From a small town to a big city...
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A Birding Blog
By Jared Conaway
From a small town to a big city...
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Hi all! Welcome to today's post! Caleb and I teamed up with Dara Vasquez and Jeff Ritz. Jeff eats crackers, particularly those of the Ritz brand. He's also really cool. We were to arrive at B&M WA, walk the 4+ miles to the far end of Tres Rios, hit Hunters Ponds for BBWD (Black-bellied Whistling-Duck) then eat food at McDonald's and enjoy that beautiful thing called AC (a blessing where I live). And Caleb thinks walking around GRPs is a good idea from 12:00-2:00 IN THE AFTERNOON, P.M. I do not object, but, um, well who cares about the heat when your looking at a freaking ....... ....! Ha! didn't see hangman coming did you! Let me just tell you, it was worth it! Unfortunately Tommy will not be joining us, he's as elusive as a Black Rail. But that is aokao (my version of ok), because hanging out with 3 awesome people was enough. So Caleb, Jeff, and I arrived at the B&M parking area. I don't know why, but cars seem to really like parking lots. What is with that? Anyways, Dara was late. It's usual, according to Mr. Ritz. Some 10 minutes later, Dara shows up in her shiny white car. So we get walking. Because that's what birders do. It was actually just a few minutes when Caleb found an awesome bird, a lifer, a Common Ground-Dove. But it flew off before I could see it. Oh well, we'll just keep looking, right? The path we were walking on was supposed to be really good for them. The views at Tres Rios are to die for! Ok, maybe not so, but the shade is, if heat stroke doesn't kill you first... FWI: Overheating is a real threat in Maricopa County, high and low elevations, BRING LOTS OF WATER when birding. Your going to want to spend a lot of time birding locations anyways, so you might as well. Riparian, being scarse and widely scattered, attracts phenomenal migrants & vagrants. Certainly not that time of year, but come Sept-Oct and April-May, birding rocks here in the Mari! Also, these are 2 different photos. And I will share some Odes, this is a Rambur's Forktail, a nice looking damsel. Oding is just like birding, except dragonflies & damselflies are what's being observed. They can also be just as interesting as birds, the colors they display are pretty spectacular. It is a bummer that our best Ode of the day I couldn't photograph (sigh). I'll mention it later, and after that you can go ahead and research it. By the way guys, B&M didn't really yield anything cool or anything from the Lifer Department. Cardinals were abundant around Tres Rios, with males singing everywhere, but only this individual put on a show. No female cardinal could resist the brilliant crimson and rich song of this male, right? Well if he's singing, then rejections have been in his past. How do I know? No cardinal gets his/her way in life very easy. Almost all birds with mates didn't obtain them by singing their first song, or succeed on their first try. No one at all could tell this is a Red-winged Blackbird. I used to like those. Do I now? Caleb said on this trip that you can't be sick of seeing a bird until you know every feather, every vocalization, and behavior. So I guess I do. I would say an adult GREAT-HORNED OWL was our first highlight, despite being an owl I'll eventually see 100 times. But hay, it's an owl, that's always a highlight. The owl flushed out of a Fremont Cottonwood. Birding with Jeff & Dara is really cool. They're both funny, and Jeff will be in an upcoming short post. I told Dara about my White Mountains adventure. For those who don't know, White Mountains is an extremely high elevation large region in eastern Arizona. It has a lot of very local species, and is better for forest birds than other parts of Arizona. There is an upcoming post about it :). Dara is a fairly young birder, 30s or something, she just got serious about birding for a year and a half. she is one of the fastest birders to reach 300 Maricopers. She is also really good at birding, which is awesome considering how new to it she is. I showed her some of my forest pix of West Baldy Trailhead, and it made her want to visit. She also said the Downy Woodpecker was cute. It is. Jeff Ritz is a cool guy. He has more than a few years of birding experience, and is pretty great at it. I like how he makes a lot of jokes and especially remarks while birding. Birding is funny when birding with Ritz. Birding is funny when birding with all the birders I've featured on my blog. You would definitely have to bird with them to see for