My first time as a guide!

California has some amazing wildlife photographers like Brian Small (one of the best out there). On July 26th and 27th I had the honor of guiding one of those photographers, Mr. Steve Kaye.  Mr. Steve has only been doing bird photography for three years and he is in my opinion nearly as good as Brian Small! On the 26th Mr. Paul Doucett and I guided Mr. Steve at the Tres Rios Overbank Wetlands off of 91st. It has been about four months since I have last birded this area. We arrived at the wetlands at 4:15PM, it was about 105 degrees out, pretty hot huh! As we approached the wetlands I could already hear a couple of Least Bitterns giving their rail like calls. Black-crowned Night-Herons, and American White Pelicans were flying over the thick marsh.
                                                        Black-crowned Night-Heron

                                                          American White Pelican

 I must apologize because I did not take many photos, instead I tried to help Mr. Steve with all of the birds we saw. We encountered many Lesser Nighthawks and a Great Horned Owl as it started to get darker and we had very close views of a female Least Bittern which I was able to get an okay photo of.
                                                                     Least Bittern

Before we knew it it was already dark so we called it a day. After getting about three and a half hours of sleep Ms. Haylie Hewitt picked me up and there we were off again Mr. Steve, Ms. Haylie, and I at the Baseline and Meridian Wildlife Area (AKA the B and M). I love this area and I pretty much know where all of the birds are at this spot. When we parked the car it started raining so we waited a little before heading out. We started at the "Virginia Rail Pond" and it was not hard to pick him and the female Least Bittern out.
                                                                  Virginia Rail

As you can see with this photo the cloud cover was extremely thick and I was not able to get the best photo of him today but here are some photos I took of the exact same bird about a month and a half ago.

I did not take many photos again on this trip, either because it was super cloudy and I was busy helping Mr. Steve.  But hey, that's what it's like being a guide. I was able to show Mr. Steve the Barn Owls and a few other birds, but our next stop was at the Hunter's Ponds in search of Burrowing Owls. It was not hard finding the owls and we also had a few Black-necked Stilts fly over us.
                                                                  Black-necked Stilt

Before I knew it our mornings birding was over. Later that afternoon when I was at our friends house I found this Pacific-slope Flycatcher.
                                                               Pacific-slope Flycatcher

I was also trying to photograph one of the most depressing birds in the bird world, the Inca Dove. The Inca Dove was singing his "no hope" song over and over, which gave me a depressed feeling, they surely must have been saying "there is no hope for Caleb to get a photo of us" but I proved them wrong!

I know that this is not the best photo but it's a start! I must thank Mr. Paul and Ms. Haylie for helping with my adventures I could not have done it without you guys!

The Cordilleran Flycatcher family

All right, I did say that this would be the last post on my first trip to Happy Jack this year. However, this post won't be about my trip to Happy Jack but in fact about one specific bird that I found.

While I was on my trip to Happy Jack the "Pew Teet" call of the Cordilleran Flycatcher was a common sound from deep within the forest. Every time I would hear the call I would try to locate the bird and get some photos, but one time when I was close to camp I heard the usual Cordilleran call again, so I tried to locate the bird. Once I found it I saw him fly up, and when he flew up I heard the begging calls of some fledgeling.  I then stealthily walked over to where they were and found them! But before I give you a photo of the fledgelings here is a photo of Aaron the Cordilleran Flycatcher.

Yes, I was extremely close but hey it's an okay photo! Now here are Aaron's kids.

When I found the fledgelings I noticed my camera battery was very low,  after watching the birds for a while I headed back to the trailer and charged the battery for about and hour before going back out.  I ate breakfast with my family and then I went back out to look for the fledgelings. It was not hard finding them because they gave a very high pitched whistle and I could hear it from about 250 feet away. I then tracked down the whistle and found the fledgelings high up in a tree, but that did not stop me from getting to eye level with them. Just to let you know I like climbing trees quite a bit, and climbing a tree to get eye level with these birds was no problem at all!!!

Here is a photo of Aaron from up in the tree.

It was awesome getting to observe this species so easily, but even though the bird would come by every once in a while to feed his young, I was not able to get that awesome photo where the adult lands near the fledgling and all three are begging and he is about to feed them but, I did get this shot.

