Spring Chasing!

Yes, spring is finally here! The time of year when you can't keep up with the birds, when every day of birding is different, when you look at a distant raptor only to find a large flock of Swainson's Hawks, spring is awesome! In the past two weeks I've been very fortunate as to being able to bird quite often. On April 9th I had just gotten back from a great birdwalk at Estrella Mountain Regional Park and a nice hike with an awesome friend when I decided to chill for the rest of the day. However, a quick look at the AZNM Listserve totally changed my plans! Ms. Melanie Herring had just found a Crested Caracara about six miles from my house! Immediately I jumped on my secondary bike (my good bike's tire popped recently so there I was on my three-year-old BMX bike) and zoomed over to the field that she had the bird in. I arrived at the field about two or three hours after she found the bird and knowing caracaras this bird had likely gone off and continued on, however, you never know with these unusual birds. On my way to the caracara a nice Swainson's Hawk sat close to the road on a telephone wire.

Swainson's Hawk

Approaching the area where the caracara had been seen earlier, I started scanning the berms in the fields and quickly spotted what looked like a Bald Eagle x Dinosaur hybrid!

Crested Caracara

Throughout my birding career I have seen six Crested Caracaras in Maricopa County and four of those have been in Buckeye. This caracara was the beginning of a great week of rarity chasing! My next chase was an unexpected one. On April 14th I had plans to help Ms. Susan Fishburn find some yearbirds for her Maricopa yearlist. We met at the Glendale Recharge Ponds where we enjoyed a couple of fledgling Great Horned Owls.

Great Horned Owls

However, once she found out that I didn't have Golden-crowned Sparrow for Maricopa she, in her kind heart'd ways, proudly drove me out to Wild Horse Pass Spa in Chandler. I have had bad experiences with Golden-crowned Sparrows in Maricopa. To start it off a Golden-crowned Sparrow had been spending several years at a spot in Sun City but the year I became a birder I decided to wait until the next winter to chase it. Well the sparrow never came back so there goes that! Then last winter a Golden-crowned Sparrow was found at Phon D. Sutton along the Lower Salt River. The sparrow had stayed for two months and was super easy to get (most people got it within 15 minutes or sometimes less) so my Bird Hard Bro Walker Noe and I chased it! Well it turns out that in those two months it stayed we searched for it on the day that it left! So I didn't want this to be a third miss. We arrived at the Spa at around noon and I jumped out of the car and immediately walked over to the patch of grass that it had been seen on. No sparrows were on the grass but all the sudden I saw movement way back in the brush and once I put my binocs on it I could clearly see that it was my Maricoper Golden-crowned Sparrow!!! After a little waiting my prize proudly perched in the open.

Golden-crowned Sparrow--Maricoper #326!!!

The Golden-crowned Sparrow was my last North American Zonotrichia (including White-crowned, White-throated, Golden-crowned, and Harris's Sparrows) I needed for Maricopa. After enjoying the sparrow, truly worthy of a golden crown, we birded across the valley in search of yearbirds. Then on Saturday morning of April 16th I woke up earlier than I normally do but soon after awakening my weekend rest I got a call from Ms. Laura Ellis asking me if I'd like to chase a Red-necked Grebe at Canyon Lake! Of course I said yes, and before long I found myself at the beautiful Canyon Lake in northeastern Maricopa County! We arrived at the overlook of the lake and although the lake was a ways off I brought out the scope and found a distant flock of Western Grebes, then I noticed that the Red-necked Grebe was mixed in!!! My looks were super distant and not satisfying so we drove closer. Then we found the flock of grebes again (only this time there were Eared Grebes too) and I quickly spotted the Red-necked Grebe only a lot closer!

Red-necked Grebe--Maricoper #327!!!

I then decided to do something crazy. In my shorts I was gonna bushwhack down the scrubby/thorny hill down to the water's edge and get some better photos. And better photos I got!

Red-necked Grebe

Nearly all of Maricopa's Red-necked Grebe records are from the winter and they're in their drab gray-and-white winter plumage. However, this bird was in striking breeding plumage and was amazing to see! When I first saw a Red-necked Grebe it was in its winter plumage and in a lake in the forests of Northern Idaho. To see this bird in breeding plumage in a lake in the deserts of Central Arizona was practically the opposite of my first sighting!

The Red-necked Grebe was a grand bird, and although it wasn't a lifer it kinda felt like it. This bird has probably been my favorite of my Maricopers this year (very close to Northern Parula)! Throughout the area there were many Eared Grebes catching fish. Coming from a fisherman, it is amazing how birds can catch fish in front of your face when you have your pole in the water and haven't even had a bite! The Creator definitely knew what he was doing when he made these amazing creatures!