yourself. Lucy's Warbler, Common Yellowthroat, and Black-tailed Gnatcatcher were feeding nestling Brown-headed Cowbirds. A baby cowbird is like twice the size of all 3 of those, and a fledgling about 10 times the size. And the poor soul that has been imprisoned with raising an over-sized baby have to feed these things. Yeah. A bunch of Cowbirds hanging out at the top of a bare cottonwood said, "That's my boy!" Yellow-billed Cuckoos love Gooding's Willow riparian groves during southwestern summers. In the southwest they're endangered, which is unfortunate and means playback is illegal. The Yellow-billed Cuckoo is a beautiful bird, it's one of 3 American cuckoos, the only one of 3 without black in its bill, and has a unique-looking long body & long tail. Caleb says it reminds him of Elegant Trogon with the body shape. It reminds me of Yellow-billed Magpie, because both have a yellow bill. I'm just joking, it looks like this: Northern-hawk Owl + Elegant Trogon + Prairie Falcon + Yellow-billed Magpie + Curve-billed Thrasher x Greater Roadrunner= Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Only this equation makes to sense to Jared. Unless you really think about it. A few minutes later we came across this forest. I thought it looked promising, so I scanned the canopies. I started imitating the song, and instead of cuckoos responding, a couple of BARN OWLS flushed and flew behind the river bend. After that Jeff joined me to find our target. #bestriparianphotoof2018. Maybe. Anyways, I thought I heard its "PO-wow!" calls, but it was a bit high-pitched. Jeff said it was most likely one of the domestic birds. We had mostly just heard COMMON GALLINULES, but we saw one pretty well in this body of water. I could have gotten a decent pic too. It was buddies with a GREEN HERON, which we saw and heard everywhere. Still holds up as a cool bird though (both do). You know how it is, I get photos of other stuff instead of birds. Sorry. Now, these are Common Plecostomus, my brother used to have one of these as a pet, 8 years. Remember how I was saying there was lots of introduced species, both plants and animals, at B&M. Well for one, those are at Tres Rios too, and for 2, these are one of those. Common Pleco is native to the Orinoco Basin. Speaking of fish, you guys gotta be wondering about mine. My goodness, I love him so much. Let me just tell you, it's a good thing there's glass between him and my fingers. I already got bit once, and that was back when he was only 4 1/2 inches and without teeth. Now most of his teeth are in, and as he grows they will. He's about 6 1/2 inches, and still going. I've had him for over 7 months now, and he's done so many hilarious things. For one, when he snaps his jaws, it's really loud. He does it all the time trying to bite through the glass (like I said, glass between his infamous mouth and me). For 2, I kept feeding him different foods he hadn't even eaten before, and he decided none of them tasted good. They were: orange, banana, spinach, and cabbage. Here's the thing though. When I turned my back on him, he tried to jump out of the tank. He actually wanted to get out. You see, he assumes there's more water outside of the tank. I know because when he's coming at me, he doesn't slow down when he hits the glass, it's both funny and worrying. But he's an intelligent fish, one of the smartest species. He's more likely just tough, so doesn't care about glass. 3rd, he definitely has the capacity to be bored. He usually builds little hills of pebbles, but recently, he built a mountain. I felt bad when I did my most recent water change. First, I scraped cyannobacteria by his giant mound with my algae scraper. This made him mad that I was any where near his mound. He aggressively grabbed and shook the scraper, threatening to shove it out of my hands. Except I'm 6 ft, he's 6 inches, so it was funny. But then I really felt bad when I blew up Mt. Everest with my aquarium vacuum. Can you see genuine sadness in a fish's eyes? I'm pretty sure I did when all my poor little water puppy could do was just hover there and watch... Now 4th, and yes I know this is supposed to be about birds, but these last points are short. So I renamed him a couple times, before settling on Pup, with his full name being Pupper, because an adorable fish deserves an adorable name. 5th, a little bit ago, I gave him an algae wafer. It landed in between his eyes. He saw the food being dropped in his tank, but was confused because he had no idea where it went. So he kept looking at me and around the tank. He eventually figured it out. 6th, I'm pretty sure he bites to play with me. He bites really hard