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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Well, September 9th has passed, which means I've lived in Arizona for an entire year now. I know I just released a post involving the same route and locations, but here I am again, blogging about it a second time! This time was very different... This post does not start off in Dateland, however, it starts with me catching and photo-shooting this lifer GREEN FIG BEETLE: I was so excited to finally find one of these, and you can see why. These species is brilliant, but to think that there are even more beautiful scarabs in southeast Arizona is amazing. This big beetle has expanded its range a lot since southern America became developed. Now they're after citrus and apples instead of just figs. They used to be primarily Mexican and South American. Saturday evening Caleb and my brother came over for dinner and a herping (reptile search) expedition along a road that goes from Maricopa to Gila Bend. We didn't end up with any reptiles, but Caleb spotted a toad jumping on the road. We turned around, saw it again, and I jumped out to catch it. The COLORADO RIVER TOAD jumped out of my hands about 20 times prior to these photos. Just like the fig beetle, I was excited to see and catch my very first toad. In Alaska our dominate amphibian is Wood Frog, which I've caught plenty of times. Once I kept them as pets for months. I had 11 by the time I had to release them, because we were going to Arizona. Despite toads being poisonous, I leaped like a frog to catch this awesome species. Besides, my mouth would have to come into contact with the toxin for it to work. Also people, that is, the toad-discriminators ( also known as the majority), think that these creatures are disgusting. They are covered in bumps and are often underground or in the mud. Well, they don't feel like anything you'd expect, it was surprising to me. They are rough and dry, but smooth in between the bumps. In fact, I would say they're reminiscent of a Leopard Gecko. I have one of those by the way, she's been with me 5 years, she deserves a post on this blog. Well anyways, toads are interesting to hold. So one more thing, this Colorado River Toad was 3 1/2 inches, I thought that was big. I already knew that they get to 7-8 inches. We hoped to have a diversity of reptiles and amphibians on this night trip, but that was our solo herp for the day, sadly. But hope was soon to come in the form of Dateland! About 15 minutes into birding, Caleb & spotted something epic at the same time. We were scanning the tams on the west side of the RV park, when we thought a Willow Flycatcher was in one. Caleb gave it a closer look, finding out it was a Black Phoebe. In the same tree was a cute Empidonax right in front of the phoebe. I was looking at that and Caleb said, "Uh, you should get photos of that." The way Caleb said it I could tell it was really rare. "It's an eastern Empid." Word of advice: Get photos of rarities and vagrants if you want a good reputation in birding. Excellent views don't automatically mean they'll take your word for it. Believe me, I know this. My AK ebird reviewer, and friend, Bob Winkler, was generous in that he accepted all but 3 rarities of mine: South Polar Skua, Bar-tailed Godwit, and Yellow-bellied Flycatcher. The reason that that's generous is for one, I have no vagrant pix from Alaska. Secondly, SPSK & YBFL are 1st county records. BTGO isn't much more regular at 1 prior county record. I may not seem like a very good birder because it sounds like my comments weren't convincing enough for these reviewers to accept them. YBFL: Originally thought it was on the Denali hwy, but I discovered the precise location of the overlook I found this bird, a vista of Denali. Plumage details: Black wings, white wash on secondaries, crisp white wing-bars, olive back and head, yellow-green underneath, bold eye-ring. Short-tailed, a small flycatcher. I got fantastic views as it perched within 6 feet of me! Insane to see this bird so far west, but breeding habitat was plentiful where I found the Empid. LIFER! SPSK: Observed from gas station being mobbed by 3 gulls. Smaller than the Herring Gulls but broad black wings with very conspicuous white patches between greater and lesser coverts. Short black tail with no elongated central tail feathers, heavy hooked bill, gray face, underparts and mantle. I really wish I had a photo, but I didn't want to run to and back from the car to get the camera because by that time I probably couldn't relocate the skua again, so I decided to observe the bird for as long as possible and look for all the