Birding at the White Tanks???

On September 20th Mr. Paul Doucett and I went on one of Mr. Joe Ford's many birdwalks he leads, at White Tanks Regional Park. The birdwalk started at 7:00AM we arrived at 6:45 just so we would have some time to spare before hand. We waited at the Visitor Center for about a half hour before deciding no one was showing up so we started thinking of a plan B. Here are a couple creatures we saw while waiting.
                                                                     Say's Phoebe

                                                              Black-tailed Jackrabbit

Well after awhile we departed and ended up driving over to the Glendale Recharge Ponds (one of Mr. Paul's favorite spots) When we reached the parking area and started birdingI realized I had forgotten my scope! A scope is almost always needed to bird the GRP's, but we manged to bird the area quite well without one. It did not take me long to find this strange sandpiper hanging with the peeps.

 The sandpiper above has got to be one of the strangest out there! It has the feeding style of a dowitcher and looks like a yellowlegs, folks I present to you the Stilt Sandpiper!!!

 Note the light colored eye brow, the long down curved bill, long yellow legs, lighter colored belly, and its brown scapulars (scaly back).

As we walked further we ran into fellow bird blogger Mr. Gordon Karre and another birder Mr. Terry Blows. Luckily Mr. Terry had a scope and was more than happy to let us use it. Here are some photos of the birds we saw in or around Basin 4.
                                                                 Greater Yellowlegs

                                                                 American Avocet

                                 (Wilson's Phalarope on left and Red-necked Phalaropes on right)

                                                              Semipalmated Plover

                                                                  Least Sandpipers      

                                                                  Belted Kingfisher (female)

After staying in that one area we moved on and ran into Mr. Troy Corman, Mr. Tom Lewis, and Mr. Joey Alsadi where they told us they just had a couple of exotic White-cheeked Pintails. After we talked to them for a while we started walking down to where they told us they were. We did not see the pintails at first but after about ten minutes of scanning I spied them on the edge of a grassy area.

 Even though the birds were not countable they were still quite fun to watch. While I was watching the ducks Mr. Terry said that there were three Greater White-fronted Geese (which I mistakenly called Canada Geese as they flew in) I was exited but also embarrassed, but hey they were my first for AZ, great call Mr. Terry!!!

 Here are a few photos to end the post.

                                                                 Green-winged Teal

                                                                   White-faced Ibis

Thanks for reading this post and it will hopefully not be long before my next one!

Birthday Birding

On September 15th it was my golden birthday and I turned 15. I ended my 14th year with 316 life birds and was pumped!!! My parents asked me what I would like to do for my birthday and of course I said I would like to go birding. So my Mom took me birding at Ashurst Lake and Lower Lake Mary which is a great combination for getting high species counts. On our way to Ashurst Lake we have to drive by Mormon Lake which is an amazing site, with elk that come in by the hundreds and the awesome beauty of the scenery.

If you are looking for the elk in this picture well they aren't there, most likely some hunters pushed them in the woods. Shortly after we passed Mormon Lake we turned off on Ashurst Lake Rd and with four miles of driving on a dirt road we arrived at the lake. I had a feeling that there were going to be some good birds out there but you never know. The birds at Ashurst Lake don't usually stay around very long at all or at least the birds that use the lake don't.  For instance, there can be three Forster's Terns at the lake one day and none the next, and I have encountered that with the Willets that they have been seeing. Well back to the trip. Once we parked the truck the air was filled with the songs of the Western and Eastern Meadowlarks,  I can't tell the difference between the songs, but I can tell the calls apart. There was also a singing White-crowned Sparrow who didn't want to be all over the internet so he stayed down low in the bushes. However, a Orange-crowned Warbler reacted to my pishing (bird calling) quite well.

Once we were done looking at all of the songbirds and a Bald Eagle we headed down to the lake shore to look for the shorebirds, waterfowl, and hopefully some gulls or terns. While my Mom and I walked along the shore a Semipalmated Plover flew by us calling and landed not to far, that's when I took this photo.

