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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It was fun going to Mt. Ord for the very first time, and I still got some more birds to clean up on that phenomenal mountain! I remember how much I really wanted to go there whan I first heard about it, from Tommy Debardeleben himself. He has his own website that is actually a guide to Maricopa's birds, birders, and birding. The guide has a lot of complexity, but simple at the same time, and is a fantastic resource to quickly review and skim to get an idea of Maricopa's best birds and hotspots before you visit. Every single birding hotspot within my county that I've been to on this blog I found out about ahead of time on his website. It started when I wanted to find a legitimate guide to the birds I could see during our visits to Phoenix, more specifically, our upcoming visit (May 2017). Not to mention I knew we were going to move soon, so I might well search up some exciting birds ahead of time that would be easy to find in my upcoming new hometown. Well, birderfrommaricopa.com was at the very top. And, I was very astonished to see just how much birding information on the overall Phoenix area was packed into just a few pages on a website! I was amazed to see a list of regularly occuring birds included vireos and orioles.Wood Ducks made me smile too. Even though I knew that these birds could be found in that region of Arizona from my Audubon field guide, it was both reassuring to know these birds were 100% present there, and to have a full list of just birds in the area I was going. Thanks again Tommy D! Anyways, below are some great shots of SPECTACULAR overlooks up on Ord: Now that I no longer live in the state with 17 out of 20 of North America's tallest peaks, and packed full of some very beautiful mountain passes and ranges, I'm finding myself constantly needing, longing, wanting to be up in the northern mountains of Arizona! I guess I didn't realize how much I'd gotten used to loving, missing and having easy access to Alaska's mountains. Difference here is, more colorful birds are awaiting to be found on top of them! Hatcher Pass, about 15 minutes away from my old home in Palmer, has Wandering Tattlers, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, and Hudsonian Godwits. Mt. Ord has Scott's Orioles, Cassin's Kingbirds, Cassin's Finches, Spotted Towhees, and Evening Grosbeaks. I gotta admit, I miss the Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches. After Ord we drove over rolling hills and through mountain passes to Heber. Heber is a tiny, isolated town in eastern Arizona, a straight shot east from Payson. It's like Palmer 2.0. We went there to bird and visit my Dad's friend, Rick Brewer. He's got a dog-grooming business there, with some people driving all the way from Yuma just to get their dog groomed! That's a 6 hour drive! That definately says something about his wife's (Mary Anne) dog grooming skills over Pet Smart and Petco (the stores that usually have dead, injured or sick fish). Speaking of which, my Red Devil Cichlid is doing very well, I'll post an update on him this week. He's 5 1/2-6 inches now! Rick has owned 100s of pets, he said at one point he had over 100 at that time!!!! He loves animals. Anyways, he offered to have dinner instead of lunch, to conserve daylight for birding, offered to have us stay the night at his house, and lastly offered directions to a place called Black Canyon Lake. The drive, complete with a dirt back-road, reminded me of our drive on Maud rd., the road that took me to Jim Lake to see the Pied-billed Grebe. That was a great adventure. About 30 minutes down the road, windows open, we finally saw a MULE DEER, a mammal Rick said we could expect to see over here. I was really happy that I got really good photos of a deer, besides Moose. Those large ears should tell you why they're called Mule Deer. Black Canyon Lake is surrounded by charred forest, because of a wildfire from years ago. And that's what makes it Black Canyon. 3 GREEN-WINGED TEAL were among the first birds we saw, as well as STELLER'S JAYS playing in the scorched trees. The teal liked to fly from one side of the lake to the other, over and over again. A non-bird made things really interesting. We were walking along the shore when a spotted something curled up against a chip of wood, straw-colored with black striping and checkering, out of the corner of my eye. I didn't pay any attention to it because I thought it was something bland like plastic or a weird thing that washed up. Before we almost walked past it I thought, 'Alright, I'll turn around to see if it promises anything cool, just cus' it doesn't look normal.' I turned around, a took a couple small steps toward it. I couldn't believe it, it was a snake! I SUPER ADORABLE snake! I immidiately recognized the small size, big eyes, habitat preference, and checkering as one of the interior species of GARTER SNAKES. But which one? My Dad kept saying "back up it's a rattlesnake, a rattle snake!!" But I said that it's just a completely harmless garter snake. Or so I thought. I knew that Garter Snakes aren't very bitty, and so kept as pets. However, they are prone to musk, which is fowl smelling stuff they release when feeling threatened. I found out they're mildly venomous, too, with the specific species I found, the WANDERING GARTER SNAKE, the most toxic. It wouldn't kill you, just painful like a Honey Bee or wasp. However, watching Coyote Peterson and Crocodile Hunter, I knew how to handle this snake:
