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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Yo yo yo. Hi everyone! Welcome back to my blog. Yesterday I had an astounding day with my new friend, Caleb Strand. Caleb and I met back in September of last year. Hey was the first birder I bumped into at the Recharge Ponds, and the first in Arizona, period! He's certainly got an excellent eye, and has to be one of the best birders I've meet out there in the field. I have to say, meeting tremendously excellent birders can be more enthralling than encountering lifers! Seeing a lifer by myself is something, but it's such a thrilling experience when you share it with someone, or when your standing next to a birder as you enjoy the newly obtained lifer! Remember the Western Flycatcher photo? At first I labeled as a Cordilleran Emp, the next day, Gila CO. ebird reviewer Caleb Strand emailed regarding that Cordill and P-C Flycatchers are visually un-ID-able. Wait a second! I got an email from Caleb!! I immediately replied, telling him that it was great to hear from him again, after about 7 and a half months! He replied by saying that he'd tried getting in contact with me after our run-in at the GRPs, wondering if i'd like to bird together. Apparently he missed a c in [email protected]. At this I perked up, nearly 8 months of birding with him was missed! At the same time, this was great news, one of the best emails (the others are the other replies from Caleb, and a couple of other birders too). Caleb's replies were so fantastic because out of my other 3 birders I'm able to contact, he's the only one I'm able to bird with right now. His friend, Tommy D, is very busy most the time, and it's hard for him to make plans nowadays. Dan Crowson and Bob Winkler are in Alaska, so if I was to bird with one of them, then one of us has to go 3,000 miles! Caleb and I then proceeded with plans to meet at the GRPs before 6:00 A.M. on Tuesday of last week. We had a great time, no lifers, but 78 species for me, including my FOP (first of patch) Franklin's Gull and Bank Swallow! And we came across the older lady that we meet on Mt. Ord, her name's Barb. She was glad I could meet up with Caleb. Sorry if I didn't blog about that, but yesterday's meet up I couldn't pass up blogging. On Monday night, Caleb texted me that he was available to have dinner at my place the next evening! AND that there was room for an exped to the GRPs before dinner! Booya! Mom and I arrived at 4:16 P.M. after listening to the Lifer album of Mercyme. And after about a minute of watching the countless Cliff Swallows flying under and over the canal bridge, Caleb pulled up in his van. Dara Vazquez reported an insane patch bird the previous day, a Black-chinned Sparrow! as you know a couple weeks ago that was a lifer for me. So that's where we started. Caleb used playback of its familiar bouncing-ball song to bring him in, but to no avail. It does make sense, a Chapparel breeder discovered in lowland riparian habitat this time of year, is a discovery that will either be shared with only a few other birders, or move on before it can be shared with other people. In other words, it's a discovery that won't last. I couldn't stay disappointed, a Black-bellied Plover and a Willet were here! I don't know when the opportunity to see a Black-chinned Sparrow at my patch will come up again. Still not much in the riparian area, except I spotted a male BLACK-CHINNED HUMMINGBIRD hovering above a small tree. but next week that'll change big time! So we moved on to the ponds, our focused habitat today. Within minutes, my first patch bird of the day was found, a BONAPARTE'S GULL showing off his tern-like physique way off in the distance. Now that I'm in Arizona, I've realize how much I appreciate that gull! Caleb said, "Yeah, we'll get you closer views of him, we're going to head that way anyways." He turned out to be right. At pond 1, the gull approached from the direction he went a few minutes ago. He came directly at us coming within 5 feet of us to land in a puddle. "Get your camera ready cause' he's probably going to fly directly past us," explained Caleb. After a few minutes of enjoying him, he left our company. And that was the closest anyone got to any one of the 3 B Gulls continuing here, so far. It was epic to enjoy my newly obtained "patch-er." Often times you can distinguish these from smaller Larus gulls by tern like shape, size, and flight style. next up we scanned ponds 4 & 3. Caleb then pointed out a black, red, and yellow grebe 10 or so yards away in basin 4. "There's an EARED GREBE in breeding plumage," Caleb informed me. Caleb set up the scope for me to look at the stunning bird. I was awestruck at this bird's sheer magnificence! Through the scope, I looked at a a slim-bodied grebe with a black neck, shaggy yellow cheeks with radiating feathers, a black peaked