Just in case some of you don't know what semipalmated means,its when the feet are webbed.

Once I took a few shots of the plover I started scanning the lake and right off the bat I saw something different and I knew what it was right away. Here is a photo of what I was looking at.

 The bird was my lifer Sabine's Gull!!! Once I took my first look at the bird with the scope I walked back in disbelief. After observing the bird for a while it swam into a flock of Eared Grebes. I then saw one of the grebes had its head halfway in the water and that was when I had flashbacks of  a camping trip at Lake Pleasant last year. (I will blog that trip at a later date) on that trip I was observing the 4+ Horned Grebes I saw and all of the birds had a distinctive feeding habit of sticking their head halfway in the water and then diving, here are a couple of photos from Lake Pleasant.

   After observing the bird for a few minutes at Ashurst Lake I finally got enough field marks to call the bird a Horned Grebe! When I was able to confirm the Horned Grebe I went back to the Sabine's Gull and watched it for a while before it it took flight further down the lake.  We then started scanning the south side of the lake and I was surprised that the only shorebirds I saw were two  Killdeers! However, there were many ducks including, Northern Shoveler, Northern Pintail, Cinnamon, Blue-winged, and Green-winged Teals, Mallard, Ring-necked Duck, and Ruddy Duck. Once we finished scoping the ducks we started walking back when we noticed the Sabine's Gull was within thirty feet of the shore, only on the other side of the lake! We hurried back to the truck and drove to the other side of the lake. When we parked and walked down to the shore the gull was right there in front me!!! Now finally here are some better photos of the gull.

Every time an Osprey would fly over the Sabine's Gull would get nervous and sometimes even take flight.

In the two photos above you can see one of the key field marks, the black and white wings. Once we were done birding Ashurst Lake we then drove down to Lower Lake Mary. When we got there and paid our fee we walked down to the nearby marshy area and began railing.

Last time I birded this area I had twelve Virginia Rails! But this time we only had about four, mostly because I didn't have enough time to REALLY look for them. I also had about three Soras.

Two Soras on the left and a Virginia Rail on the right. Can you spy them?

While we were eating our lunch a Chipping Sparrow flew right in front of us posing for this photo.

I had an awesome time getting to bird on my birthday and starting 15 off with a lifer. I hope you enjoyed reading this post and it will not be the last of my Flagstaff birding, I still have a couple more to go!!!

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"

The Swallows of Happy Jack Lodge

On August 22nd I was out birding near the sewage pond at Happy Jack lodge. I noticed a flock of swallows perched on the barbed wire and flying through the air, that was when I knew I had a mission, to photograph the swallows of Happy Jack! However, the Purple Martins did not want to take part in my swallow pursuit. The most abundant of the swallows would either be the Tree or Violet-green.
                       Three Violet-green Swallows on the right and three Tree Swallows on the left

It was awesome getting to photograph these two species side by side!

Here are a few photos of Tree and Violet-green Swallows.
                                                              Violet-green Swallow

note the white goes above the eye, a key identification mark for all plumages.

                 
                                                                   Tree Swallow

While I was trying to get the best photos I could I saw a young Barn Swallow begging for food and that was my chance to get some crushes!

I slowly crawled over to the bird and camped out in that spot for about half an hour, observing and photographing this family of Barn Swallows.

Even when the parents took a brake from feeding their young gremlin I was still taking photos!

While I was watching the youngster I noticed a Bank Swallow had come in to take a brake from feeding.

This is the first time I have been able to photograph the Bank Swallow, so I was pumped!!!

Here is a photo of the Bank Swallow with a Tree Swallow on the left.

As you can see the Bank Swallow liked hanging out with the other swallows but in the upcoming photo you can see the swallow had a big mouth!

One of the swallows which I saw very briefly was this Northern Rough-winged Swallow, a bird I only saw once, before it flew off.

I had an awesome time getting to observe and photograph these five species of swallow, one of the Violet-greens let me get within a foot or two from him before he took flight , it was AMAZING!! And with that this concludes my "Swallows of Happy Jack Lodge".