Slate Creek Divide--The Trek for #300 Continues!!!

Slate Creek Divide is located in the extreme northeastern corner of Maricopa County. In the past, this area has had a couple of devastating fires and has lost some of its breeding birds like Red-faced Warbler, Mexican Whip-poor-pill, etc. But luckily there are a few areas on the Maricopa side of Slate Creek that haven't been burned, like a few drainage's that hold great forested habitat that almost resemble the mountains of southeastern Arizona. In the past fellow birder Mr. Tommy DeBardeleben has explored the drainages quite often, and in those searches has found Mexican Jays, Dusky-capped Flycatchers, a migrant Red-faced Warbler, a Flamulated Owl, and even a pair of Spotted Owls that took him over ten trips to finally find. However, many birders have gone out here several times in search of the Spotted Owl's day roost without success, as a matter of fact only a hand-full of people (mostly Spotted Owl researchers) have been able to find any Spotted Owl day roosts in Maricopa County. But when I made plans to bird this area on May 25th with Mr. Troy Corman I had what seemed like no more than the dream of being one of the firsts. Other than Mt. Ord I have not been able to bird at any of the other mountainous regions in Maricopa County, and just the mere thought of birding a new area is awesome! I had two target birds for this trip: Mexican Jay and Dusky-capped Flycatcher. I have seen both of these species before in southeastern Arizona but I haven't seen them anywhere away from that area. The lower elevations of Slate Creek are a lot like the lower slopes of Mt. Ord, holding breeding birds like Black-chinned and Rufous-crowned Sparrows, Black-headed Grosbeaks, Gray Vireos, Spotted and Canyon Towhees, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Bewick's Wrens and Bushtits. The main road that is taken to access Slate Creek is Forest Road 201 and Mr. Troy and my first stop was on a road that splits off of 201, called 201-A. This area has good pnderosa pine, evergreen oak, and a little Douglas-fir habitat, along with a lot of chaparral slopes. This is the same spot where Mr. Tommy had a Flamulated Owl calling last year. Mr. Troy and I hiked along the road pishing (bird calling) and giving our Northern Pygmy-Owl whistle imitation trying to call in whatever birds we could. The birds in Slate Creek reacted a lot more than they usually would due to it being breeding season. Here are some of the birds we called in.

House Wren

The higher elevations of Slate Creek, Mt. Ord, and a few other areas in the Mazatzal Mountains are the only places in Maricopa County where House Wrens can be found breeding at.

Blue-gray Gnatcatcher

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Bushtit

Pygmy Nuthatch

Like the lower slopes, this area is also quite similar to Mt. Ord's 1688 Trail only smaller and a lot steeper. Exploring new areas is always a treat and it only adds to its fun when it happens to be one of the top ten birding spots in the county! Once we started heading back Mr. Troy and I spotted a couple of jays that flew across the road and into a tall pine, and that was when I started celebrating!

Mexican Jay--#300 for Maicopa County!!!!

I was more pumped getting this bird as #300 for Maricopa County then I was when I first saw this bird as a lifer! Now comes #400 for the county, but I will be satisfied 350. Once I was done enjoying my milestone bird we started driving towards the end of the road where it meets up with the Arizona Trail and a drainage that we call Drainage A, but before we get that far ahead lets enjoy a couple more of the unique breeding birds of Slate Creek.

Western Tanager

Northern Flicker

Mr. Troy and I then drove over to what would be the best spot of the day, the drainages. Even though the two drainages (Drainage A and Drainage B) are the best places to go birding at Slate Creek they are also the most dangerous and I and many other birders highly recommend to never bird this area alone. The drainage has many Black-tailed and Arizona Black Rattlesnakes, has a few Black Bears and Mountain Lions, it can be a fairly steep hike, has a lot of poison-ivy, and has no cellphone reception. In order to bird this area it also takes minor rock-climbing and bush-whacking. But if you know what you're doing and bird with another person I highly recommend birding this area, because it is amazing! So you have an idea of what the area looks like, here is a map of the two drainages from Mr. Tommy's website birderfrommaricopa.

Courtesy of Tommy DeBardeleben

The thick white line shows forest road 201, the thin white line shows the Arizona trail, the thin blue-green line shows the Maricopa/Gila County lines, the thick green line shows Drainage A, and the orange line shows Drainage B (which is the roughest hike).

My target bird for this area was the Dusky-capped Flycatchers which breed at the intersection of the two drainages and along Drainage B. It has been a while since Red-faced Warblers have bred at this spot but the habitat in these drainages have nearly a perfect habitat for this species and I think that it will only be in the next few years before this beautiful mountain-loving bird comes back. The Red-breasted Nuthatch was one of my minor target birds for this trip too, because I have only seen it once in the county and it is just an overall great bird. It didn't take us long to locate a few RBNUs.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Out of the three nuthatches found in AZ (Pygmy, White-breasted, and Red-breasted) my favorite would have to be the Pygmy, but the Red-breasted is a close 2nd. When it comes to sound, however, the Red-breasted takes the cake, with its nasal-trumpet call that can often be heard in Douglas-fir forests. One of the most confusing and confused birds we encountered was a Lucy's Warbler! I never thought I would see this species singing in a Douglas-fir but hey I'll take it! Mr. Troy and I were confused as to why this bird was in this habitat because it is one of our first migrants arriving by mid March and breeding by late April to early May, so I asked Mr. Troy to play the Lucy's Warbler song from his phone to see if the bird would respond in being territorial but it didn't! Mr. Troy explained that it was probably better that the bird didn't spread its genes, because we don't want a confused population of Douglas-fir breeding Lucy's Warblers. I know this photo will probably ruin the this whole post but I will put it in just for memories.

