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 guys! I hope you're all enjoying the beginning of 2019. Man, last year absolutely flew by. It fun while it lasted; I totaled 99 lifers, my second highest number of year lifers, right behind 2017. Among them were some of the coolest birds I've ever seen. I did want to tie in the year overview with today's story, but I'm behind a few posts, so I have to complete those before I do that. Anyways, please enjoy this one! For a while, many birders have been visiting a certain spot next to the highway all the way up in northernmost Arizona for some very special birds. These gorgeous little birds are called Rosy-finches. They have not been seen in Arizona in a decade. They are here because of heavy snow in their normal distribution in essentially Rockies south of Canada (breeder/winterer). Allaboutbirds.org shows the general northernmost region of the state as part of their wintering range, which is probably true, but they go undetected in the state quite a bit. This flock of 60-79 (varies between observers) consists of mostly Black Rosy-Finches, with 2 much rarer Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches, the latter of which I've seen before. Because these were very special birds, and we needed to start the year off with fun, Tommy Debardeleben, Caleb Strand, Jeff Ritz, and I decided to come together and go chase them! You guys should be familiar with all 3, especially Caleb, as they've been featured on my blog previously. Tommy came really early in the morning (4:30) to my house to bring me to Costco where Caleb & Jeff would be. We arrived 20 minutes later, all 4 of us were ready for the rosy-finches; sporting our heavy jackets, hats, gloves, and long pants, prepared for the freezing cold & snow up there. Nothing could stop us. Anyways by the time we were south of Prescott, there was a great deal of snow on the ground in the adjacent grasslands, and it was 4 degrees fahrenheit outside! (shortly after it was 1 degree!). We really felt it at a gas station in Flagstaff. There I bought an SD card for the pet camera, since I forget mine. Tommy bought a wolf calendar- he loves the wild puppers. I totally get it though, wolves are amazing! After that we drove through beautiful snowy Ponderosa Pine forest, then we were onto the Colorado Plateau. When we arrived at the stake-out site, the views were absolutely stunning! The scenery represented one of the most beautiful places I've been in Arizona. Looking back on 2018, I sure have been to a lot of gorgeous locations! I can't help but share the landscape alongside birds. We walked around for a while anticipating our 1st lifers of 2019. The 4 of us were shivering in the glimmering snow, waiting for the true excitement to happen. After about 15 minutes, the 1st clear call note was heard, immediately followed by 60 more! The large flock zoomed down the adjacent cliff, coming our way fast, then fluttering right past our heads. The large black finches highlighted with pink landed on the rust-colored boulders to feed on sunflower seeds put out to help out these hardy little passerines. About a 3rd of the flock came extremely close, a few birds were within a couple feet of me! The brown individual is the much rarer-in-Arizona GRAY-CROWNED ROSY-FINCH. I've seen GCRF in Alaska before- it's one of the coolest birds I've ever encountered. The 1st time I ever saw them was July 4th 2016 in Hatcher Pass in the alpine tundra. The ones there belonged to the same subspecies as the ones of today: tephrocotis. I saw the pacific ssp. while hiking Crow Pass on the Kenai Peninsula. Littoralis is different in that it is darker with silver auriculars (cheeks). There were 2 within this flock. For a few minutes they were paired up. Look at those lil' rosy-finch foot-prints! ...And wing prints. The finches took flight after about 10 minutes. Scattering back up the cliff. We decided to go in the car to warm up. "I think we should wait for them to come back," Tommy proposed. I agreed, I was ready for more. After a while they did what Tommy and us anticipated, returning full speed, seemingly threatening to crash into us. Again they were right below us. "Look behind you Jeff," said Tommy. There was one BLACK ROSY-FINCH inches away from him! "That's almost too close." This one wants to kill me. Black Rosy-Finch is one of 3 North American Leucosticte. The other 2 are Gray-crowned & Brown-capped. They are a potentially threatened, little studied species living in the highlands across the Rocky Mountains. It breeds from southern Montana to northern Colorado west to NE Utah & SW Oregon. It winters in Colorado, Nevada, Utah, northern New Mexico and sometimes northernmost Arizona. It associates with the other 2 rosy-finches at Sandia Crest in northern New Mexico, where you