Exploring the Prescott area

Prescott is a very nice area to bird. It has lots of habitats and with many habitats come many birds! Prescott is located in northern Yavapai, a county that I only have 93 species in (as of now), so I made a few calls and wrote a few emails and after a few replies made a trip on October 23rd to the Prescott area with Mr. Joe Ford, Mr. Paul Doucett, Ms. Haylie Hewitt, and my brother David. We visited Watson Lake, Granite Basin Lake, and Willow Lake. I had two target birds and they were Wood Duck and Cassin's Finch, I have seen WODU's a few times but I can never get tired of that bird, and anyways I don't have WODU on my year list yet. When we parked the car I could see that there was some nice riparian habitat that went into the lake. Here are a couple photos of Watson Lake and the surrounding habitat.

 

We were only the 2nd car in the parking lot when we arrived, but that changed pretty quickly! There were bikers, hikers, and I even ran into Yavapai's eBird reviewer Steven Burk. While we were walking along the main trail I spied this mannequin taking a rest against a building!

Okay now that was a little strange, but it got even stranger when I heard a high pitched whistle that sounded like a hawk but was not loud enough, so I walked to where I heard it and found three Wood Ducks! Here is a photo of a female and male. One out of two booya!

Unfortunatly no one else was able see them, but they did hear them. Right after the WODU's took flight I could hear some fledgeling Pied-billed Grebes begging, so I started hiking towards them and was able to witness an adult PBGR feed a fish to one of its three fledgelings. At first the fish looked to big for the youngling to swallow, but after a few attempts he gulped that sucker down!

It just happened that there was a Neotropic Cormorant right above the grebes.

 I wonder what the cormorant thinks of the grebes???

There was a large variety of birds on and around Watson Lake, birds ranging from sparrows, warblers, and woodpeckers to ducks herons and grebes. Here are a few other birds we saw on the pleasant walk.
                                                                    Bewick's Wren

                                                                                Bushtit

 

 

Gadwall

 We ended Watson Lake with 50 species of bird and quite a few highlights in there as well. Our next stop was Granite Basin Lake, according to eBird this was going to be quite a birdy area and a birdy area it was! I even got a lifer. But you will have to wait to find out.

Once we arrived at the camping area where we ate our lunch I headed out to find some birds. It didn't take long for me to find a beautiful adult Townsend's Solitaire that flycatched right in front of my face, but of course I was not able to photograph the awesome moment, instead here is a distant photo!

After eating lunch we drove down to the lake where we spent quite a bit of time birding the riparian area.
                                                                   Granite Basin Lake

 While we birded the riparian area we had a good amount of species, one of the highlights was a flock of 5 Red-naped Sapsuckers in a single tree! We also had an Acorn Woodpeckers at its stash tree.

After observing the clown like woodpecker at his man-cave I spied my lifer Cassin's Finch on top of a very tall pine!                                    

Right when I saw the bird I snapped a couple of photos then I tried to point the bird out to everyone but failed, only a couple of people saw it but even then they didn't see anything different about the bird. I still wanted to get better looks at one, but I didn't think that was going to happen. As we birded the same trails around again I spied yet another female only this time everyone got great looks!

                                                                      Cassin's Finch!!!

From left to right: Mr. Paul Doucett, my brother David, Mr. Joe Ford, and Ms. Haylie Hewitt

The Cassin's Finch was a life bird for all of us exept for Mr. Ford who saw his only one in Colorado. After Granite Basin Lake we made our last stop of the day to Willow Lake. Once we arrived at the parking lot we spied a Merlin and a pair of Bald Eagles!

 You can barely see in the photos but the eagles are sporting some nice bling-bling on their legs!

I can never get tired of seeing BAEA's they are just so majestic! We then started hiking on the trail going down toward the lake when my brother spied a Greater Roadrunner that ran under a bush, so I walked over to the bush and got a killer face shot of this awesome ground-cuckoo!

While I was down under the bush trying to get a clear photo without sticks in the birds face I heard the distinctive flight call of the Lawrence's Goldfinch, but as I got out of the bush I could not see the bird. We then hiked a bit further to where we could start scoping out the lake. When we stopped I could hear the begging calls of a fledgeling Anna's Hummingbird and when I looked up I was greeted by this sight.

We were surprised to see a Cattle Egret (our first egret of the day) along the shore.

CAEG then flew on to a island and then GREG flew with CAEG and I got a photo of GREG taking CAEG's spot, and in all of that is a GBHE.

 I ended the day with 36 Yavapers (first for Yavapai) which brought my Yavapai list up to 129! Before I end this post here are a couple of photos of Willow Lake.

Thanks Mr. Ford, Mr. Paul, Ms. Haylie, and David for the awesome day of birding!

