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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Yesterday had quite a turn of events, my main man Caleb called me last minute to go look for a Prairie Warbler at Saguaro Lake. It was found the day before, but is a returning male from last year. It basically looks like a Grace's Warbler messed up on painting a house yellow. It is also very rare in Arizona, I believe 10 or less records, not entirely sure. It is normally found in the east. We left at 2:30 P.M. and arrived about an hour later due to heavy traffic. Saguaro Lake is a fairly large reservoir situated in northeast Maricopa, holding lush desert habitat. Some excellent open water birds have showed up in the past such as; Black & White-winged Scoter, Pacific Loon, Black-legged Kittiwake, and Brown Pelican. As we searched for this small fluffer, we ran into Jim Ripley. He showed us some gorgeous photos of it. As for what it looks like: There is a lot of Palos, Saguaro Cacti, and Mesquites and tons of grass representing multiple species. There are steep, red-tinged cliffs that dramatically loom over the lake, which provided an epic birding back-drop. It's always a bonus when the locality you're birding at looks amazing. We looked along the sonoran desert outcroppings adjacent to the parking lot, pishing to get the plush toy out in the open. No PRWA yet, but a Myrtle Warbler made an appearance. It should be split from Audubon's anytime now, as it is different vocally and visually. Range is different for the most part, with a few overlap zones Note that the white on throat wraps around to the sides of the neck, on AUWA this area is smaller plus buffier, with yellow in the center (this is in terms on basic plumage individuals, AUWA's throat is all yellow in summer, MYWA's is brighter white than winter). Also you can see a white line above the eye, on AUWA the white doesn't go behind the eye, giving the appearance of a small arc. Caleb then thought he heard the PRWA. We got closer to where the sound came from, and it called again, this time I heard it too. It was uphill a little bit so I had to climb a steep slope that was quite getto. When I was up, I could see it hopping around, mostly low in the tree and into underbrush. This is my second pic, which clearly shows how gorgeous this bird is. I had seen many pictures of it before hand, like every other warbler, so it was nice to experience it. It was similar to the Northern Parula in that it wouldn't stay still, but opposite in that it stayed low rather than straight up. Also, the Parula was too close most of the time, but this PRWA liked to keep his distance. In fact, from here, he kept heading uphill. I was patient with it though, because it was cute, and because we had plenty of time, as we were waiting for traffic to die down. I don't really think I need to mention that this warbler is stunning again, I mean... pictures are worth a thousand words. So I'll let those 1000 silent words speak for themselves. The PRWA then decided he was too good for us, or perhaps too cute. Anyways, he didn't want to be associated with us, so we found a boulder and Caleb set up the scope. After a few minutes he spotted a RED-NECKED GREBE, a continuing individual likely, and very rare in Arizona. It's a bird I am very familiar with as they were very, very abundant in Alaska. Ever since the first time I heard that... sound... if that's what you want to call it, they kept showing up. I saw them almost every day since then. My firs one was at Walby Lake (same place I had my first Barrow's Goldeneye, Bufflehead, and Sanderlings). My brother found a dead Boreal Owl there, which saddened me. It was only 2 minutes away from my house driving distance! Anyways, that's just too sad. Caleb impressed yet again by finding 2 female Greater Scaup, rare in the eastern half of the state. They are local along the Colorado River, but with largest concentration at Lake Havasu. They can be distinguished from Lesser by: (rounder head, more white in front of eyes (on average), and possibly darker crown. The nail on bill of GRSC is wider. In males the round vs peaked crown remains, but additionally GRSC has almost pure white flanks whereas LESC has a lot of vermiculations (zig-zag marks) The verms on he back of GRSC are finer too. There's your bird ID lesson of the day. While Caleb continued scanning, I took the opportunity to grab scenic shots. I plan on making a Arizona scenery collection on here or Facebook, but I still need substantially more locations to complete it, and I want to give some of the places a chance to become old. This blog is still relatively new, so I imagine most of these scenic shots are still fresh in your head. Recently I have taken up interest in microphotography, I had a feeling I would eventually, but now I finally did it. Gotta love moss and lichen! After that I headed down slope to look for the PRWA, and ended up hearing the voice of none other than, Barb Meding! She had come to see the lost birb as well. Eventually Caleb came down from his scoping haunts. It took us a while but we refound it when I spotted its brightness in an ironwood tree after it flew in. "That's him!" I proclaimed. I was excited because I knew Barb wanted o see this bird for the day, as it was her good way of killing time (she was also waiting for traffic to thin out before heading home). After a few minutes, the birb flew behind the dumpster. This is where I got closest to the bird. I actually didn't realize I was that close until Caleb let me know. That's probably why it was fine with me, because I couldn't see him at first. This warbler- like many- originates in the east, but has a tendency to go off course. The fact that young birds are more prone to this makes this individual interesting: It is likely he's returned since he was an immature. That's probably the case with the rest of the adult warblers. On top of that, most of these warblers aren't one-day-wonders, which says that they discovered preference for their respective locations after the original "crash landing". After a little bit of enjoying the bird as he looked for prey in the midst of crispy leaf litter, he flew into a mature ironwood. I followed him, as I felt like this was the time I would get a winning shot. I did. The preferred habitat of this little ball of feathers is forest edges & clearings, open woodland, and pine-oak savannah. On a side note, I must say that this may be one of my favorite warblers, which is pretty easy to say for most other species, but I mean it. I like its little chestnut saddle. I believe its closest relative is Grace's, another lovable Setophaga. After the PRWA, some more excitement happened. Caleb was ebirding, I was enjoying the view, when out of nowhere, a sound I thought I'd never, ever hear in Arizona, echoed across the water. I saw Caleb perk up at the unfamiliar sound, but due to my familiarity with it, I said: "That was a Red-necked Grebe." Caleb knows a lot of bird vocalizations, but this was a surprising sound to hear on a desert lake north of Phoenix. This was apparently the first time a RNGR has been heard in the state, if not then the first time noted. The crazy thing was, a second one responded! It started far away, but eventually both came in sight, We took photos, but they're a bit choppy for display on this blog, but I'll give a link to the ebird checklist which has Caleb's digiscopes. GRSC are also on there. One of the grebes was closer to alternate (breeding) plumage, while the other was still gray necked. This bird is quite beautiful: the neck is rufous, cheeks white, crown black, bill black & yellow; body gray above, white below. As for the sound: Caleb described it as a chihuahua getting crushed, I'd describe it as a constipated loon. In other words, it's an absolutely gorgeous sound to hear. It was likely they were an established pair joining up for the evening from foraging to retreat to shore, and go to sleep. Grebes are monogamous, and the way they behaved suggested they were already together. It was especially climatic when they fanned their crests in excitement. The more colorful of the 2 even raised upright and flapped his/her wings. Anyways, it was an amazing end to an amazing evening. The fantastic sunset helped raise the level of epicness. According to spellcheck "epicness" isn't a word, probably because it lacks epicness. Caleb has a high level of epicness. Birding involves lot's of epicness. This state is the definition of epicness. riparian means epicness in Spanish. Look at all those beautiful red squiggly lines! RNGR pair; just thought I'd throw one in there. Thanks Caleb! See you guys next time. Remember to #likecommentshare!
ebird.org/view/checklist/S53586354
1 Comment
Mary McSparen
3/11/2019 08:32:01 am
Nice write up!
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