the same tree that it was in that looked an awful lot like a Tufted Flycatcher also.

We then ran into John Yerger, Jake Mohlmann, Erin and Scott Olmstead, and interestingly, Noah Strycker, who is doing a World Big Year this year!  Noah is already over halfway there to get his goal of 5,000 birds around the world in 2015 and still has other countries to visit.  It was cool meeting him.  Anyways, John Yerger is an awesome birder and he heard two Tufted Flycatchers giving their "turee-turee" call at once from different locations.  So there are two of them.  The big question is:  is breeding intact?  It sure would be exciting if these two birds are breeding; it would be a first U.S. breeding record and they would also be easy to chase and see for everyone who wants to see them.  I believe the person who did claim to see it on a nest.

Because we hike all the way down from Carr Canyon, we would have to walk all the way back up again.  Well, some of us would.  I chose to go back up Carr for the three miles up slope while Chris, Magill, and Gordon were heading down a much easier route down Ramsey Canyon.  It was the gentleman inside of me ;)  I would then drive down the rough and twisty Carr Canyon and eventually go to Ramsey Canyon to pick them up.  Luckily, I didn't have to do it alone as John, Jake, Noah, Erin and Scott were all heading up that way too.  They were nice to let me join them and I enjoyed birding with them for the hike back up the trail.  Before I went back up, I mentioned to quite a few birders at the Tufted Flycatcher spot to keep an eye out for Spotted Owl because the habitat was perfect for them.  Sure enough, a birder found one right after I left as he went to find a bush.  The walk back up Carr was nice.  I had awesome company and we found a few Red-faced Warblers among the species present.  

Once I finally got to Ramsey I heard my first Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers of the year.  Chris, Gordon, and Magill were looking at Flame-colored Tanagers while I was gone.  I caught up to the male Flame singing up high in a tree.  What a horrible look and photograph it was.  The real highlight was a slice of pizza Magill saved for me for when I got back.

The Tufted Flycatcher had the quadruple effect on all of us-it was a lifer for everyone in the party.  Code 5's don't come every day.  Birders are lucky to get one every year or two or three or four.  It was a perfect reason to jump around.

This is the rarest bird I think I've chased in southeastern Arizona.  I'm usually not very good at these rarities.  I've missed Slate-throated Redstart by a day, Fan-tailed Warbler by 1.5 days, Crescent-chested Warbler by a day, another Crescent-chested Warbler by a few hours, and Aztec Thrush by 5 minutes.  This felt great!  Thanks to Gordon, Magill, and Chris for an awesome trip.