crown, a thin, upturned bill, stunning rich chestnut flanks, black wings, back, and face, and finally a pair of brilliant crimson eyes. I kinda wish I tried for a photo, but they probably will still be there next week. As you can probably tell from my enthusiastic description, that was my first breeding plumage Eared grebe. Heck, it's only the second grebe species I've seen in peak breeding plumage! The other of course being the Red-necked Grebe. We walked along the embankment seperating the 2 basins, seeing what we could find. A lot more was happening in Pond #3. Because it was mostly dried up with sparsely scattered large puddles, it had the most ideal shorebird habitat. This is where the Willet and Plover were being seen. We spent about less than 5 minutes overlooking when Caleb relayed this extremely important information to me: "There's a WILSON'S PHALAROPE over there, a female." "Oh, my, gosh. Are you serious," I asked in astonishment. "Yep." Then he added, "It's over there in front of the orange cone." I lowered my binos, directed my sight to the cone he was pointing at, then raised them and immediately sighted my target, gasping in bewilderment! Here's something you should know: My friend Dan Crowson monitors Knik Goose Bay State Game Refuge (KGB) every spring, and for the past few years, has hosted a field trip there at the end of April. Well, every year for the last few years, a pair of Wilson's Phalaropes have arrived at Dan's patch, I believe on the same day annually. Wilson's Phalaropes are the rarest of their genus in Alaska, pretty much just leaving the casual status and already up to a rare, annual breeder recently. Their range in the state has been limited to the southeast region only, very rarely showing up farther north. Dan's pair has become a reliable duo of rare Phalaropes to observe in these recent years. On June 3rd, Dan sent me a text with a photo of the 2 birds. After some pleading and planning, and a conversation with my friend, I replied "I'm headed that way." Mom had never been to KGB, so she waited just outside the forest on the shore entering a sea of marshland. Scope in hand, brother beside me, and grasping my binos, I stepped into the swamp, confident. the phalaropes put the "ph" in "phar" with how much distance we had to cover to get to them. During our conversation, Dan had said they were 700 yards out. It was only a matter of time before frustration took hold. This wasn't like a flooded, flat rice field. Alaskan bogs are anything but flat. Let me put it this way, one foot could be standing in a few inches of water, while the other foot stands in 2 feet of water. And that's no exaggeration either. That's exactly what it was like with just about every step taken once when the spot we'd originally started from looked hazy because of the distance. I tripped so many times, and got soaked to my thighs in water. My boots were like anvils attached to my feet with how heavy with water, cold, and numb they were. And setting up my scope was very hard too. It fell a couple of times, getting dosed with mud and water. And all this was happening only 300 yards out from where we'd started, and I gave out from frustration, exhaustion, and soaked feet. How in the world can a 14-year-old not accomplish something a mid-50s-year-old could? I was so frustrated that I couldn't even appriciate the killer close up views of Sandhill cranes we got, and that was the only time I was over 10 ft. away from those cranes! At the end of it, my entire body was sore. Very sore. And that's a story that I wouldn't have to skip on my TIMELINE series if it weren't such a failure. I will return to KGB for those Phalaropes, as long as they keep returning, one day. Dan digi-scoped them from a couple hundred yards away, and that's not what I'm going to do. I will go the entire 700 3-foot-lengths, I will walk right up to that pond (and this is if they're in the same pond, or same distance) and get epic shots of them. And no matter how often I see Wilson's Phalaropes in the future, I will never take the bird for granted. That epic fail adventure has made me appreciate the bird so much. So you can imagine my pure joy, and excitement when my other birder friend directs me straight to one that is less than 70 yards away, and immediately locate it, without bearing wet anvils on my feet. And you can imagine my excitement now when Caleb says: "Hear, I'll get it in the scope for you." And that he did. I looked at a tiny needle-billed, white-cheeked bird with stunning chestnut-sided mantle, nape, and lower wings, with a frosty gray crown, white back, lores, and underside, and a black, orange, and red stripe streaming down a snowy white neck, with gray scapulars and secondaries, spinning in circles. And let me tell you, this cute bird looks especially adorable when it spins around in rapid circles. All I could say was, wow, followed