The awesomeness of my patch

Some of you might be thinking "what is a patch!" well a patch is a spot that a birder visits a lot and usually tends to be fairly close to where that birder lives. For instance, someone who lives in Glendale will most likely have the Glendale Recharge Ponds as their patch because the ponds are loaded with birds and the hot spot isn't in the middle of nowhere! Since I don't live within biking range of any SUPER hotspots I have to bike quite far to get a good species list, but when I do bird and bike around near my house I can usually get around 60 species of bird in about three miles of biking. I have constantly been adding to my biking range. I started biking and birding when I was about nine years old, I wasn't even allowed to bike to the canal which is only about 1/5 of a mile away from my house, but I couldn't blame my parents because there were and still are some creeps out there!!! So I biked around our block, the only way I was allowed to bike out of my block was if my Mom went with me. So every afternoon I would beg my Mom to go biking around. After about a year of gaining trust and privilages I was able to finally bird the canal! The first few bike rides to the canal got me my lifer Common Yellowthroat, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Ladder-backed Woodpecker, and about 40 other species. After I was able to bird the canal I slowly started extending my area to where I now am allowed to biked for up to five miles (pretty good for only being fifteen). There are quite a few habitats in the eight square miles that I bike. There are cotton, alfalfa, corn, soregum, wheat, a couple of sod, and bermuda fields, desert and ripairian habitats in the Gila River, lots of large ponds with some having good shorebird habitat, and a little bit of marsh habitat. Here are some photos of the areas I bird.
The Buckeye Canal off of Jackrabbit Trail

One of the MANY fields I have near my house (with White-faced Ibis in it)

A small pond that runs off of the Buckeye Canal

I recently started birding some of the riparian areas near the Gila River, and there was one area where it was extremely thick with willows, cottonwoods and tamarask, but the mesquitos were so bad that I was getting bitten while riding my bike so I didn't stop very long.

There is also a large pond near it (this photo only shows half of the pond).

Gila River

I have been able to find 184 species of bird in my patch and I am still finding a couple of new species every month, in that 184 species that I have seen, the most notable would be the birds I have photographed below, but I am embarassed to say that I have not seen any Glossy Ibis YET, but I will do some hardcore searching in between March and May next year when they are in breeding plumage.

On March 7th 2012 my family was on our way to the dentist when I spied a Crested Caracara as it flew right over our car!!! The only thing was that my brother was driving so we couldn't stop. But I managed to get a photo that shows the white in the wings.

On May 17th 2012 I was on my way back from a short biking trip when I saw this adult male Rose-breasted Grosbeak in the open!!!

From late November of 2012 to late January of 2013 I had an Orchard Oriole that stayed for the Winter along the canal.

On January 20th 2013 I was out with some friends birding and we could either go to the canal and look for the Orchard Oriole who was still there or we could bird the ag fields. We ended up birding the ag fields and while we were walking we saw seven large white birds from about a half mile away and as we got closer we noticed they were Tundra Swans!!! All of us were shocked, even when we got to the road nearest to the swans they were still very distant (at least for photos) so I decided that I was going to have to walk through the knee deep mud in order to get a photo, so I did so! Before long I was shooting at the swans and they took flight and started honking. Once the birds took flight we headed back and attached my pictures to the computer and looked in awe. The next day we walked over and the birds were there again! We were blessed to see these birds for about four days!

I unfortunately can't remember when I saw this bird, but I believe it was sometime in mid March in 2013, anyways after I was out looking at my lifer Marbled Godwit I found as well as a Willet I found this McCown's Longspur mixed with a flock of Horned Larks.

On April 13th 2013 I found what is prabably the biggest rarety I have seen! After I had a pleasant morning of birding I decided to check some of the fields near my house and there was one field that was drying up from just being irrigated. There was a couple of Wilson's Snipes that took flight as well as a few Least Sandpipers. but as I looked out I saw a large plover. I first thought it was a Black-bellied Plover but the bird was brownish not gray. I snapped a few photos before the bird ran to the other side of the field, so I biked to the other side with no sign of the bird! After lots of thinking I finally called the bird an American Golden-Plover!

In the same month as the plover I also found this Northern Waterthrush.

On May 4th 2013 I had a White-throated Sparrow that just did not want to be photographed but this is what I came back with.

On May 19th of 2013 my family and I were going to visit my Grandparents and Aunts and Uncles who live in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, I had my target birds for that trip and one of them was a Whimbrel ( most of you already know what's going to happen now huh?!). On May 18th (the day before we left) I went out birding and I noticed a couple of curlews in a field and guess what they were Whimbrels! Later in the day I went back out and I watched the bird get chased away by a darn grackle!!! Unfortunately I am unable to find my photos of them.

Sometime in the early fall of 2013 I found an American Redsatart in a small runoff ditch with a few cottonwoods.

In September (2013) I road my bike through the 105+ degree heat to the Jackrabbit and Broadway slop pond about a mile from my house. When I got there I saw a dowitcher (which was my first dowitcher for the ponds) when it first took flight I heard it give its distinctive "tu tu tu" call and that was when I knew it was a Short-billed Dowitcher.

I am very blessed to live in such a birdy area and am thankfull to my parents for letting me go out birding. Now with you having and idea on where my patch is I will try to make a monthly post on the highlights that I see around my house, and you never know when I might find that Glossy Ibis!