The monthly post on my patch: October

This October seemed to be a very good month for patch birding this year. I set a goal to find at least 100 species,  to find more places to bird, and look for as many new patch birds as possible. I started October off with a Harris's Hawk (a patch bird) , who flushed from the cottonwoods that line the Buckeye Canal west of Jackrabbit Trail. The bird took flight and never stopped flying southeast at least when I was watching it. However, I could see the distinctive black tail with white on both ends and its broad rufous colored wings. Then it got even better when I found my first lowland Red-breasted Nuthatch foraging in a couple of large cottonwoods!

   The RBNU was a first in Maricopa for me and a great patch bird. That same day I was biking along the canal and found a Burrowing Owl that let me get a decent shot (unlike most of them).

The Burrowing Owl is like the Vermilion Flycatchers in my back yard, it is a bird I see almost every time I go biking but I never get bored of them, especially when they let you get photos like this!

Things started to slow down towards the middle of October, I did less birding because my parents left on an out of country trip and I was staying with some friends that live only about a mile south of us, which is now part of my patch. But even with limited birding I still found some awesome birds like Blue Grosbeak, Crissal Thrasher, and Eared Grebe. By the 14th I was already at 103! But due to some confusion in listing I only thought I was at 93. So I was trying super hard to get to the 100 mark that I already beat without knowing. The highlight for the 14th was a flock of three Greater White-fronted Geese that flew over me and landed in the canal.

On the 15th I had another new bird for Maricopa it was an Eastern Meadowlark giving its "zeet" call. Unfortunately, the bird ended up being mixed with a few westerns so I was unable to see the bird. On the 18th I had an aweome morning of birding at the Tres Rios Wetlands with Mr. Gordon Karre, we found 73 species overall and I was delighted. I didn't think that my day was going to get any better bird wise but I was wrong! I actually found the highlight patch bird for October! Here is what happened.

After my morning of birding with Mr. Gordon and a day with some family from CA I asked my parents if I could go biking and they said yes.So, I biked on down to the canal and before I reached Jackrabbit Trail going east along the canal I saw a small Accipiter like hawk fly up out of a ditch and up into a tree. When I saw the bird flying my first thought was a Coopers but, once I found the bird pearched I started to really think.

 This is what the bird looked like. A couple of things I noticed with the hawk is that it was quite bulky and its tail is to broad for an Accipiter . The one thing that made this ID so hard was that it had just gotten done bathing. However, I had a pretty good idea that it was a Gray Hawk, but I was not seeing enough to confirm it until the bird flew to a higher pearch.

This photo shows a lot of gray on the bird especially on the thighs. The hawk then flew to a perch pretty far away and stayed there for about an hour. While I put my binocs on another hawk was soaring above (which ended up being a Cooper's).  I looked back where the GRHA was last and didn't see it! After searching the area for about ten minutes the bird flew directly over me and into the cottonwoods that line the canal.

   I watched this amazing Buteo until it started to get dark and then I called it a day. However, the next day after coming back from church I spied the hawk up in the trees, so when we got home I biked over to where the bird was and got a couple more shots.

The last highlight bird I found in October was a Bell's Sparrow on the south side of the Gila River. I got a couple of views of the bird and I was able to see the unstreaked back, and the dark maler.

Another highlight was when I emailed Mr. Tommy D some photos. It was of an owl which I thought may have been a Long-Eared Owl that I had found last December, but was actually a Short-eared Owl!!! Here is the story.

On December 16th of 2012, I was out biking when I noticed a couple of raptors flying. I put my binocs on one of the birds and saw it was a Red-tailed Hawk, so I ASSUMED the other bird flying with it was also a RTHA as well. Five minutes later the birds were still circling in the thermals, and I finally took a look at the other bird just to make sure that it wasn't anything different. To my surprise I noticed it was an owl!!!

Remember that I had a not so well camera back then! Owl on top left.
The bird was not a Barn or Great Horned Owl because Barn is much whiter and Great Horned is much larger, so I thought it must be some type of Eared Owl! Once I got back I thought the bird was a LEOW because SEOW's are not supposed to be here (according to field guides) but nearly a year later I sent my photos to Mr. Tommy and he says it is a SEOW! After he pointed out the field marks I could not believe I didn't see them. Here are the photos I sent him.
                                                                    Short-eared Owl in my patch!!!

