The early and the late: A treck for the Bell's

On October 11th I took a trip with fellow birders Mr. Tommy Debardeleben, Mr. Laurence Butler, and Mr. Gordon Karre. Our target bird was the Bell's Sparrow, Mr. Tommy took a trip out to Robbin's Butte to scout the area and found around twelve and only one or two Sagebrush!!! Just incase some of you don't know the Sage Sparrow has been split in two species, the Bell's and the Sagebrush Sparrows. The Sagebrush is much more common than the Bell's. There are only a couple spots in Maricopa County where you can find both in a day, and one of those spots is the Thrasher Spot located in west Buckeye. When we parked the car and walked a little ways we could hear a couple Sage Sparrows calling but we could not tell what species they were without seeing them. We noticed a strange behavior that the sparrows stay low early in the morning but around 8:00AM the sparrows started coming higher in the bushes and scattered trees, this same behavior happened when Mr. Tommy was here a couple days before. Out of the six Bell's Sparrows I was able to shoot one quick photo of one of the birds, it might not be the best but you can see a bit of the birds plain back and the dark maler.

 As we were on the treck for the Bell's, Mr. Laurence found a pair of mating Western Diamond-backed Rattlesnakes under a mesquite.

On our way back to the car I saw something move right behind Mr. Tommy and I looked in the bush and found a Gopher Snake! So I dropped to the ground and after about a minute of untagling the snake from the bush I caught it! Here is a photo Mr. Laurence took for me.

There was also a late Western Kingbird that decided to stop by.

Our next stop was the Arlington Wildlife Area. On our way there we saw what happened to be the all time highlight of the day!

While we were on our way to Arlington Mr. Tommy saw a flock of birds, and he quickly called them Rock Pigeons!!! When he called them out everyone reached back for their binocs and cameras (and yes there were a few fists and elbows thrown around) and we photographed Arizona's first ever Rock Pigeons!!!

Unfortunatly, I don't know if you noticed but that wasn't the true story, It was more like this.

Mr. Tommy yelled Rock Pigeons and everyone laghed at them. Good story huh?!

You pick what story you like better, anyways back to the trip! When we arrived at the road that leads to the Arlington Wetlands we saw it had been flooded out by the recent storms, so we took our own detour which ended up with some nice birds. Before we reached the wetlands we saw a Lewis's Woodpecker take flight in the opposite direction from us, of course! Once we reached the wetlands we were greeted by quite a few Cassin's Kingbirds.

Arlington had a few highlights including Sora, Virginia Rail, Least Bittern (all audio), Green-winged Teal, and Crissal Thrasher.

From left to right: Mr. Laurence, Mr. Tommy, and Mr. Gordon

We then had to start heading back, I then noticed a high flying Common Black Hawk!

Here are a few extremely cropped photos.

The CBHA was a pretty late migrant and it was strange to see in this habitat, but it was most likely just migrating through like most of the birds we saw. Thanks for the awesome morning af birding Mr. Tommy, Mr. Gordon , and Mr. Laurence I had a blast!!! Here are a few photos to close out this post.

Northern Harrier

 

Black-crowned Night-Heron

 

Greater Roadrunner

 

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!