Monday, December 28, 2015

Birding Hard with the Noe!

     Recently, my good friend Walker Noe has come back down to his hometown of Phoenix, AZ, to visit with his friends and family, and of course BIRD HARD!!! To start off the bird hardness Walker, Mr. Tommy DeBardeleben and I started off with Crystal Gardens in search of the recently reported geese in the area. It didn't take us long to find a Greater White-fronted Goose and a Cackling Goose mixed in with the many Canada Geese.

Greater White-fronted Goose

Cackling Goose

After Crystal we spent a little time at Tres Rios before I had to head out. The continuing Yellow-throated Warbler along with a few other ongoing rarities made this stop worth the gas. Our next BIRD HARD trip was at the Santa Cruz Flats near Casa Grande. We had three main targets and they were 1. Mountain Plover, 2. Sprague's Pipit, and 3. Crested Caracara. On our way to the Flats we got Walker's lifer Sandhill Cranes in the Arlington Area. Upon reaching the Santa Cruz Flats, I spied a few distant birds in a dead-grass field and found that they were our lifer Mountain Plovers!


Photographing MOPLs is not easy. The flat short-grass fields that they prefer make approaching these birds unnoticed is nearly impossible! However, two plovers, named Jackson and Albert, allowed close views, and they literally walked towards us even though we were already close! Jackson was our main subject for photography though.

Jackson the Mountain Plover


Jackson and Albert waving "Bye!"

While we observed the many Mountain Plovers in the area Walker and I found 7 Sprague's Pipits! Only one SPPI allowed us to get fairly close views though.

Sprague's Pipit

We then drove over to the Red Mountain Feed Lots to look for our last target for the Santa Cruz Flats, the Crested Caracara. After looking for a while we noticed 7 caracaras in a field but they were too far for my camera to get a half-decent shot. The rest of the day was full of dips (fails) and we pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging out. The next day we woke up super early in the morning to drive out to Yuma in search of a recently reported Streak-backed Oriole at a place called Riverside Park. After a long drive we parked near the windy park and started scanning the area. After Walker, four other birders, and I scanned the area for over a half hour I spied the bird in a distant tree!

Edwardo the Streak-backed Oriole


The bird then flew into a much closer group of trees and we had amazing views of this Mexican rarity.

Streak-backed Oriole





After observing this bird for a few minutes more he flew up high into a large tree and we yelled "Bye Edwardo!"


Walker and I then continued birding around the area and noticed a female American Redstart foraging in a distant cottonwood.

American Redstart

After one more look at the Streak-backed Oriole Walker and I drove back down to Phoenix and ended our "Dream Team" birding for AZ. However, this is only a near 6th of my birding in the next week! "What do you mean" well Birding With Caleb is moving up to Idaho and Washington for the next week!

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Birding Hard for Maricopa Big Year #300

     The closer I get to #300 for my Maricopa big year the more I want it! It has been driving me crazy! I have never set such a hard goal in my birding career. Sure aiming for 300 species in one year is possible for someone who is able to chase a lot of birds and has a car but I can barely ever chase birds and I don't have a car. However, I am not one who lets low percentages stop me! Like I said in my last post I have been very blessed as to being able to chase quite a few birds from across the Valley (nearly all West Valley) and I must thank all of my friends and family for taking me birding! On December 3rd I had the opportunity to stop by the Glendale Recharge Ponds and see what I could find. I started working the ponds and quickly found a continuing Clark's Grebe.

Clark's Grebe--#296!!!

    I then continued my way around the ponds and found my FOY Snow Goose along with a Ross's Goose!

Snow Goose (left)--#297!!!

     Setting myself only three species from 300 was crazy! However, I had no way to get out to the East Valley to chase some potential year birds. I was desperate and needed a miracle, and a miracle I received! My good friend Mr. Tommy DeBardeleben had texted me and asked me if I wanted to go on a chasing spree out in the East Valley! I almost asked Mr. Tommy if he wanted to do so before he asked me but I asked God that if Mr. Tommy wanted to go birding with me if he could have Mr. Tommy ask me. Doesn't God work in awesome ways! So early on December 4th Mr. Tommy and I found ourselves at Scottsdale Ranch Park chasing my lifer Red-breasted Sapsucker. We arrived at the spot before the sun had even risen so we decided to check the lake before all of the birds woke up. After picking out a Lawrence's Goldfinch we walked over to one of the trees that the Sapsucker favored. Once we approached the tree the sapsucker must have seen us coming and did the opposite of what most birds do, it flew up to us! At one point the sapsucker looked at me from about ten feet away and flew six feet closer right up to my face! Here's a shot of Mr. Tommy documenting this rarity with his iPod.

The "King Of Maricopa" photographing his second ever Red-breasted Sapsucker for the county

     I could have sworn that the sapsucker at one point winked at me!

Red-breasted Sapsucker--#298!!!