I ended my month list for my patch at 114, 14 species more than I wanted! And I biked somewhere around 70-90 miles (a good workout), with all of the birds I saw in this month it was totally worth it. I also got 7 patch birds bringing my patch list up to 191! But before I end this post I must thank my parents for letting me go birking (a new word I made up for birding and biking) and Alexia for accompanying me on a few of my trips down to the river. Here are some photos of a couple of raptors that allowed me some good photos.
                                                                    Northern Harrier

                                              We call him "Beautimous Bob the Bald Eagle"

Exploring the Prescott area

Prescott is a very nice area to bird. It has lots of habitats and with many habitats come many birds! Prescott is located in northern Yavapai, a county that I only have 93 species in (as of now), so I made a few calls and wrote a few emails and after a few replies made a trip on October 23rd to the Prescott area with Mr. Joe Ford, Mr. Paul Doucett, Ms. Haylie Hewitt, and my brother David. We visited Watson Lake, Granite Basin Lake, and Willow Lake. I had two target birds and they were Wood Duck and Cassin's Finch, I have seen WODU's a few times but I can never get tired of that bird, and anyways I don't have WODU on my year list yet. When we parked the car I could see that there was some nice riparian habitat that went into the lake. Here are a couple photos of Watson Lake and the surrounding habitat.

 

We were only the 2nd car in the parking lot when we arrived, but that changed pretty quickly! There were bikers, hikers, and I even ran into Yavapai's eBird reviewer Steven Burk. While we were walking along the main trail I spied this mannequin taking a rest against a building!

Okay now that was a little strange, but it got even stranger when I heard a high pitched whistle that sounded like a hawk but was not loud enough, so I walked to where I heard it and found three Wood Ducks! Here is a photo of a female and male. One out of two booya!

Unfortunatly no one else was able see them, but they did hear them. Right after the WODU's took flight I could hear some fledgeling Pied-billed Grebes begging, so I started hiking towards them and was able to witness an adult PBGR feed a fish to one of its three fledgelings. At first the fish looked to big for the youngling to swallow, but after a few attempts he gulped that sucker down!

It just happened that there was a Neotropic Cormorant right above the grebes.

 I wonder what the cormorant thinks of the grebes???

There was a large variety of birds on and around Watson Lake, birds ranging from sparrows, warblers, and woodpeckers to ducks herons and grebes. Here are a few other birds we saw on the pleasant walk.
                                                                    Bewick's Wren

                                                                                Bushtit

 

 

Gadwall

 We ended Watson Lake with 50 species of bird and quite a few highlights in there as well. Our next stop was Granite Basin Lake, according to eBird this was going to be quite a birdy area and a birdy area it was! I even got a lifer. But you will have to wait to find out.

Once we arrived at the camping area where we ate our lunch I headed out to find some birds. It didn't take long for me to find a beautiful adult Townsend's Solitaire that flycatched right in front of my face, but of course I was not able to photograph the awesome moment, instead here is a distant photo!

After eating lunch we drove down to the lake where we spent quite a bit of time birding the riparian area.
                                                                   Granite Basin Lake

 While we birded the riparian area we had a good amount of species, one of the highlights was a flock of 5 Red-naped Sapsuckers in a single tree! We also had an Acorn Woodpeckers at its stash tree.

After observing the clown like woodpecker at his man-cave I spied my lifer Cassin's Finch on top of a very tall pine!                                    

Right when I saw the bird I snapped a couple of photos then I tried to point the bird out to everyone but failed, only a couple of people saw it but even then they didn't see anything different about the bird. I still wanted to get better looks at one, but I didn't think that was going to happen. As we birded the same trails around again I spied yet another female only this time everyone got great looks!

                                                                      Cassin's Finch!!!

From left to right: Mr. Paul Doucett, my brother David, Mr. Joe Ford, and Ms. Haylie Hewitt

The Cassin's Finch was a life bird for all of us exept for Mr. Ford who saw his only one in Colorado. After Granite Basin Lake we made our last stop of the day to Willow Lake. Once we arrived at the parking lot we spied a Merlin and a pair of Bald Eagles!

 You can barely see in the photos but the eagles are sporting some nice bling-bling on their legs!

I can never get tired of seeing BAEA's they are just so majestic! We then started hiking on the trail going down toward the lake when my brother spied a Greater Roadrunner that ran under a bush, so I walked over to the bush and got a killer face shot of this awesome ground-cuckoo!

While I was down under the bush trying to get a clear photo without sticks in the birds face I heard the distinctive flight call of the Lawrence's Goldfinch, but as I got out of the bush I could not see the bird. We then hiked a bit further to where we could start scoping out the lake. When we stopped I could hear the begging calls of a fledgeling Anna's Hummingbird and when I looked up I was greeted by this sight.

We were surprised to see a Cattle Egret (our first egret of the day) along the shore.

CAEG then flew on to a island and then GREG flew with CAEG and I got a photo of GREG taking CAEG's spot, and in all of that is a GBHE.

 I ended the day with 36 Yavapers (first for Yavapai) which brought my Yavapai list up to 129! Before I end this post here are a couple of photos of Willow Lake.

Thanks Mr. Ford, Mr. Paul, Ms. Haylie, and David for the awesome day of birding!