Eared Grebe

I had an overall amazing couple weeks of birding and getting two Maricopers within a week was awesome! Thanks Ms. Susan and Ms. Laura for helping me out on these Maricopers! You can look forward to me starting up my monthly posts on my patch in May, but until then here is a sneak-peek photo from my patch that I recently took.

Franklin's Gull

Have a great week everyone!!!

God Bless and BIRD HARD!!!

Caleb

Recent Birding--Local and Non-Local

     2016 has been a great year for me so far! I started the year in Idaho and Washington where I got three owl-lifers, then I came back to AZ. I thought I was back in the "Grand Canyon State" for quite a while until I found out that I was going to SoCal! California is perhaps the birdiest state in the US, and it never gets old! Although I have seen nearly all of the CA specialties, there are still a couple that I need from the mainland (Mountain Quail and White-headed Woodpecker) as well as a few offshore. On this CA trip there was a Pine Warbler that had been spending the whole winter at the Santa Fe Dam Rec. Sight and I had never seen one so that was what I spent my morning of birding doing. I arrived at the dam fairly early to find a group of nearly 30 birders looking for the same bird! I also met former young birder of the year, Dessi Sieburth and his mom. It only took me about 20 minutes of searching to locate the Pine Warbler slowly feeding in the pine trees (what a fitting place). I ran back to tell Dessi and the group that I had just found the bird and after the group arrived it was a nightmare for getting photos! Here's the best of what I could get.

Pine Warbler--Lifer!!!

 

I also spotted a Great Horned Owl sitting quietly on its nest.

Great Horned Owl

I the surrounding area a Ross's Goose and his step brother, a Ross's X Snow Goose hybrid, were chilling with there rather domestic friends.

Ross's Goose

Ross's X Snow Goose hybrid 

At my Grandma's house I photographed Allen's Hummingbird for the first time (took me long enough).

Allen's Hummingbird

As you can see I didn't do much birding on this trip but I did what I could and I'm happy with how it went. Now back to Arizona! This winter there has been a pair of Rusty Blackbirds that have been hanging out along a short stretch of river at Coon Bluff. Now I had been to this spot  two times in search of these birds with both times being complete fails! Once I got back from California I made plans to chase these birds with my friend Mr. John Kafel. Before I knew it I was at Coon Bluff, scanning the river for these beautiful blackbirds. Strangely enough one of the first birds I saw on the river was a Rusty Blackbird!

Rusty Blackbirds--Lifer!!! 

This pair of Rusty Blackbirds were my first Maricoper for  2016 (the Maricopers are thinning out)! What might my next Maricoper be? Who knows. Anyways, here are a few photos I've taken in the last couple months, thanks for reading and enjoy!

Marsh Wren

Swamp Sparrow

Red-naped X Red-breasted Sapsucker hybrid

Virginia Rail

Eurasian Wigeon

Maricopa Birding

     Recently, I have been working hard on my Maricopa County "Big Year", and I have, thus, been a bit busy and haven't been able to do much blogging. But I have finally built up the strength to write a post. Doing a big year in Maricopa County isn't exactly the easiest thing. Because, 1. it is the 15th largest county in the country, 2. we don't have any ocean, and 3. not being able to drive doesn't help at all! My #1 goal for this year is to break 300 species of bird in Maricopa County IN ONE YEAR. Only one human being on this planet has ever done this before and that is, to no surprise, Mr. Tommy DeBardeleben. Luckily, I have been very blessed with people who take me birding and I have had the opportunity to bird quite a bit lately. The beginning of my late-fall birding started with a chase along the Lower Salt River at a spot called Blue Point, for a Surf Scoter and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (which is now my nemesis). I have seen a couple SUSCs in CA but not in AZ and more importantly to me, Maricopa. Mr. John Kafel was to thank for this chase. After an hour or so drive from my house to the scoter spot we arrived at around mid-afternoon. It didn't take me long to find the Surf Scoter feeding along the narrow river.

Surf Scoter--#289 for my Maricopa County big year

After watching the scoter for a while I then moved on to the area where the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker had recently been seen. Unfortunately, I dipped on (failed to locate) the bird but I enjoyed getting to observe a few Gray Flycatchers.

Gray Flycatcher

Tip to identifying empids; Gray Flycatcher is the only empidonax that dips its tail downward, the rest flick their tales up.

My next "big" birding moment was when I lead a birdwalk for the Sonoran Audubon Society to the Arlington Valley. While we were driving to our first location, the Arlington Wildlife Area, we pulled over to the side of the road to see some Sandhill Cranes when I spotted a Common Grackle!!!! I jumped out of the car and yelled "COMMON GRACKLE!!!" and everyone kinda gave me a weird look because they are one of the most common birds in the east. I quickly opened the back of the car to get my camera and aimed and shot!

Common Grackle--#290

Note the bluish head, golden back, yellow eyes, medium sized bill, and fairly long tail.