As you can see Aaron has a horse fly and horse fly's are evil and smart! The main reason I don't like horse flies goes back to a few years ago when we first started camping at Happy Jack. I was hiking with my mom and younger brother when I saw my first ever Many-lined Skink.  I ran over to it but before I could catch it, the scaly monster ran in a slithering like way into a hole. I was heart-broken, I had just missed catching my first ever skink!  As we continued hiking along the trail the horse flies would let us walk by them but once we passed them they would attack us from behind and fly onto the back of our necks or heads and bite us. I was just not in the mood for these evil little monsters and I pretty much exploded and ran back to camp.  Ever since then I have had a bad relationship with these insects. When I saw that Aaron had caught and fed a horse fly to his babies he quickly became my best bird friend, ha those horse fly's got what they deserve!
 I hope you enjoyed the photos and information, and yes, this will be the last of this weeks camping posts!

Camping at "Happy Jack Lodge" (Part 3)

Well, yes this will be the last post for this weeks camping/birding trip, here are the last few days of birding I did, I hope you enjoyed them.

 As it got later in the trip the monsoons started rolling in, thus the thick cloud cover made it hard to get a decent photo of any birds. This beautiful breeding plumaged Yellow-rumped Warbler did not let the poor lighting take away any of his awesomeness!
                                                               Yellow-rumped Warbler

A short trip to the Blue Ridge Reservior resulted in some distant views of a female Common Merganser with her six fledglings. This is the third year in a row I have seen this female with fledgelings.
                                                             Common Merganser
We also had a few Canyon Wrens singing but like most of my encounters the birds eluded me and I was unable to get any photos. The day after Blue Ridge we went to our friends cabin on the other side of highway 87. They had many feeders up and had a good amount of birds in their yard, but the real alpha of the property was a male Rufous Hummingbird who dominated the feeders and some how avoided any good photos.
                                                                Rufous Hummingbird

There was also a female Broad-tailed Hummingbird, a few Acorn Woodpeckers and a couple of Lesser Goldfinches.

     Broad-tailed Hummingbird

                        
                                                            Acorn Woodpecker

                                                         Lesser Goldfinch (male right, female left)

Before I knew it we were at the last day of our weeks camping. I knew I was going to have to bird hard and try to get my year list to 250, which was the amount of species I had by the end of last year. As I woke up I saw that it was cloudy, so I stayed in my bed for another hour before getting up. Once I was offically awake I headed out the door and started birding back in the forest when I found these three species of thrush.
                                                                  Western Bluebird

                                                                  American Robin

                                                Townsend's Solitaire (adult feeding young)

The Western Bluebird was by far the most common of the three thrushes and the Townsend's Solitaire was the least common. but believe it or not last year I had better photos of the solitaire and robin then I did of the bluebird! The Townsend's Solitaire was my 249th bird for this year, after that bird I was determined to get just one more year bird. Then I walked a trail I had not hiked yet this year, it leads down to a large pond and I have not been to many times at all. Once I hiked down to the pond I could hear the calls of a mixed flock, so I quickly ran towards the action. This Brown Creeper was one of the birds that joined the party.
                                                                    Brown Creeper

 I searched a bit harder but all I could come up with was the usual birds, but this female Hepatic Tanager gave me my first good looks of this species for this trip.
                                                               Hepatic Tanager

Well I didn't get the 250 I wanted, but I still had a blast! I hunted down a lot of year birds and there is no doubt that I will beat last years list, all I need is a couple more species and that will do it!

Camping at "Happy Jack Lodge" (Part 2) Grand Birding at the Grand Canyon

On July 17th my family and I took our first trip to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. Of course, I was thinking the whole drive there of just how awesome it would be to see the ugly but, majestic California Condor.

The drive up to the canyon was awesome passing through all of the different habitats.  As we were going by Mormon Lake my family and I saw a huge herd of elk, we had to stop and take a look. The crazy thing is this is only a third of the herd.

After stopping in Flagstaff we had another two hours of driving until reaching the canyon. Once we paid our fee I noticed a couple of large birds soaring and when they showed me their under wing I noticed they were my lifer, California Condors already! My Dad then parked the car in the parking lot and we walked out to the rim by the visitor area. When I went around the corner of the trees I thought that I was looking at a painting, the Grand Canyon was amazing!!! There were also about five condors flying at fairly close range. The first is an adult and the second is a juvenile. Am I in Heaven?
                                                                California Condor

 

As my Dad and I were watching the condors fly by, my mom and brother said that there were some condors perched over yonder where all people were. I ran down to where they were and I found my self about eighteen feet from one of the birds I had only dreamed of seeing. If you noticed these birds are football wannabe's, with there jersey numbers.
                                                             California Condor

 

It was awesome watching these guy slowly soar through the air. They kind of reminded me of a plane, landing gear down; check.

