My Monthly Post on My Patch: December and Jauary

December and January have been two of the best months of birding I have had on my Patch. I've found quite a few rarities and even a few lifers! So, I present to you an awesome, but late two months of birding on my Patch!

On January 2nd, I found a first for my patch, Hermit Thrush. I know, most of you have probably had one or two HETHs in your yard, but a patcher is a patcher. Continuing with my patch birding, I was out birding on December 4th about an eighth of a mile from my house and I heard my lifer and patch bird 199 Grasshopper Sparrow, calling from an alfalfa field. But I wasn't exactly elated about tramping through the field in front of my neighbor's house who happens to be a cop. The following Sunday I took my first morning of patch birding in a long time. I decided to hike, bike, and bird around a riparian forest south of Dean and Beloat roads. As I stopped in the middle of a nice clearing I started to hear a call that I had just heard at Hassayampa a couple of weeks before. I then approached the sound when I noticed it was my 200th patch bird, a Winter Wren! As I pished and waited I got a couple of nice looks at this tiny little skulker. I also found another new bird for my patch, a Brown Creeper.

Winter Wren

Brown Creeper

The next "Booya Moment" I had was when I found a McCown's Longspur on December 18th, and then on the following day I found two McCown's Longspurs and my lifer Lapland Longspur.  The last time I saw these birds February 12th 2015 my count was at 3 McCown's and 3 Laplands! Unfortunately today I went searching for them without being able to even find the flock of Horned Larks that they stay with.

Lapland Longspur

Two!

McCown's Longspur

Lapland giving McCown "the dirty look"

On January 1st Mr. John Kafel and I found a first for my patch,  Ross's Goose to start off the year!

Ross's Goose

On January 8th I found a beautiful adult male American Redstart south of Dean and Beloat. I knew I was going to see an adult male AMRE some day and somewhere but I didn't think it was going to be in AZ or even better, my Patch!

American Redstart

I then returned to the riparian area on January 19th and had a 7 warbler species day, one of which I did not expect at all! As I started to scan the trees for some different songbirds I heard a Black-throated Gray Warbler calling, so I approached  the mixed feeding flock when I saw what I believed was the BTYW but it just didn't seem right. As I looked up at the tree I couldn't see any movement but after waiting a little while I got a glimpse of the bird as it hopped on the other side of the tree. This bird was a major pain in the undertail coverts, and talking about undertail coverts that was the only part of the bird I was able to see, but when I did see its white undertail coverts with black streaking I knew it was a Black-and white Warbler!!! It took me over fifteen minutes of looking through the forest in frustration to finally get an okay look, and after that the bird was starting to calm down.

Black-and-white Warbler

On one of my expeditions around my patch I found an awesome "Taiga" Merlin.

Merlin

The next amazing encounter on my Patch was on January 26th when I found a Greater Pewee near my house. And then on the 28th I went in search of the pewee with Mr. Tommy D and we didn't just relocate the pewee, but we found a Broad-billed Hummingbird! Unfortunately the hummingbird didn't want its picture taken.

Greater Pewee

I set a goal for 2015 to reach 200 species of bird by biking and hiking, and I ended January with 114 species. I have no idea whether or not I will reach my goal, a part of me says "ha I only have 86 species left, this will be easy" but I only have a little over 200 species for my overall patch list, and that is in the last few years, but I can say one thing and that is that I know it's gonna be a close one. Thanks for reading and who knows what may be found next, will it be a Red-throated Pipit hanging with a huge flock of its more common cousins, or will it be my very overdue lifer Chestnut-collared Longspur, stay tuned to find out!

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!