January 7th: A jaunt to Seven Springs

Today on January 7th, my brother, Tyler, and I went north of Phoenix to explore Seven Springs Recreation Area, Camp Creek, and the road up to Mt. Humboldt.  I was looking for something to do after church, and I knew that a little birding would be the best thing.  It was cool to have my brother along.

Our first stop was both Upper and Lower Camp Creek.  We began with Upper Camp Creek.  My hope was to find a continuing Louisiana Waterthrush found by Troy Corman on last week's Cave Creek Christmas Bird Count.  After some waiting, we lucked out and had good looks at the Louisiana Waterthrush.  This is only the fourth Maricopa County record of this species.  Three of those records have come from the Seven Springs area now, and the other came from the Lower Salt River.  The latter I was able to see too.  This waterthrush was closer than the previous Louisiana Waterthrush was that I got to see.  Luckily, Tyler was able to get on the bird too.

This Green Heron also worked alongside the LOWA.

Seven Springs birds:

Cedar Waxwing

Sage Thrasher

Cassin's Finch

After Seven Springs, we worked our way up to the summit of Mt. Humboldt.  The views here are always great, and it was something awesome to enjoy.  On the way back down, I stopped along some semidesert grassland habitats along the road to search for Grasshopper Sparrow.  This bird can be hard to find in Maricopa County, but multiple birds have been seen in the Mt. Humboldt area.  I was hoping for at least one of them, and one is what I got!

The Seven Springs area is one I need to visit more often, the birding potential is awesome here!

January 4th: A Day of Exploring

My alarm didn't go off quite the way I wanted it to this morning, so I slept through it.  Another thing that could have happened was that I've been so tired lately that maybe I slept through the alarm and had the natural amount of sleep my body needed.  Who knows.

My desired location to explore today was the northern portion of Gila County, east of Payson, just below the Mogollon Rim and west of Forest Lakes.  Since I got up late, I didn't think at first I would go through with that plan.  After sitting around for an hour thinking of what to do, I stuck with my plan.  Lately I haven't been exploring places that others have explored all that much.  I really like that idea of finding my own things, unless someone reports something new for Maricopa County that I don't have, OR if there is a reliable Gila County lifer somewhere OR if some lifer shows up in Arizona that can't be missed.  Pine Grosbeaks that Jason Wilder recently found at Snowbowl in Coconino County north of Flagstaff really had my attention.  Coconino is probably the next county I'll try and get 200 species in.  I had second thoughts though, and decided that I would try and find my own notable bird in the mountains of northern Gila County just below the cliffs and slopes of the Mogollon Rim.  I didn't have anything notable by the end of the day, but you can't succeed if you don't try.  I was hoping for a Nutcracker, or with a lot of luck, a rare finch of some sort.  Even a Gila County American Three-toed Woodpecker would have been awesome.  Or a Gila County Northern Goshawk.  I didn't get anything to scream about, but I did get good exploring and scouting in for when I return to explore the area further.  Spots I explored were Sinkhole Trail 179 from the 260 Trailhead, Christopher Creek via See Canyon, and the Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery.  Bird highlights did include Williamson's Sapsucker, Red Crossbill, Pacific Wren, Golden-crowned Kinglet, and a Greater Roadrunner in midst of pine and Gambel's oak forest.  It was the strangest habitat I've seen roadrunner in, and most of the forest was ponderosa pine.  Scrubby habitat of some sort wasn't close by.  Anyways, a beautiful area to explore and bird.

Photo wise, this Mountain Chickadee was cooperative and was awesome!

This Golden-crowned Kinglet was much higher than the Chickadee, but it is always a fun bird to see.

I checked up on Green Valley Park in Payson just in case a Cackling Goose would be back in play with the many Canada Goose there.  No Cackling.  But this Snow Goose was there, sleeping, and then, woken up from it's sleep.  I don't think I've ever seen a bird look this tired..

A Dipper in Pai

January 3rd, 2018:  My great buddy Walker Noe and I went north to Yavapai County to look for an American Dipper, or two, that have been seen in Fain Park in Prescott Valley.  We were able to find one of the two Dippers.  It was odd to see this bird at a lake and not along a fast running stream.  There are running water sources on both sides of the lake with good water flow, but the dipper kept to the lake edges.  What a cool bird, a great bird for Yavapai County, and an Arizona state bird for Walker.

Later in the day, I went to some spots in Maricopa County southwest of Phoenix and in Buckeye, all based around a billionth failed Short-eared Owl attempt in Maricopa County.  I did get a White-tailed Kite from SEOW lookout, and some other highlights:

Bell's Sparrow

Cattle Egrets

Ferruginous Hawk

January 1st: Patch It Up

First day of 2018.  Happy New Year everyone!  I kicked off my birding this year by going to my patch, the Glendale Recharge Ponds.  Over 70 species of birds kicked off my first birding outing of the year today at Glendale.  Some of the highlights are photographed below, including the main highlight, my Glendale first Black-and-white Warbler!