field marks that would point me to South Polar Skua as the ID. Fortunately I was able to find all the field marks. LIFER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BTGO: Unfortunately I didn't have a camera with me but here is the best description I can give; large, approximately 16 inch dowitcher-like sandpiper (larger than the 2 dowitchers). Long black bill slightly upturned, bright cinnamon-rufous flanks, breast and underside. Had typical dots and fleck markings of other godwits on back and wings, the bird was, without a doubt, a Bar-tailed Godwit. Had 2 dowitchers standing right next to it for comparasion, Godwit was a very bright cinnamon- much more colorful than dowitchers. These are the original ebird comments. Even now, despite thinking I had to say a Bar-tailed Godwit was cinnamon twice, there's nothing wrong with these descriptions. They're plenty good for these vagrants to be accepted. Well anyways, speaking of Yellow-bellied Flycatchers: That's what it is! Prior to ours there a have only been 4 in Arizona, including one from Dateland years ago! Even more awesome is that it is a lifer for Caleb. As you guys know, this is only my second time seeing this species. Funny that both places it did't belong in. Of course, where I found my first, I'm 100% sure they breed & nest there. The Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is distributed across the entire Taiga Belt ecoregion from east-central Alaska to Nova Scotia in wet boreal spruce bogs. They stay on breeding grounds for the least amount of time of American migrants, only 70 days or even less. This species is my favorite of the Empids, easier to identify because of bright colors. It has a yellowish wash on the lower belly, yellowish throat, olive back, breast, & head, , bold white eyering, and adults have black wings with broad white wingbars. Their secondaries & tertials are well-defined with white. Overall brighter, more contrasting plumage compared to other Emps. After I took these photos, our buddy realized we were interested in him. So he became uncooperative, jumping and flying all over the place. We continued to follow him for a while to get a YBFL vocalization. Unfortunately we didn't, but that's alright. Apparently that YBFL specifically is this female Western Tanager's favorite artist. She was excited to meet him. In the palms a CEDAR WAXWING was calling distinctly, making it a heard only lifer for me. This winter I should without a doubt get visuals. That was our monthly dose of Dateland. This GREATER WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE looked out of place in a desert puddle at the Aztec sludge ponds. Here is a continuing PECTORAL SANDPIPER. This Calidris has an interesting courtship ritual: It inflates its throat sack, fluffs the breast to reveal black under-feathers, fans its tail and wings, and lets out rapid deep whistles Crappy PESA pictures aside, here's some egrets in a pond near Paloma Ranch. Your all dying to know what the big gray one is... Immidiately upon arriving at Paloma Ranch I saw this lifer 1st year REDDISH EGRET! Paloma seems to be good at producing rare brown birds as of late. This Reddish Egret was found by Caleb Strand a week prior on Sept. 3rd. While juveniles look like... that, the adults are one of the best looking herons, competing with Tricolored. It is larger and thicker-necked than its closest Egretta cousin, Snowy Egret. Adults have a conspicuous bicolored bill, the first half pink, the rest black. Additionally, their name sake comes from the long, rusty, spiky plumes on the neck, head, and breast. The rest of the plumage is dark sooty gray. In peak breeding plumage, the facial skin & legs are brilliant blue. Additionally it has long fluffy feathers on the back and 2 long laces that are elongated tail rectrices. This large egret also has a stunning white morph found along the gulf coast. I briefly got to observe its unique foraging behavior, jumping sporadically while flapping wings. Its distributed along across the coast of Baja, Mexico, the Gulf, and the Caribbean. They wander inland typically in late summer through fall water gets too high on the coast. Individuals in Arizona come from Baja. This heron intimidates me. Let's not forget OSPREY!! Next up were some nearby ag fields that had a flock of 100s of LONG-BILLED CURLEWS! This is one of my favorite shorebirds, it just looks plain funky. With Far Eastern Curlew, it is the largest of the American sandpipers at 23 inches. I was so happy to finally be able to observe them, as you know in the last post it was a simple flyby. Caleb counted all of them without finding any Whimbrels. I also got to see