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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Hey everyone! Like the new blog cover photo? I really think the color scheme of this new cover goes better with my blog page, plus, I'm a Costa's Hummingbird kind of guy, I've made that clear. Nothing against the Anna's, but for 1, this pose is EPIC!! For 2, the Costa's Hummingbird is now one of my favorite North American Birds. For 3, That violet gorget is incredible, and looks cooler than the Anna's red throat. 4, this bird has a blue-sky background, and is perched on a branch, its natural habitat, whereas the Anna's has that ugly yellowish background, and is perched on a feeder. On that note, let's get on with today's adventure! I'm sure there's birders my age reading this right now, birder's who go to school every day, and have to save their birding endeavors for the weekend. It's OK, that was me until 10th grade (my current school grade), I can't go birding every week, but sometimes I'm out birding when every body else is studying math. I remember, Mom and I would go to the GRPs 2 or 3 days every week when we first moved. That's over now. Today did not have the typical Monday feel, and for the better. For a while now, a PYRRHULOXIA, WESTERN SCHREECH-OWL, and some WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS have been consistently reported at the Desert botanical Garden (DBG). Today was my day to go after all 3 of those! We arrived at about 10:00, maybe after, and we (Dad and I) spotted a few CACTUS WRENS, AZ's state bird. My lifer view of one was just its silhouette, at the very close-to-DBG Phoenix Zoo. Although I couldn't get an ideal photo at first because the bird was a mover, I got many fantastic pix shortly after some patience. Curve-billed Thrashers were abundant around the gardens, and Verdins were a particularly common species. We weren't here to see typical Sonoran Des' birds, I needed some Lifers, after all, this was my chance for a shot at 300! At first, nobody could point me to any of my 3 targets (non-birders, am I right). Then, we were saved in the form of 2 female birders talking about flickers, it sounded like the one was telling the other one how to tell a Gilded from Northern. I asked one about (I wish I had her name) the Pyrrhuloxia, and she said they were actually heading towards its hang-out spot. Apparently, and I didn't know this before, DGB has Monday-morning bird walks, and in the afternoon the birders meet up at the Terrace to fellowship and compare lists. We were headed towards the terrace. Birder's were filling all 25 or so tables, and those who weren't, were birding the surrounding Sonoran Desert. Hardly any birds were around, aside from a family of tame quail and House Sparrows. The birder said that around lunchtime, many birds emerged to forage for scraps. We weren't seeing any of my targets, so we moved on to explore the gardens, and would return later to see if activity would pick up. The birder also pointed us to many COSTA'S HUMMINGBIRDS, all females. Interestingly, I've never even seen a female Costa's until this trip! We eventually crossed paths with the same birder-lady, and she asked if we'd seen the Rufous Hummingbird yet. I said no, so she had us follow her over to a bush, where I immediately spotted the continuing young male RUFOUS HUMMINGBIRD! Not a lifer, but an amazing migratory bird I'd seen at the Anchorage Wildlife Preserve in 2014, a lifer then. I also took a crappy photo of a hummingbird at my feeder September of last year that could have been that or Broad-tailed. They migrate through the county every year, and are reported often, but yet still flagged as rare here. After a few less-than-perfect photos, she disappeared. After a bit a exploring, I suggested we check back on the Terrace. We kept going the wrong direction of it, since the DGB can be confusing to navigate, and we didn't know the exact location of the Terrace. We found it on the map, all the way at the other end of the garden. Once we finally re-discovered the place, it was void of any birders, and a few people were sitting down eating lunch. The Terrace was teaming with birds and bird activity. The Gambel's Quails from early were wanting food, and hung around the tables and right behind the stone border that separates the patio from the desert. Abert's towhees were hopping around on the ground, multiple Cactus Wrens were foraging, flying, and singing in the area. While I was eating my mozarella meatball sandwich, I spotted 2 instantly recognizable birds flying with supreme agility in the sky surrounding the adjacent butte. "WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS!," I exclaimed to Dad. I was awestruck by their magnificent flight pattern, and was very excited that I had finally seen a Swift! Even though I'd never seen one until today, the moment I saw those birds, I knew they were swifts, they are too recognizable to misidentify ( Swifts are often confused with Swallows, but only Swifts were reported at the gardens, and there are many characteristics that set them apart from Swallows). After lunch, I spotted a GREATER ROADRUNNER that was in a little open patch right next to the patio, surrounded by shrubs. I got incredibly close, and I always had observed very skittish Roadrunners, I never thought of them as tame. This one completely dis-proved that , because it even walked up to me, and looked at me in a way as if to say, "hey bro, give me some food or I'll stab you with this giant beak of mine, then we'll figure out just how sharp it is." The Greater Roadrunner looks menacingly like a velociraptor, with those intimidating eyes, raptor physique, and that long, razor-sharp bill. We looked all around the patio and surrounding desert, only to see much more of what we'd seen already. I told Dad that we have to wait, and watch for my 2nd target bird, because the birds were emerging from the desert to feed at the patio, just like the birder said they would. The Roadrunner came out to forge, like she said it would. The Thrashers, Cactus Wrens, and Quail were becoming very active just as she had said they would as well. Now if the Desert cardinal could just show himself... I kept looking around the desert to spot a red and gray crested bird with a oddly shaped yellow bill. Then, I just happened to turn around, and I completely froze and felt an odd felling as I saw the PYRRHULOXIA apPYRR right in front of me about 6 ft. away, on a chair of all places, with bread stuffed in its mouth! I spotted it immediately because it was a completely different bird from the familiar Thrashers, Mourning Dove, and House Sparrows surrounding the chair. Yes, the only reason I spotted the Pyrr-Cardinal was because I spotted the not-so-spectacular birds that I had expected to see when I turned around to look at that table. The Pyrr (Pyrrhuloxia as in peer-hue-lox-E-uh) flew back and forth from the table to the desert, and I got great photographs of it in both areas, in fact I photographed him as soon as I saw him on the chair! After we left the Terrace, I spotted an ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER, a bird I haven't seen in Arizona in a while, hence all caps. There were many extraordinary cacti, agaves, and trees alike in the gardens, but most birds were typical non-lifer Sonoran Desert species. Eventually, returned to the Terrace one more time to get a last-look at the Pyrr. We thought he'd gone back uphill and out of sight, but then we actually found him in a desert shrub with a Thrasher. Next to a Thrasher, the Pyrr's red really stands out, adding to the beauty to the Sonoran Desert! Below are some pix of today's birds (and mammals), excluding the WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS and some others, like the flyover OSPREY and NEOTROPIC CORMORANT. This time, the birds were photographed with my camera, not the other one (I would of if I charged it last night). They are still some amazing photos considering the camera used. The tamest Greater Roadrunner I've encountered... ADORABLE Harris' Antelope Squirrel Equally adorable Round-tailed Ground-Squirrel Extremely tame Gambel's Quail The Cactus Wren... The continuing Rufous Hummingbird The chair of Pyrr?! Nobody told me about the chair of Pyrr! The continuing Pyrr in its real habitat... What an amazing adventure, despite never locating the sleeping owl! With the PYRR and WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS for today, I'm now up to 299 species! Just 1 more... And then 100 more after that! I'm all pumped up for some 2018 birding, are you? Yeah!
I'm Jared Conaway, and stay tuned for my next post!
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December 2019
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