Here're some fantastic pix I got of such a gorgeous and adorable serpent: That had to be the best animal we found at Black Canyon lake. I also saw this wasp. It's a species of Cricket Hunter. I love his violet-blue wings. A HAIRY WOODPECKER "PEEK"ed over on the hill in one of the burnt trees, I didn't see him. Then I spied this BONAPARTE'S GULL out on the lake, an Arizona lifer! A cute little gull. I've seen them often in Alaska, even 2 adults mating. The end of the walk things got more active; 3 RING-NECKED DUCKS, RED-BACKED JUNCO, CHIPPING SPARROW, ACORN WOODPECKERS, Say's Phoebe, and a Kestrel. 150+ VIOLET-GREEN SWALLOWS flew right above the water's surface, over the blazed woods, low over the lot and high over the lake. As beautiful as they've ever been. I remember how happy I was when I saw my first one of those swallows... Here's some puffy-cheeked Ring-necked Duckies. Before I knew it, we were back on the dirt-road-that-looks-like-Maud-Road road. I meant to type 'road' twice at the end of the sentence. We saw 18 more of these! And so we were back in Heber, had Rick drive us to dinner, which was good, and then Dad and i followed him and his Challenger to his house. He has 2 dogs, Boo Boo and Diamond, Sunny the 26-year-old Green-winged Macaw, tons of African Cichlids, and a Desert Tortoise (permit for the tortoise, so don't worry). Boo Boo the Chihuahua, he's adorable, the most likable Chihuahua for me. Usually i don't like those dogs. I played with him a lot, along with Diamond their Standard Poodle puppy (she's a year old). This tortoise is kinda hibernating, and makes funny squeaky noises. I think they painted him so that they'd know he's their in case he escaped or something. They don't leave him unsupervised outside like their previous one. That one 'ran' away. After we talked quite a bit, especially about all the cool pets they had, we went to bed. Nope, didn't sleep well like I did in Flagstaff because a freaking cuckoo clock went off ever hour. In the morning, we talked more to Rick and Mary Anne, and I played with the dogs before they needed to be kenneled up to go to work at the dog grooming business. I told Mary Anne about my fish out of water project. Reedfish are both one of the coolest fish in the world, and have to breath air because their gills are deficient. As long as they don't dry up, they can live their entire lives without submersion in water. This has never been done before, but it should work, I just need to mist them down often (maybe build a DIY homemade mist-timer system, so I don't have to do it manually, after how can I do that when I'm out birding?). In aquariums, there are holes in the lid for the bubbler, heater, filter, etc. Reedfish are well known for escaping through those holes. I'll use a large reptile terrarium, which has a gap-less screen lid that can lock, perfect for these escapees! They'll have moss as substrate, as it will retain the moisture really well, so they can be nice and wet when laying in the bedding. I will also have a group of 6 of them, as they will die if kept alone (that's what happened to mine). And how will algae ever grow without an LED aquarium light or a completely filled container? I won't really have to worry about nitrate, ammonia, or nitrites either! I'm excited for this project, and it should be easier than normal fish keeping! After our conversation, they left, and they said we could stay at the house for as long as we liked while they were gone. We went outside on the balcony for a few minutes of fresh air. I got a little more than fresh air. A CASSIN'S FINCH flew over me, making its characteristic pwee-de-lip flight call. Nice, a lifer to start the day! Rick had told us that we could see Wild turkeys at a place called turkey ridge. To get there we had to go down the same road that took us to Black Canyon lake the previous day. We never found the ridge, but still searched for Turkeys on top of the Mogollon Rim. No luck. Over by the lake, however, we drove past a herd of wild horses! I'd never seen wild horses, and I wanted some shots of them. There's an established population around the lake. Eventually, we turned around, and after a while, back on the highway. Here's the view driving the road to Woods Canyon Lake. Our next destination was Woods Canyon lake, as stated above. We still didn't see any Turkeys, but then we were at the lake. I was walking through the woods above the lake, when a loud bubbly sound came from below and in front of me. Naturally, I walked forward to flush what ever it was I just heard. A very tiny, dark brown bird erupted right in front of me, and I didn't see where it landed. "It's a wren!!" is what I exclaimed after the encounter. I moved quickly forward, cameras up because I'd never photographed a small wren before, and he flushed again. This time he did a combination of flying and jumping into a mini-cave. He was in there way too fast, and i didn't see him fly out the other side. feeling around in there with a twig did nothing to coax him out.
He's a PACIFIC WREN! I'm really sure I just saw a freaking PACIFIC WREN there!! I really did, I was so excited I might of been shaking, and each word came out as a relieved, small laugh. It was a bit hard to believe after failing to see one in Alaska during my few years of birding. At the same time, I saw this bird so close up that I didn't miss a detail; very short tail, tiny bill, dark chocolate-colored brown with tiny white dots on wings, dark barring on flanks, and pale supercelium. This bird flew lightning quick, but couldn't avoid my sight before the wren-sized cave. I loved to see that wren so much there really couldn't have been a bird to replace it as my last lifer of the trip. I love how fluffy and tiny the Pacific Wren is, sweet as a chocolote-covered strawberry, with the size and color of one! And then they're adorable. What a phenomenal adventure I had with my Dad, yet again, out of the desert! I saw a grand total of 11 lifers, my longest streak since a long time ago, and also, I finally met my Dad's great friends, Rick Brewer and Mary Anne Brewer! Best spring break I've had! It HAS to be... I'm Jared Conaway, and stay tuned, for tomorrow! In the words of a song by Steven Curtis Chapman, "This is the great adventure!"
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