     After watching this fascinating lifer (for me), Mr. Tommy and I drove over to a lake in Scottsdale that has been good for Northern Parulas in the past few years. The Northern Parula is one of my three nemesis birds (Mexican Whip-poor-will, Northern Parula, and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker). Even though this spot has had NOPAs here almost every winter, Mr. Tommy and I couldn't find anything notable except for a nice Plumbeous Vireo. After we were done looking for the seemingly non-existing Northern Parula we drove over to the Coon Bluff Rec. Site along the Lower Salt River. Our target for this stop was a juvenile Reddish Egret that had been seen off and on at this site. Well all I'll say is today was one of its off days and our best bird was a lowland Bridled Titmouse. We then made our way to the Higley and Ocotillo roads ponds. At this spot there were two potential year birds, Dunlin and Eastern Phoebe. Mr. Tommy scoped for the Dunlin while I searched for the Eastern Phoebe and any other songbirds in the area.

Mr. Tommy birding hard for my 299th bird of the year, a Dunlin!

     Before long Mr. Tommy called my name and right then I knew that he had found the Dunlin!'

Dunlin (foreground)--#299!!!

     I was pumped! Only one more bird to get before I would reach my year's goal! We continued hiking further through the area when Mr. Tommy said that we should head back to the Eastern Phoebe spot. I, however, had a feeling that we should continue further because the habitat looked to only get better as we got further. Right when Mr. Tommy had turned around to start heading back I spotted a Harris's Sparrow!

Harris's Sparrow

    I laughed when I found this bird because it was the rarest bird we saw that day and it wasn't even a county yearbird! Mr. Tommy was quite excited though.

Harris's Sparrow


     We continued checking the area until we covered almost all of the habitat. I had to be to Glendale by 4:00 P.M. to go rock climbing with my best friend, and I we were running out of time. We had one more tiny chance to hit 300, and that was to go to Crystal Gardens on our way to Glendale. The last few winters Crystal Gardens has had Cackling Geese but no one had found any yet, so our chances were slim. We had less than a half hour to find a Cackler in the midst of the many Lesser Canada Geese. After scanning for a while Mr. Tommy and I spied a Cackler!!!!!!!! #300!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! However, some confusion happened and the birds took off before I could snap any photos but hey, I can't argue with my goal bird! Hitting 300 species of bird in Maricopa County in one year was amazing! 

     December 4th, of 2015 was a serial day overall! Spending over half the day birding with Mr. Tommy, perhaps the best birder that I know, and then spending the rest of the day rock climbing and hanging out with my best friend, three of my favorite things all in one day was fantastimazingly awesome (that's right)!

     Another birding highlight came from when I went birding with my birding-mentor, Mr. Joe Ford. Now Mr. Ford has put MANY hours into my birding career, especially while I was a beginner! I'm not exactly sure if I would even be much of a birder without the extremely helpful teaching of Mr. Ford. Our last birding adventure was a morning of birding at the Tres Rios Overbank Wetlands. Mr. Ford and I started out scanning the fenced off wetlands from the tall bank. While we were scanning I heard a really distant Yellow Warbler-like chip call. Now a lot of warblers (nearly all eastern warblers) give calls that sound very similar to the call of the Yellow Warbler. So just to be sure I checked out the bird. Unfortunately the bird was calling from a distant cottonwood that was on the other side of the nearby marsh, and we couldn't get any closer. After scanning the fairly small yet thick tree for nearly five minutes I finally got a look at the bird and I found that it was a Yellow-throated Warbler!!!!! Here's a photo of what the bird looked like through my binocs.

Yellow-throated Warbler--Can you spy the bird???

     Here is a photo of what the bird looked like through my scope, except the scope was clearer.

Yellow-throated Warbler--#301

     After getting brief views for nearly twenty minutes Mr. For and I were pumped!!! This was a lifer for both of us and I believe it is only the second or third record for Maricopa County. Before long the bird stopped calling but we still stayed in the same spot when I noticed the bird had flown across the marsh and into a nearby bush!

Yellow-throated Warbler

     Then the bird flew into a closer tree and gave us face-melting views!

Yellow-throated Warbler




    After the bird flew into its normal tree again I gave Mr. Tommy a call letting him know that I had found this bird, because, it would be a Maricoper for him but I had to leave him a message. Mr. Ford and I then decided to check out more of the Tres Rios area in hopes of finding some more cool birds, and more cool birds are what we saw! The next highlight was a beautiful adult male American Redstart.

American Redstart


    Mr. Tommy then gave me a call back to let me know that he was on his way over, so Mr. Ford and I started heading back to the YTWA spot. On our way over I spotted a Crested Caracara flying by us!

Crested Caracara


    Spotting Mr. Tommy running towards us made me smile! Mr. Tommy is one of the most hardcore Maricopa birders and he definitely deserves every single bird on his Maricopa list! It only took me about two minutes to get the warbler in the scope for Mr. Tommy.

     The year's not over yet so I'll be birding in the county a bit more before the year is over! Keep you eyes out cause Caleb Strand is coming!!!

     

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

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