another favorite of mine, MARBLED GODWIT, my 3rd lifer for the day already! This is the largest of the godwits (Limosa), its bill is also proportionally the longest. This godwit associates with Long-billed Curlew and looks very similar, drastically different than the other godwits. I'm thinking the reason for curlew-like plumage is so they mistake MAGO for their own species, thus avoiding competition. This godwit primarily is found in the northern Great Plains during summer, sharing nesting grounds with LBCU (the latter is also in the interior west). There are tiny populations on the Alaska peninsula & James Bay (Ontario) as well. Alaskan MAGOs have stouter wings and are heavier. We actually had 2 MAGOs in the flock of 382 LBCUs. At one point the closer individual took flight and delivered its characteristic nasal calls. The LBCUs were noisy as well. After enjoying the curlews and godwits, with hit the pelican pond at Paloma Ranch to look for the Red Knot Caleb found a week ago. Above is a photo is a DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT with Neotropic Cormorant. By now you should know which is which. #speakingof, the cormorants on the water in my side-by-side pic in the previous post are both NECO, according to Caleb. Lesson learned, NECO shows drastic variation. Reminds me of another bird, that I don't like... There is a WILLET in this flock. The question is: Can you find it? Here's 2 Greater Yellowlegs with a Willet. Note how the Willet's legs are blue-green. Also note the thicker-based bill. A Killet and a Willdeer... In these 2 photos you can really see how large Willet is. A Killdeer is about 12 inches long, yet this Willet towers over one. Here you can see better that it has webbing on its feet. Yellowlegs have so little webbing its not noticeable unless your really close. By the way this is a different Willet. Again, check out those awesome blue feet! Imagine if that Willet kicked the Killdeer hard in the face... I'd probably die of laughter. I must admit though, the Killdeer is a pretty good-looking shorebird. That doesn't mean we're friends. Inornata is the subspecies we have here in Arizona, Western Willet. Hopefully it will be split from Atlantic Willet in the near future. There is no range overlap, plumage and calls are different. After that we stopped to look for more shorebirds at the Gila Bend sewage ponds. Here our highlights were: A flock of 86 WILSON'S PHALAROPES, a Cinnamomea SOLITARY SANDPIPER, STILT SANDPIPERS, SPOTTED SANDPIPERS, and a cute little PIED-BILLED GREBE. I didn't see the need to take pictures, we would be going to a couple more ponds where the same birds would be closer. And speaking of which, these guys were at the Old US 80 ponds. Can you identify them? Stilt Sandpipers. Semipalmated Plover. When will Arizona get Common-ringed? The majority of them are BAIRD'S SANDPIPERS, Caleb counted 58! They are the larger scaly-backed ones. This Least Sandpiper doesn't know what to do as he's surrounded by the Big Baird Bunch. They are an infamous gang of shorebirds. This is the awesome WHITE-BEARDED ROBBER-FLY. It was on the wind-shield wiper of Caleb's van. These huge flies are over 1 inch long, they use that needle-like projection to stab smaller flies and liquify the insides. Despite looking intimidating, these flies are some of the cleanest. They kill disease-carrying species, while not carrying diseases themselves. Instead of laying eggs on rotting flesh, they lay them on wet leaves. Our last good bird of the day was this Pectoral Sandpiper at another pond. Our last birding location was the Lower River Road ponds, where we didn't pick up anything really cool. Those same ponds have had Royal Tern and Black Skimmers a couple years ago. To bad they weren't that awesome this time around.
This trip was epic, we ended with 18 shorebird species, one less than last time, but the lifers plus a freaking Yellow-bellied Flycatcher in Arizona were epic! Of my 3 lifers, I liked Reddish Egret best, knowing how beautiful it will look when it grows up. Yellow-bellied Flycatcher is hands down our best bird altogether today. One last thing, as I mentioned at the beginning I mentioned that it has been a year since I moved here. I've come a very long way since then, now with 267 birds seen in Arizona, with 198 of them being lifers. I would certainly say this adventure was a proper celebration of 365 days of birding in Arizona! Stay tuned for another post coming soon... It will be EPIC!
2 Comments
Lisa
9/16/2018 02:56:34 pm
Great job Son. Love to see your passion come through every post. Keep up the good work.
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