One confused Lucy's Warbler!

Once we reached the intersection of the two drainages it didn't take us long to find at least one pair of Dusky-capped Flycatchers giving their mournful calls.

Dusky-capped Flycatcher

The Dusky-capped Flycatcher breeds at only two or three spots in the county, and they'll even skip breeding at Slate Creek every once in a while. The DCFL wasn't even detected at Slate Creek until about 2010. Birders are probably the only people who will get excited to hear such a mournful and depressing whistle. After watching the flycatchers for a while we then did a little more hiking up and down part of Drainage B before eating lunch. By the the time we started eating lunch things had started to quiet down a lot but drumming Hairy Woodpeckers livened things up a little. Once we were done eating lunch we then started our hike back when Mr. Troy spied a Gambel's White-crowned Sparrow from only a few feet away before we ended the day.

White-crowned Sparrow

Note the white/gray lores (the feathers between its bill and eye) distinguishing it from the Mountain White-crowned Sparrow, who's lores are black. All of the Gambel's should be gone by now with the Mountain being the later migrant but this bird must have had something wrong with it.

But wait! I saved the best for last. In between seeing my Maricoper Mexican Jays and Dusky-capped Flycatchers I found what was even better than the two combined! I can't give the location of the bird but all I can say is that it was on the Maricopa side of Slate Creek Divide. Here is what happened............

While Mr. Troy and I called for Northern Pygmy-Owls I happened to look up on the hillside when I spotted a blob up in a shady oak. This is what it looked like though my eyes, can you find it?

Right when I saw it I knew that it was an owl but I have seen lots of Great Horned Owls do the same thing, so I lifted my binocs up and yelled Spotted Owl!!!!!

Spotted Owl!!!

I was shocked to find that it was a Spotted Owl only about sixty yards from where we were, and we almost passed it! Here is a photo from Mr. Tommy's blog that shows just how hard of a time this owl gives birders.

Photo courtesy of Tommy D

I then hiked a little ways up the side of the hill and got better views.

Spotted Owl

We observed the SPOW for about ten minutes before moving on and during that time frame I couldn't believe that I was staring at a Spotted Owl in my home county of Maricopa, the same county that reaches 115 degrees in the Summer and holds the city of Phoenix! While we watched the owl a Broad-tailed Hummingbird came in and started pestering the pore thing.

Spotted Owl with Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Here is a photo that Mr. Troy took of me with the spotty.

Reaching 300 species of bird for my home  county of Maricopa was a nice milestone to reach! With Mexican Jay being #300, Spotted Owl #301, and Dusky-capped Flycatcher #302 I still have a long way to go before reaching 400! But I'm only fifteen years old so I have a lot of time to reach my goal. Thanks Mr. Troy for the awesome day of birding and exploring a new area with me!

Birding at the awesome Ashurst Lake

In the Flagstaff area there are many lakes. Mormon Lake (water seasonally) and Lake Mary being the largest of them, are the most visited.   Smaller ones like Marshall Lake, Vail Lake, Ashurst Lake, Indian Lake, Ducksnest Lake, Kinnikinick Lake, Morton Lake, Rajkoo Lake, Long Lake, Soldier Annex Lake, Tremain Lake, and Stoneman Lake. Many of these are waterless. I have only been able to visit three of these smaller lakes,  my favorite of them would hands down be Ashurst Lake. It has the perfect mixed habitat for waterbirds, raptors, and songbirds! On my most recent visit with Mr. Joe Ford and Alexia Grace I was able to get a total of 44 species which was pretty good considering the time we spent there.  Before we even got to where we could see the lake I spotted my target bird, the Mountain Bluebird! On my last trip to this lake I saw a few MOBL's but they kept there distance and didn't allow me to get any awesome photos, but I was hoping that would change today! Once I showed Mr. Ford and Alexia the birds I set out to crush these beautiful photo-shy monsters. As usual right when I saw the birds they would fly to a further perch, but I eventually had a female sit still for at least one photo.
                                                                     Mountain Bluebird

                                                                 Booya year bird 251!!!
I then set out to try to photograph a male but there were only about three males in this flock, I still managed to get a couple of diagnostic photos of one.
                                                                     Mountain Bluebird

We then drove down to the lake, parked at one of the camp sites, and ate our lunch. This is a photo that Alexia took of Ashurst Lake.

 Thanks for letting me use this photo Alexia!
 While we were eating our food, Mr. Ford saw a gull looking bird flying over the lake but once it started towards us and I got my binocs on I found it was a Forster's Tern! This is only the second FOTE I have seen, with my other sighting being earlier in the year at the Glendale Recharge Ponds. The bird flew over the area a few times before landing on a dead tree in the water.
                                                                  Forster's Tern

 There was also an amazing Osprey that caught a fish on the lake.
                                                                          Osprey

  This American Crow along with a few others kept a close eye on us just in case we dropped any food.
                                                                      American Crow

Once we were done eating we birded along the shore, and while we were scanning the lake little did we know that a Lewis's Woodpecker was watching us from behind. Unfortunately the bird had the sun behind it.
                                                                   Lewis's Woodpecker

 Booya year bird 252!!!
After birding the lake we started looking for some songbirds. Mr. Ford had Hermit, Yellow and Virginia's Warblers all in one juniper! There were also Black-throated Gray Warblers in the area.
                                                        Black-throated Gray Warbler

                                                                 Virginia's Warbler

We had a nice morning at Ashurst Lake and we still had to bird the Lower Lake Mary spot which stunned all of us with a very high count on a very secretive bird, but that will wait until my next post.