when I touch the walls or my arm is in the aquarium. Lately I've succeeded in petting his head. He tries to bite me in return, except it looks like he's just trying to softly bite me, like an affectionate puppy bite. Also he can't possibly be angry all the time. Just when I appear to be messing with him or an object in his aquarium. Oftentimes he swims up to me without bumping into the wall, and doesn't bite me then. Also when someone walks down the hall, he excitedly swims up to them. I know he likes attention, and why not? After all, he's one of the smartest fish. And I do know for a fact that fish look out for one another and form friendships, I'll definitely have to share those stories sometime. Anyways, as awesome as fish are, this is a birding blog, so... Caleb spotted this bird, which took me a little bit to find. Can you see it. Check the tall marsh grasses for this species. One might think this a passerine. Is it? Sure. I. Give. You. The..... ....LEAST BITTERN! Sure it's not a lifer, but deserves a grand introduction anyways, because it's the Least Bittern. Now I knew this heron was tiny. I just didn't realize it was the size of a Red-winged Blackbird! The first pic is an excellent comparison photo. This individual was a lot closer than the previous one, and has provided my best view so far. This sighting was more epic and ideal than my first ever! I just love how compact and tiny this heron is, the world's smallest in fact! So adorable... Please don't tell the Red-winged Blackbird this, but of the 2, LEAST BITTERN is way cooler. I certainly enjoyed this bird, Dara said that she could see the excitement in my eyes. I guess Least Bitterns do that. When Least Bittern and Red-winged Blackbird compete to be the better-looking marsh bird. I know, we were just getting into birds, but Odes are amazing too. This is a female Marl Pennant. I love this dragonfly, it's called the Mexican Amberwing. I'll share some more pix of that one. As a birder, you get immersed with everything natural around you! Including the spectacular Mexican Amberwing. Sometimes BLUE GROSBEAK isn't so gorgeous. One of those times is in my first photo. This is a young male, looking good with a dark blue mask. But still, adult males... He's also in a dull tree, Mexican Palo Verde. Here's another Mexican Amberwing, and remember at the beginning I mentioned we had a most spectacular Ode of the day, well this isn't it. I mentioned that I hadn't seen a Cattle Egret in Arizona. I said my only ones were in Maui, and that I failed both times on looking for a Tricolored Heron @ my patch, and looked for the continuing Cattle Egret while there. Caleb was scanning the skies as we talked, and the conversation continued. Then Caleb was like, "Oh wow, there's a CATTLE EGRET flying across." I said, "Seriously?" With a little direction we all saw the perfectly-timed egret. The Cattle Egret is one of the smallest egrets, looking like a compacted Great Egret. Anyways, it was great to see a Cattle Egret after 5 years! While on the subject of Ardeidae, we also had double-digits of Snowy Egrets so far, 17 GREEN HERONS, visual and calling, Black-crowned Night-Herons, and a few Great Egrets & Great Blue Herons. Of course, the best of the best from the heron department is a total of 4 Least Bitterns. After the Cattle Egret we found a small mesquite to sit under, and rested for a while. We mostly talked about the White Mts, among other things. This needs to be a meme... The PEREGRINE FALCON looks away in shame when he finds out he's not the fastest bird... We saw this epic dude a few times, and he's the only Peregrine with a photo in Jared's birding history. The Peregrine is the only falcon with a cosmopolitan (worldwide) distribution. There are 19 subspecies total. Some might be evaluated to full species status, such as Barbary Falcon and the South American Peregrine. It's true, though, the Peregrine is not the fastest bird, the Golden Eagle is. The competition to be the better-looking marsh bird continues... A male Least Bittern would end the competition. The Black-crowned Night-Terror. I meant heron. My first of this species was actually ssp hoactli, the Hawaiian BCNH. That's right, my first 2 herons were this species and Cattle Egret, both in Hawaii. How about that. This Dusky Dancer was a highlight among Odes. #funfact: Dusky Dancers in habit lowland riparian, such as Tres Rios & B&M, Sooty Dancers inhabit upland riparian, such as HRP, Caleb told me this. Now it was later in the morning, heat was threatening us, as usual. Some Turkey Vultures were beginning to circle over us, waiting for us to die. But there is another vulture