There was also the much smaller and common cousin of the California Condor, the Turkey Vulture.

                                                                       Turkey Vulture

 After spending a couple hours watching, taking pictures of the condors and hiking we headed back to the car to go on a picnic, but before we could get to the car we saw a young elk about 15 feet away.

Once we arrived at the picnic area I went out hiking and was able to find a flock of Bushtits and a confused Juniper Titmouse that didn't know where it belonged, but I guess they are both gray right?
                                                                   Bushtit

                                                                 Juniper Titmouse

I then headed back to eat and had this hobo begging me for food. 
                                                                Common Raven

We had a few more stops along the rim but the only notable thing we saw after the first two stops was this huge 7 point elk just 50 yards off the road. He actually stopped traffic.  Many took pictures!!

If you were looking for some photos of the Grand Canyon I was too caught up in the wildlife.
I hope you enjoyed this post, and it will not be the last of my Happy Jack adventures.                                                            

Camping at "Happy Jack Lodge" (Part 1)

From July 16th-21st my family and I brought our camping trailer up to the Happy Jack Lodge. However, this post will only be about my first day there. It's a huge relief (heat and all) getting out of the valley and into the pines. After arriving at the lodge and setting up I started my birding adventure. My brother and a camping friend also joined me. But they only came for the hiking and taking some pictures. Man they thought that they were being so quiet that the birds weren't flying away from them but coming towards them! Oh gosh, this is going to be a LONG hike (I thought), and to add onto that they nicknamed me Bird Boy, which I guess does fit me pretty well.

 The Pygmy Nuthatch was the most abundant bird I observed. The Pygmy Nuthatch is officially my favorite of the three nuthatches. It used to be the red-breasted but the pygmy is like those little gremlins before they turn evil. They are small, fuzzy, and cute, a word I almost never say, but it is true!
                                                                 Pygmy Nuthatch

 The Pygmy Nuthatches larger cousin the White-breasted Nuthatch was also very abundant.
                                                               White-breasted Nuthatch

As we were walking along a draw I saw a medium sized yellowish songbird perched on the top of a very tall pine tree, and after walking a bit closer I noticed it was my FOY (first of year) Red Crossbill, a female. 
                                                                  Red Crossbill      

Yes, the photo may be super cropped but hey this was the first Red Crossbill I have had perched in the last two years! The slow trilling song of the Dark-eyed Junco was also filling the mountain slopes and rolling hills of Happy Jack and one bird was fearless, and let me get a reasonable photo.
                                                        "Red Backed" Dark-eyed Junco

One of the most entertaining birds I observed was this Mountain Chickadee, someone needs to tell this guy that he is a bird not a monkey, but I was a bit impressed with his one legged pull-ups!
                                                                 Mountain Chickadee

 Here is another Mountain Chickadee, in a less impressive pose.
                                                                 Mountain Chickadee

I then sat down to listen and watch for any birds, I found a couple of male Northern Flickers trying to kill each other, what a way to brake the silence!!! Can't you see the bird on the top has an evil look in his eye!
                                                    "Red Shafted" Northern Flickers

Okay, now all violence set aside, here is a more peaceful woodpecker, the not so Hairy Woodpecker giving his unmistakable "pwick" call.
                                                               Hairy Woodpecker

After hiking through the thick forest there was one more spot I wanted to check out. An area that has had all of its trees taken out so it is just a couple of bare hills. This cleared out area is where I had my lifer Purple Martins last year and they are pretty common around the lodge, at this bare area they land every once in a while to pick up nesting materials and bugs off the ground. If I am at the right place at the right time I might crush these monstrous swallows. However, I was not able to get proper crushes (photos), a FOY female landed pretty close and a male flew over me.
                                                                  Purple Martin

The habitat around Happy Jack is nearly all Pondorosa Pine with scattered Gambel's Oaks. A favored habitat for the Flamulated Owl, but I will just brake the news now, I totally missed that species, in fact I didn't have any owls on this trip at all! But I was able to get a few FOY Common Nighthawks to fly over me, and I got at least one decent shot.
                                                              Common Nighthawk

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for my next post "Grand Birding At The Grand Canyon".