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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Jared Conaway finds it and puts it on his Life List! Hello everyone, hope y'all had a Merry Christmas and please do have a Happy New Year! 2018 is coming and with it comes birds flocking to my Life List, it will be a year of adventure! Anyways, before I get caught up with the future we must rewind the day a little bit, so I can share an amazing story about this afternoon's happenings! For a few days now, ever since a few days before Christmas, I have been paying my attention to a ....'. ..... So the Hang-Man session begins! Anyways, today was my special day, the reason this bird was important: Because it was the only individual of his species to be reported at the GRPs! There'd been reports at the Lower River Ponds and elsewhere, but now, for a week, there was one that was somewhere familiar, somewhere closer! As usual, stepped out of the car to breath in the glory of the recharge ponds, but this time, decked out and dressed like a birder with my Hassayampa River Preserve ball cap that I received for Christmas! Sowed into it, the Vermillion Flycatcher. Come on little fireball, you show up on my hat and on Lewis Hoinger's camera but not in front of me?! As soon as we're out, a PRAIRIE FALCON soared alongside 8 AMERICAN WHITE PELICANS! Boom! AZ lifer, the Prairie Falcon (one of my favorite birds, you know)! The Pelicans drifting overhead so far inland surprised my brother, Brian. See he's not really a birder, so he's really only familiar with the harbor scrounging, fisherman-scraps-scavenging, oversized duck with big pouch-beak, home at 42 Wallaby Way Sydney scooping up Marlin and Dory and chased by gulls that say: "MINE! MINE! MINE!" Anyways, I turned my attention to the ponds and there's 300 NORTHERN SHOVELERS? Record number for me so far! Geez Shovelers, you all just moved from Alaska or what? Then, I found a few EARED GREBES, 100 Coots, and some BUFFLEHEADS within the large flock. No geese so far. GREEN-WINGED TEAL, NORTHERN PINTAILS, GADWALLS, and about 11 DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANTS that flew overhead many times, plus many NEOTROPIC CORMORANTS. In basin 5, another American White Pelican stood out of the crowd of Coots, Gadwalls, BLUE-WINGED TEAL, Green-winged Teal, and RUDDY DUCKS that swam around on the surface. Still no geese in this pond, either. But as we got to about midway across the first side of the basin, I peered over to see what was in pond 6. There it was, a gleaming white beacon, in the middle of pond 6. I raised my binoculars, to confirm what I was seeing, to make sure it was the bird, and not something else such as a gull. In fact, it was as magnificent as I had imagined it would. I was looking at a ROSS'S GOOSE, the bird I had come for!!!!!! I quickly lowered them and said to Mom, OK, there's a Ross's Goose over there in the pond, just what we came for, come on lets go!" I was surging with excitement, YES, I told myself. A bit closer, and I raised my binos again, I saw multiple CANADA GEESE around him, they couldn't seem to block him out, though, he shined like a beacon! Originally, I was after a flock of Canada Geese because everyone who'd reported him had said in the comments that he was always foraging and swimming with the Canada Geese. To my delight, I located that Ross's so fast I forgot he was supposed to be in the midst of a flock of Canadas! Everyone was in fact right, stubby pink bill-CHECK, round small head- CHECK, no grin patch- CHECK, petite goose- CHECK! Ross's Geese and Snow Geese are known to frequently hybridize where ranges overlap in northern Canada, so I checked off field marks aloud to be sure he was a pure Ross's Goose- and that he was! Once we had walked basin 6 a little, I snapped a few pics for ebird and my blog, zooming in all the way. Nonethelesss, semi-distant bird, photos will be seriously cropped. Reported recently was a Cackling Goose, a rarity for the Recharge Ponds, and uncommon in this state in general. I very likely did see him, the photo of Canada's includes a RICHARDSON'S CACKLING GOOSE in the far right of the photo. did see him, but maybe not definitely. A highlight within the same pond where 2 CALIFORNIA GULLS, more had been previously reported , and they are rare this time of year. There were also a couple of RING-BILLED GULLS. I said hi to a nearby birder and told him about my California Gull sighting and first-ever Ross's Goose, he told me he'd seen quite a few in California's Central Valley, a huge wintering ground where they are known to form large pure flocks, one the few places they do so. Elsewhere they are heavily outnumbered by the Snow Goose. When we moved on, I found an American Kestrel female perched on a telephone wire. That brought up a new goal: See 3 falcons species in one day. After all, I'd already seen the previously reported Prairie Falcon earlier, now the Kestrel, so all I needed was the Peregrine that was typically here. A NORTHERN HARRIER also flew across the goose pond. In ponds 2 & 1, the empty ponds, a kettle of 14 TURKEY VULTURES sat on the ground foraging and being vultures. Isolated away from them, the Prairie Falcon was standing on the ground, looking like a fantastic bird! As we walked further, I saw that the Vultures started soaring, and within the kettle, a COMMON RAVEN was drifting in the air. As I thought about the Belted Kingfisher, one decided to fly past me, going slow enough for me to look at her through my binos. Other birds we saw were; AMERICAN WIGEON, Mallards, RING-NECKED DUCKS, LESSER SCAUP, COMMON GOLDENEYE, Great Blue Herons, SNOWY EGRET, RED-TAILED HAWK, BLACK-NECKED STILTS, AMERICAN AVOCETS, Killdeers, Least Sandpipers, LONG-BILLED DOWITCHERS, GREATER YELLOWLEGS, a HERRING GULL, Eurasian Collared Dove, Mourning Doves, Black Phoebes, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, Curve-billed Thrasher, European Starlings, American Pipits, Adubon's Warbler, Great-tailed Grackles, White-crowned Sparrows, and House Finches. Once we reached the car, I decided to talk to a birder, who after the conversation introduced herself as Nancy Miller. As we talked and birded I found; SONG SPARROWS, LINCOLNS SPARROWS, House Sparrows, a GREATER ROADRUNNER, and heard a SORA right below us. (Some birds like Song and Lincolns Sparrows and Roadrunner I found before I met up with her. What an awesome birding adventure, I hit a Ross's Goose for the miss of the Brant Goose before! See pics below. Ring-necked Duck Greater Roadrunner "MEEP-MEEP!" The Grand Finale... The ROSS'S GOOSE! Canada Geese pair in foreground, Ross's in backround. Goose farthest right may be the Cackling, note stubby bill and very short neck What an awesome day of birding, apparently I hit my record high of TTBs at 54 species total, a few of which were AZ lifers! So glad I had a Ross's Goose to top it all off (everyone reported 2, but only gave comments for one). Just so you know Jamin is doing very well, I've already pet him and he gets excited when he sees me, following me to which ever side of the tank I'm at. He no longer hides from me or anyone really, and I know in my previous post I said it would take him a few months before he started begging for food and become my companion, but he already has! It's unbelievable, he's a totally different fish from when I first took him home from the fish store! WOW, that happened REALLY FAST! Also, I had a Merry Christmas and I hope you guys did too, I received a Sky Viper stunt drone and an R/C Car! Happy 2018, happy birding, I'm Jared Conaway, and stay tuned for my next post!
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December 2019
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