These two Geese, the top a Ross's Goose and the bottom a hybrid of Ross's and Snow Goose, have been a pair at the ponds of late, or, last year..

A few Cackling Geese have been at the ponds in midst of many Canada Geese.  I'm sure the Cackler is pretty obvious without me having to point right to it..

The ponds have also been hosting an fearless Bald Eagle.  Now this was awesome!

Happy New Year.

Gila County: Eastern Bluebirds

On December 15th, I did another day full of Gila County Birding, likely my last day in 2017 in Gila County.  Hopefully much more birding in this awesome county will follow in 2018.

I visited an RV park near the Bar X Crossing Road area that I like to bird along Tonto Creek.  I had a huge highlight when I found a small flock of four Eastern Bluebirds.  The flock came to my attention when I heard their distinctive "tur-a-lee" calls.  After following the sounds, I got to see and photograph these awesome birds.  It was my 274th lifer for Gila County, and my 266th for 2017.  Also, it appears to officially be a first Gila County record.  There has been an invasion of Eastern Bluebirds into Arizona this year, most of which likely belong to the nominate eastern race.  The Mexican race of southeastern Arizona and Mexico isn't known to migrate, and isn't as bright as the nominate eastern race.  I consider myself lucky to have found these birds, which is one of the best I have been able to find in Gila County.

Here are some photographs of the Eastern Bluebirds!

A Story of An Owl and A Goose

In Maricopa County, things can really get hyped up in a short amount of time.  Examples of a short amount of time can be over the course of a few days, and it can even be over the course of a few hours.  Maricopa County has exploded this year with more and more birders taking up interest in birding the region.  In this case, I got lucky to have two great experiences.  Let me tell you a short story of an owl and a goose.

On November 21st, someone located a Northern Saw-whet Owl at Gilbert Water Ranch during the day.  The owl was on a day roost and stayed in that day roost for hours.  Word didn't get out about the owl until much later in the day.  I didn't think too much of it to the fact that I was going to chase it.  On November 22nd, I had to work and didn't get off of work until 2 P.M.  I was thinking about driving to the very northwestern tip of Maricopa County to the agricultural farm fields of Aguila to check for Short-eared Owls once dusk would arrive.  Knowing it would be a long shot, I wasn't overly excited about the potential trip to Aguila.  And then news came to the listserv from Lindsay Story, and she had been shown the Northern Saw-whet Owl at Gilbert Water Ranch.  Lindsay told the birding community about the owl's perch, and right then and there, I made up my mind that I was going to go see an epic owl that was a sure thing rather than another epic owl that would only be a remote change of finding it at best.  After work, I drove through heavy Thanksgiving traffic and arrived at Gilbert Water Ranch around 3 P.M.  I went to the spot and found plenty of birders, and also, the Northern Saw-whet Owl itself.  The Saw-whet Owl was epic, and it was the first time I've ever gotten to see one of them in the day time.  Because I love to collect owl experiences, this one was one that was a great addition to the collection.  Here is a selection of photographs of this owl, enjoy..

The Northern Saw-whet Owl was seen by many for one more day after I got to see it, which was on Thanksgiving Day, at Gilbert Water Ranch.  Then November 25th came around.  It didn't look to have birding included in it at all.  With birding, things can change in seconds.  I was walking out the door of my home and on my way to responsibility when I got a phone call.  It was Melanie Herring, when I saw that she was calling me, I knew that she had something good.  Melanie has found a lot of rare birds, and this time, she was calling me to tell me that she had a Brant at Glendale Recharge Ponds.  I couldn't believe it!  A Brant!  The birding listserv was acting funky, and her attempted posts weren't going through.  She called me and I relayed the message.  Now, let's go back to my responsibility I had to attend.  For the first time in my birding, I called the responsibility off for 40 minutes and said I would be late.  And it didn't matter in the long run, there was a Brant at Glendale Recharge Ponds!  Brant is one in Arizona that doesn't stick around long after it shows up, and I didn't want to take any chances.  I sped to Glendale Recharge Ponds, ran up to basins 1 and 2 where the Brant was discovered by Melanie, I found Melanie and the Brant, thanked Melanie and enjoyed the Brant for a whole five minutes, sprinted back to my truck, and then I went to responsibility thirty minutes late.  It didn't matter, I had an epic new addition to my Maricopa County birding as well as my Arizona lifer.  Prior to this day, I had seen Brant a few times in southern California, where they are much more home in their preferred coastal habitat.  This one, at my patch at Glendale Recharge Ponds, will have a lasting effect...

Good thing that I went and saw the Brant that day.  I went back the next day in hopes of getting longer and more relaxing looks that weren't rushed.  I got there early too, and it left a minute before I got to where it was being seen by a few who got there earlier than me.  And it wasn't seen again.