that has a local population in western Maricopa. Caleb found my first lifer of the day, BLACK VULTURE. But, it was way up high in the sky, above the more cooperative Turkey Vultures. Now that's sad. Well, I guess I'll have to describe the vulture. Well, it was black. I did see the unique shape, silvery wingtips, long bill, and trapezoidal tail. The Black Vulture has very wide and shorter wings, held flatter, and a very short trapezoid tail (as previously mentioned. Bird photos are kinda lacking in this post, huh? Stick around till the end, and you won't be let down!! Eventually we rested, right by a Velvet Mesquite bosque, with some willows across from us. For a while we sat and talked, until a knocking sound interrupted the conversation. "What's that," Dara asked. Caleb said, "Oh, that was a YELLOW-BILLED CUCKOO." So it was only natural to call the amazing bird out into the open. The bird eventually flew up from the willows. Caleb saw it. Jeff saw it. Dara saw it. Yours truly, hardly. I turned around just as Caleb said he had the bird, so really it was the out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye scenario. Why I wasn't already turned around like everybody else? Well, I was looking with them and calling in the bird, but I turned the other way just before it flushed. Dang it. Some cuckoos aren't very nice. After the cuckoo, we found a shadier spot. After that, we split up, Jeff and I hung out underneath some cottonwoods for a few minutes. Jeff and I birded a little bit. Caleb and Dara were behind a stand of Tamarisks, so I was going to go around it to get to the other side so I could join with them. As soon as I made it there, Caleb was walking towards me. There goes my shade. So I walked in the sun with Caleb for a little bit before we found a shady spot to rest at for a while. For a few minutes, we sat in silence. Suddenly Caleb, the rare bird finder that he is, said, "I'm pretty sure that's an Indigo Bunting singing." The best part about that statement is, I heard it too! But we weren't going to finish up birding Tres Rios without finding this beautiful bird. We walked over to a stand of Mesquites and cottonwoods. The closer we got to the stand, the clearer the song became. The song echoed through the Fremont Cottonwoods once we were there. When we got close to mesquite, it flew up with a few Blue Grosbeaks. Caleb called Dara to tell her we had an Indigo Bunting over by the baby owls. Earlier we had a few fledgling Great-horned Owls calling in the spot. We had to crane our necks as it constantly moved high up in the cottonwoods. Now hears what made it annoying: We had to keep moving from cottonwood to cottonwood to see the bunting. But every step taken was a loud one, continuously encouraging the bunting to move higher up, back down, left right, east and west. Jeff, Dara, Caleb, and I had invented a new game, Musical Birders. All because of an Indigo Bunting that was disturbed by super-loud dead cottonwood leaves. Worse yet was that it stopped singing everytime it moved to a different spot. Eventually the bunting flew out of the cottonwoods and into some mesquites. We used playback combined with epic pishing to keep the bunting nearby and hopefully bring it out into the open. Finally, the bunting came to the front of the mesquites, and I relocated it. I got the worst photos ever of one of the best birds ever. This is an immature male INBU, note the white lower belly. Other than that this bird was entirely blue, but still wasn't spectacular. In the first pic you can see the diagnostic small bill that distinguishes him from the BLGR. I was fairly close to this dream-bird, so he decided to fly back into the cottonwoods. He was in there for a few minutes, but then he flew outside the grove. So we got back on the path to relocate him. We had to pish a lot to convince him to get out of the dense mesquite/tamarisk woodland. Then came what we had all, especially me, anticipated... He flew into a Mexican Palo Verde not far from us. This was my perfect opportunity to photograph my dream-bird But I had to actually see it first, because this was more importantly the perfect opportunity to see the brilliant indigo color on this bird. The reason a Mexican Palo Verde is especially ideal for photographing/viewing this bird, is the lack of leaves. This along with the fact the sun was behind us provided the best look at this individual so far. So we had a perfect bird in perfect light, and in a leafless tree. "Oh my God." It really was an INDIGO BUNTING, not that we didn't know that already, but because this bird was a spectacular deep, dark, brilliant blue! This bird truly is one