view them from a large window. That is part of what makes our experience special: Most birders go to Sandia Peak for their lifer Leucostictes, viewing them from the warming comfort of a facility, and getting all 3 at once. However, we were basically standing on them, also feeling the brisk, fresh cold vastness while standing in the boot-soaking snow. It reminded me of the Hoary Redpolls from a couple years ago (wow it's been 2 years already!). BLRF's nesting habitat is very inaccessible, so a nest wasn't found until 2002. According to Wikipedia they're endangered, but I doubt that considering we haven't found the entire population. Additionally a lot of their distribution is within national parks & national forests/state parks. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch- GCRF- has a much more extensive range with a total of 7 subspecies: 3 in the pacific group, 4 in the taiga/interior group. The Pribolif Is. and Aleutian Is. ssps have the most limited distribution, and are larger than other populations. Not seen in Arizona since 2013, before then 1967. We were all glad we waited- it was so worth it. We ended up getting better pictures than the first round, which was fantastic by itself. But the second round truly completed this epic experience, and was such an excellent way to start off the year! Our next stop were the Vermillion Cliffs (They're in the first scenic pics) for another very special bird, one of the rarest in the world. The California Condor. The Navajo Bridge is a famous location to view these phenomenal, colossal vultures in Arizona/US. It didn't take long at all to see one. My camera died while I was viewing my rosy-finch pics, so Tommy let me use his. Thanks dude! And, there you have it: ladies & gents, CALIFORNIA CONDOR! The largest flying bird in the world, 55 inches long, 10 ft. wingspan, weighs up to 30 pounds, and there's only >500 of these beasts in the wild. This bird looks so prehistoric too, like what I imagine Argentavis Magnificens looking like. If you've never heard of A. Magnificens- Also know as the Teratorn Vulture- here's what it is: It had a wingspan of over 26 ft., a height of almost 7 ft., weighed about 160 pounds. This was all estimated from a humerus, which may be accurate, but it could've been slightly larger or smaller. Given the estimated weight though the wingspan would've been bigger. Think about it: It weighs 6 times as much as a condor and yet its wingspan is only doubled. It would make more sense if it were tripled. Anyways, back to CACO: There are 2 main populations: One in southern Utah & one around Grand Canyon/Colorado Plateau. There are 2 smaller ones: One local in northern Baja, & one in central California. This huge vulture became countable in 2003. Its original distribution was southern Oregon across coast ranges plus rocky mountains, down to Baja. It was almost wiped out by lead poisoning from lead bullets in carcasses it fed on. During the Ice Age (Pliocene) it foraged on huge mammals such as mammoths. This bird has represented conservation since its population successfully grew. Because of its popularity as a rare bird, many birders have it on their to-do lists. Hopefully 1 day this bird will be soaring across the Rocky Mountains once again (and the coast ranges). What an impressive vulture: the true Bald Eagle. This is one of my favorite birds, it is one of the most beautiful vultures, and it has been a long-time dream of mine to see one. You know what though: We hadn't seen one in flight. Oh and there was a second individual, a juvenile. There was a RUFOUS-CROWNED SPARROW foraging in a flat mossy section below the bridge on the cliff. We found an adult pair gliding over the steep cliffs as we were driving, we stopped for the one above.
It's crazy that a Golden Eagle could take this bird down! I don't think any bird is more over-powered than a Golden Eagle. They're extremely smart, strategic, and very strong. Our last main birding stop was Lee's Ferry in Glen Canyon NRA. Here we had many divers & dabblers such as: Redheads, Ring-necked Ducks, Buffleheads, Common Goldeneyes, Lesser Scaups, Gadwalls, and lots of coots, as usual. Later we went down Lake Mary Rd. to look for Rough-legged Hawks, without finding any good birds. Caleb saw a Ferruginous and then ran to the car from the frosty cold. Even the Boy couldn't handle it... Well that ends this post, which consists of a very memorable and phenomenal adventure that was such a great way to start the year. Thanks to Tommy D and Caleb for making this trip happen, and thanks Jeff for coming along as additional company and for sharing your humor. God bless, happy 2019 and I am out! #likecommentshareplz.
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December 2019
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