up by more 'wows'. one more thing you should know, females of all 3 phalarope species are far more colorful than males. And those are the 2 very different experiences I had with the bird. I had a double strike-out with the Willet, and a triple strike-out on the Black-bellied Plover, as neither bird showed up. the plover is now a nemesis bird. When the phalarope is finally close (hopefully next time, which is this upcoming week, when there's 20 Wilson's Phalaropes at the GRPs) I will get a photo of them. Then came the ibises. The WHITE-FACED IBISES. And with them, a bird Louis, Caleb, and I first thought of as a Glossy Ibis, a bird that shows up in the county every 4 years. It struck Caleb as a hybrid, because of pink in the center of the facial skin. After Caleb and I saw it, Caleb called Louis to come and check out the bird, because a few minutes ago he'd said if we found a Glossy ibis, call him over. Louis came over with his big camera, and pointed out the bird. After 30 minutes of looking at it, the flock took off, looking like it would leave the ponds, but it swung back around, and landed in the pond instead of the embankment like the previous 2 times. Now they were closer. Louis became convinced it was a pure Glossy, but Caleb got more and more convinced that it was a hybrid. The next day, I did extensive study of Louis's shots on the bird, and he had reported ebird it was a purity. At first I couldn't at all see what Caleb was talking about, but when i looked a final time in the late afternoon, it became very clear. https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S44679555 Above is the link to Louis's checklist. The bird has a dark red eye, suggesting White-faced as one of the parents (or grandparents). Because its eye is so brown though, here's my opinion: A male Glossy and female White-faced Ibis had a baby. The baby hybrid then mated with a pure Glossy, the result is a second-gen hybrid, the offspring Caleb, Louis, and I saw. There is also very minute pink in the face, suggesting White-faced heritage. It also has gray on legs running down to the knee (Glossy), but with red running from the knew to the feet (White-faced) A pure Glossy has all gray legs. for some reason, this bird was a lot smaller than the white-faced Ibises, possibly from Glossy ibis ancestry. The most striking feature of this bird had to be the tertials, the innermost, largest secondaries. The proportions were off for either species, though leaning more towards Glossy. both species have very large tertials, with square ends, that conceal the short primary projection, extending beyond it. Our ibis's tertials only went to the tip of the primaries, not extending past it, and the edges were smoothly rounded, instead of squared. This is an example of hybrid offspring acquiring a trait of neither parent, or in this case grandparents. Finally, the headache flew off with the rest of the 60 or so ibises. And here's some beautiful flight shots i obtained We had a serious high-count of 18 BANK SWALLOWS, but possibly more. Conservative estimate for caution of double-counting. This is my first Bank Swallow I've ever photographed. (audience claps). 2 SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS flew a few feet over us while making their squeak calls. Adorable sounding instead of annoying, like the Killdeer. There is a first for everything, and in this case they were my first breeding-plumaged Semi-s, except when you only see the underneath of the bird in flight, the look just like the non-breeders. If they weren't flying so fast, or at all, you'd see a picture or 2. Along with those epic birds, we had a great 60 species total for that evening! On our way back, we relocated the Bonaparte's Gull in another puddle, with a SOLITARY SANDPIPER. At the parking lot, Caleb and I didn't farewell, he was to follow us to our house for dinner! A great dinner with a great birder who is now my great friend celebrating a great day with a great lifer! dinner was excellent,scalloped potatos, corn, and barbeque chicken. The potatos were extremely good, my favorite food during our dinner. Caleb and I made short work of them. Next week, likely Monday, Caleb and I are teaming up again for another adventure at the GRPs, here are my goals:
Hopefully within the next week, Caleb and I can visit other epic hotspots in Maricopa CO., and in the near future southeast Arizona, and eventually out of state!
Thank's so much Caleb for the Wilson's Phal, and for being so nice, and awesome! Can't wait for our next outing! Lastly, here's our shared checklist: https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S44723002 And here's Calebs's blog: http://birdingwithcaleb.blogspot.com/ God bless and bird hard! I'm Jared Conaway, and stay tuned for my next adventure! Will get back on the TIMELINE series soon.
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