The Common Grackle was actually my 400th life bird! I had a little confusion with my list and it turned out that the California Gnatcatcher was my 399th life bird and not my 400th. After watching the cranes for a while we then headed over to the Arlington Wildlife Area where we spent a good portion of the day. Shortly after arriving at the wildlife area I spotted my FOY (first of year) White-tailed Kite flying out in the distance.

White-tailed Kite--#291

The kite was a nice highlight for many of the people in my group, but this Great Horned Owl was another highlight.

Great Horned Owl

Another visit to the Arlington Wildlife Area proved productive. This Savannah Sparrow greeted us early in the morning.

Savannah Sparrow

Somewhere around seven or so years ago Melanie Herring found a light-morphed Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk in the Arlington Area and it has now spent the winter here ever since! Harlan's Red-tails are rare in AZ and the light-morph portion of this subspecies makes up less than one percent of all Harlan's, so having a light-morphed Harlans in AZ is CRAZY!!! On our way to the wildlife area we spotted the Harlan's sitting its perch.

Harlan's Red-tailed Hawk

At the wildlife area a flyover from a Sprague's Pipit was quite a surprise as well as three Mountain Bluebirds that were working the fields just adjacent to the Wildlife Area. After finishing our IBA (Important Bird Area) count we drove over to the Lower River Road Ponds where I scanned though around 70 Ring-billed Gulls without anything interesting. A strange juvenile Zone-tailed Hawk decided to fly over us though.

Zone-tailed Hawk

 The next day I did another IBA count only at the Baseline and Meridian Wildlife Area. Although I didn't see anything interesting, other than seeing a couple of Red Crossbills and American Goldfinches, I did, however, get perhaps my best photos of a Common Yellowthroat and watched the long staying pair of Barn Owls.

Common Yellowthroat

Barn Owl (female left, male right)

On November 19th I had just returned from an afternoon trip to the Glendale Recharge Ponds where I found my FOY Greater Scaup (#292), when I was looking through some ebird checklists and saw that my friend Joshua Smith had just been to Dos Lagos Park. Curious at whether or not he had seen the Eurasian Wigeon that has been spending the last few winters at this park, I looked over his list to see that he had not just seen the wigeon but had found a Pacific Loon! Now Dos Lagos Park has two ponds and they are both fairly small and not nearly large enough for a loon to hang out at but Josh knew what he was talking about and I found myself in the car with Mr. John on our way to Dos Lagos that night! We didn't arrive at the park until just after the sun had set but I spotted the loon before I had even gotten out of the car!

A loon looking at a loon!

The loon was diving an awful lot but I managed a few photos before it got too dark.

Pacific Loon--#293

Loons are awesome! A big thanks to Joshua Smith for finding this bird and reporting it on ebird! After observing the loon for a while I decided to make a really quick stop to see the Eurasian Wigeon before heading back home.

Eurasian Wigeon

A week or two later I was making a regular biking trip along the main stretch of my patch (the Buckeye Canal) and I found my Maricoper (first for Maricopa), Clay-colored Sparrow!

Clay-colored Sparrow--#294

I continued searching my patch after the sparrow left. Once I started heading back I noticed a bright yellow bird fly into a palm tree! Once I threw my binocs onto it I noticed that it was a Tropical Kingbird!!! I continued observing this bird for about 15 minutes before I had to go.

Tropical Kingbird--My first for my Patch

Although the Tropical Kingbird wasn't even a yearbird it was still my best bird of the day, it was also the first time I've seen one in the winter. The day after my patch madness I started my day normally until I saw that someone had relocated a few Purple Finches at Gilbert Water Ranch that Tyler Loomis had found the day before. I then gave Mr. John Kafel a call and before long I found myself in Gilbert! We arrived at the Water Ranch at around 1:00 P.M. and searched the area where the finches had recently been seen without success. Mr. John and I decided to go out to lunch for a while and return a couple hours later. After having some delicious burgers Mr. John dropped me off at Gilbert and gave me an hour to find these birds. It didn't help much that these birds were on the opposite side of the preserve but I'm young and I can run! Atter running for about a half mile I got a stomach-cramp and the thought of walking crossed my mind but it's not like I just say "BIRD HARD!!!" for no reason, I had to keep on! Once I approached the Tiger Moth (3/4) trail I started to slow down and keep my eyes out. Before getting far I spotted all three of the Purple Finches near the top of a mesquite tree! #295 for the year and #318 for Maricopa County all-time!!!!!!!

Purple Finch--#295!

I now have only five more year birds to get in less than one month to complete my goal! I'm not sure if I'll reach this goal but it means a lot to me to reach 300 species of bird in one year in Maricopa County! I'd like to thank everyone who has helped me out and encouraged me in my goal for this year!

God Bless and BIRD HARD!!!

Caleb