of the most beautiful birds ever, and has to be in my top 5 by the end of this year! I look back and I'm even more glad I was able to see that beautiful bird in the palo, because I brought up the camera, and he flew out of there! What is it with birds being disturbed by raising cameras??? The bunting never left our company, he only entered. We heard him singing on the way back to the parking lot. Dara and I talked about hummingbirds for a little bit. Caleb and I went down to a canal and walked along that, because Caleb told me we could see a Tiger Beetle species that was thought to be extinct only last year. We never saw those, but we should next time, he says that their pretty abundant along the canal pavement. However, our best Ode of the day showed up along here. The Roseate Skimmer. Instead of scarlet red of the Flame Skimmer, the Roseate has brilliant purple, magenta, and pink coloration. And once back to our cars, we headed to McDonald's. Caleb got blueberry blast, so I joked and said, "Now Caleb, what you have here is a fountain bluebird." And then Dara was like, "Or a mountain dewbird!" Birders are funny. McDonald's is actually where our most interesting conversations of the day happened. Caleb ordered him and I 3 sausage burritos. That was a lifer food for me. I thought talking about duck hybrids was really cool. Caleb first showed us Mallard X Common Eider, which you think wouldn't even exist. But, Mallards are obsessed with mating. That's what I have to say. Except there's Ring-necked X Wood Duck, Hooded Merg X Barrow's Goldeneye, Steller's X Common Eider, Wood Duck X Mallard, and Hooded Merg X Wood Duck. You would think that between completely different shapes, colors, and especially diets that they would hold back. But here's the thing, Some of the duck hybrids, especially Hooded Merg X Wood Duck, Hooded Merg X Ring-necked, and Hooded merg X Barrow's Goldeneye (anything hybridized with Hooded Merganser is bound to be freaking awesome-looking!) are actually cooler than pure ducks. And all these hybrids mentioned are wild. An example of a domestic hybrid is Hooded Merg X Smew. Caleb said Dara & Sean should team up to bird GWR, and Caleb & Tommy would team up to bird GRPs, so that Caleb & Tommy could show them that GRPs is the better hotspot. On a side note, Dara finally decided that a sausage burrito sounded good, but as soon as she turned around to go order it, the menu switched to lunch. #whoops. On another side note, Caleb and I had 3 sausage burritos each, but then Caleb ate 2 burgers, wow. And on another side note, the post of many side notes, Caleb mentioned that on the birding memes facebook page there was a fake news report about lumping all Empids. Jeff said, "I'm all for that, we just need one species of Empid." Dara was like, "What if you just stood outside the ABA conference building holding a sign that says "lump". Jeff is like, "I totally should." Oh, my fellow blog viewers, you would have to have been there, we had plenty of interesting and funny conversations, but sadly me noggin' can be forgetful. Sometimes. Except it doesn't fail to remember 912 birds that have been recorded in North America, that are countable And then we left McDonald's, after about 2 hours of hanging out there. From there, the Glendale Recharge Ponds (Or just GRPs, why Jared?) was to be our final destination of the day. This imm. male Green Heron says hi. We saw him in the canal below the parking bridge Things are looking pretty good in the Ardeidae department today, between CAEG, GRHE, and the best of the best: LEBI. It has been over a year now since my first Green Heron, and it still holds up as a beautiful bird. But, how could I be bored of it yet if these are my only good photos anyways. This thing just looks cool, and by the way, you did good for me Mr. Butorides virescens. But enough said about Green Herons. Let's turn our attention to the Common Gallinule family in the riparian area. Except, no photo, so I guess not. But the point is, this is Caleb's first time observing this species nesting at Glendale (another name for the GRPs, since it's practically in the center of the city of Glendale). That's pretty interesting considering Caleb has been going here for a long time, and there is suitable habitat here. Baby Gallinules aren't pretty. And that's not an opinion. And then, Jeff's coolness level went way up. How cool? This cool: "Oh, I have a tern!" Those are the 5 words that got yours truly jumping up and down screaming "WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?! WHERE?!" Sounds like an impatient child, right? Well, I guess now we know that terns can turn me