Snow in Glendale!

Lately the Glendale Recharge Ponds have been king over all the other birding hotspots in Phoenix. With the exception of seeing the Black-bellied Plovers and Red-breasted Merganser, I have just been seeing the leftovers of everyone's great success. I've missed birds like Least and Forster's Terns, Sanderling, Marbled Godwit, Semipalmated Plover, and more. Well this morning (5/3/15) my Mom and spent a little over an hour at the Glendale Recharge Ponds in search of anything interesting. Once we reached a good spot to start scanning, I quickly picked out a Willet and three Marbled Godwits!

Willet

In flight the Willet is one of the easiest shorebirds to identify, with its contrasting black and white marked wings.

Marbled Godwit

Willet (foreground), Marbled Godwit (background)

We then continued walking when I spotted a Forster's Tern actively hunting along the ponds and canal.

Forster's Tern

 We watched the tern for a while and decided to start working our way to the other ponds. That is when we ran into fellow birder and 2nd highest lister in the state of Arizona, Mr. Dale Clark! We began talking and he pointed out my first for the Glendale Recharge Ponds, Wood Duck. After conversing for a while and watching the tern again we joined forces and birded the rest of the area. We walked over to the Basin 2 and before long found the continuing Black-bellied Plover.

Black-bellied Plover

After relocating the plover my Mom spotted some baby Black-necked Stilts (which probably made it into her top ten birding moments) and as I scanned the shores for any more baby stilts, I was shocked to see my lifer Snowy Plover within about 35 yards from us!

Snowy Plover in foreground with a Killdeer in the background

The Snowy Plover has been a frustrating bird for me. I wouldn't say it was a nemesis but it was starting to get pretty close. It all started when one showed up at the GRPs when I was a beginning birder and I missed it by a few days. I then went on a family trip to Santa Barbara, California and tried to see some at a birding hotspot called Devereux Slough and missed them. How? I don't know. Apparently there was a whole flock there, but I somehow missed all 60 of them! After my miss in CA there have been a few sightings of SNPLs at the GRPs but they all happened when I am was camping up in Happy Jack! So seeing this bird was awesome!

Snowy Plover

Here is a photo that shows just how tiny it is compared to a Black-necked Stilt

After getting to observe my awesome Snowy Plover lifer we started working our way back when I decided to photograph the third plover of the day, the common Killdeer. There was also a tidy flock of Wilson's Phalaropes spinning like tops.

Killdeer

Wilson's Phalarope

I finished the beautiful morning in Glendale with 50 species of bird and a long awaited lifer! Thanks Mom for the fun morning of birding!

A few recent sightings from the Flagstaff area

Birding lately up north has gotten quite interesting, with migrants starting to pull in and awesome "Booya Birds" waiting for me to find them here are a few recent trips I have taken. A short trip to Knoll Lake produced an FOY Nashville Warbler and a bunch of Townsend's Warblers.
                                                                 Nashville Warbler

                                                            Townsend's Warbler

The following day my family and I went to Ashurst Lake where they could fish and I could bird. For some reason most of the shorebirds and waterfowl prefer the south side of the lake, so that is where I started hiking to. I found a Red-necked Phalarope in the mists of the Wilson's.

Here is a photo of one of the many Wilson's Phalaropes I encountered.

There was also a couple of Lesser Yellowlegs. Note that the bill is straight.

Ashurst Lake held a few other birds like, a Solitary Sandpiper, Baird's Sandpiper, a few American Avocets, and a flock of Black-necked Stilt. Back at the Happy Lodge I was hoping to find some stray eastern warbler or a rare heron at the sewage pond, but my many tries left me with no rarities, I did however, find some nice birds while searching like my second ever Willow Flycatcher, a Green-tailed Towhee, and a Sharp-shinned Hawk.
                                                                   Willow Flycatcher

                                                               Green-tailed Towhee

                                                                Sharp-shinned Hawk

Watch for my next post on "Birthday Birding at Ashurst Lake"

Birding the Glendale Recharge Ponds (The quest for 250)

On August 5th I took a trip to the Glendale Recharge Ponds with my friends Mr. Joe Ford and Mr. Paul Doucett. My main goal was to find at least one year bird, to finally reach 250, which was my year list last year. When we first arrived we found many Lazuli Buntings in the reeds, we waited a bit to see if the buntings would come closer but they didn't. We then parked at the east parking lot and a young male Costa's Hummingbird greeted us with his bright colors.
                                                              Costa's Hummingbird

We then headed to the ponds and started scanning. The first shorebird we saw (after the Killdeer) was the Long-billed Dowitcher which were now in their beautiful breeding plumage or at least most of them were. You can see the non-breeding bird in the back.
                                                              Long-billed Dowitcher

Along with the dowitchers were a couple of Least Sandpipers.
                                                                       Least Sandpiper

There were also a couple of very entertaining Wilson's Phalaropes swimming around.
                                                              Wilson's Phalarope

As we scanned the ponds I quickly found my FOY Baird's Sandpiper feeding with the peeps. This photo that I am going to show you might not be the best photo but this is my 250th bird for this year, it's time to celebrate!!!!!!
                                                                       Baird's Sandpiper
 
 It was a great relief to finally get 250.  Yes, I knew I was going to beat it sooner or later but the sooner the better. Now every year bird after this bird is just icing-on-the-cake as they say! I spent quite a bit more time observing my 250th bird, but I knew that I must press on and hopefully find another year bird. One of my target birds was the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher X Western Kingbird hybrid, but I came up empty handed. I looked through every kingbird looking for him, without luck here are a few of the birds I came up with while I was on the chase.
                                                               Western Kingbird

                                                        Ash-throated Flycatcher

                                                    Black-tailed Gnatcatcher

                                                        Black-chinned Hummingbird

                                                                      Osprey

We spent a total of four and a half hours birding the ponds, with a total of about 60 species of bird! A new record for Mr. Paul, and I got my 250, we were all happy!
Here are a few Canada Geese to close out this post.
                                                                      Canada Geese