into that. No pun intended. But guys, I've been very, very patient. Story anyone? My first ever tern was an Arctic Tern flying over Nancy Lake that my Dad pointed out to me. This was summer of 2010, I was 8. So I guess I was an impatient child when I saw my first tern... Anyways, this was one of my Dad's favorite birds. This experience along with many others to come made it one of mine too. In my first technical year of birding, 2015, we watched them plunge-dive into the Kenai River to catch small fish. Let me tell you, it is extremely fun to watch. This was in Soldotna, a small town on the Kenai Peninsula. Every May, Homer has a shorebird festival. We went there the next day. While there, I got a guide to Alaska's birds. As soon as I got it, I started flipping through it to see what interesting birds Alaska had that I wasn't aware of. One that really caught my attention was the Caspian Tern. I had no idea they were annual in the Cook Inlet. But I never did see a Caspian Tern since then, despite driving around Cook Inlet often. Now, June 27th 2018, if this was a Caspian Tern, my dream of seeing one was about to come true. "It looks Caspian, the bill is large and really bright red, the tail is short too." And then Caleb showed it to me through his scope, it was flying across basin 1. It was amazing. Far away too. The SRP was doing some huge maintenance on the ponds this time around, and we could tell because trucks & tractors were everywhere. Didn't exactly look pretty. So yeah, we had to look past large vehicles to see this massive tern, so a brilliant idea occurred to me; "Let's get closer!!" "If we don't die of heat stroke," Jeff replied. So Jeff, Dara, and I left the riparian to enjoy this spectacular tern. Caleb stayed on the bike path to continue birding the riparian. This bird was flying around the ponds really fast, making a full circle around a single basin in less than 30 seconds. So getting closer took a while. But it did happen. Why ya got to be so far away CATE? I don't like this photo. When we were walking on that burm Caleb joined us, and the CATE left us to circle over the ponds. The one time a killdeer is awesome, when it's pretending to have a broken wing. Killdeers do this to lead potential threats away from the nest. Most of the time the Killdeer is a bland, generic bird, but this threat display is fun to watch, and makes for a cool photo. After this Dara made me feel bad after I told her I didn't want to count a Mountain Bluebird in the high elevation White Mts. grasslands because it was a female. She got me to count it. Spoiler alert. Then this ugly 2nd summer CALIFORNIA GULL showed up. The Caspian Tern attempts to hide in a flock of cormorants. That's like a Caleb trying to hide in a flock of Tommys. Epic Caspian Tern. Horrible background. These sets are definitely sold separately. When your a hydeous gull: Many friends leave you... Some friends stay behind... ...But then they leave you too. Most of the time, Hydroprone caspia likes to keep his distance. But not all the time... ...The CASPIAN TERN finally came over us, something we anticipated would happen during our time with 2018's best bird! This was nearly a milestone bird as #355 on my Life List, but because Dara made me feel bad, it's #356! The CASPIAN TERN looks absolutely spectacular in this photo! These 3 photos were the reason I wanted to get closer. However these photos only represent the experience I had, the actual experience was far greater! I am very excited to revisit the Caspian Tern... The Caspian Tern is the largest tern in the world, bigger than a California Gull and with a gigantic 5 ft. wingspan. Jeff even said it would be insane to see this bird side by side with Least Tern (the smallest), and yes, that would be. It has been 8 long years since my very first tern. We observed this tern for about 30 minutes, but once that time was up, it got very, very hot. It was a long, miserable walk to the parking lot, but the Caspian Tern, only my second species of tern ever, made it so worth it. "And he was so ugly, everyone died. The end." One day, this will be a beautiful California Gull. But this ugly creature has a long way to go to get to that day.
Thanks to Jeff, Dara, and Caleb for this amazing day I had! I hope you guys enjoyed this post as much as I did, well, the reading part, not the writing part... Stay tuned...
1 Comment
8/1/2022 08:47:03 pm
Instagram hızlı takipçi satın almak ve büyümek oldukça pratik bir hal aldı. Sizlerde adresimiz dahilindeki bu imkân ile istenilen sonuca ulaşabilirsiniz. Adresimiz bu alanda aktif çalışmaktadır.
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