As Precious As The Desert Rain

Redhead

A rain event in the desert is quite the celebration.  But it also signifies something else.  The storms from the north will also bring in foreign birds:)  On this rainy day,  I would head off to find rare and unusual birds.  And find them I did.

Solitary Sandpiper

It was pretty exciting.  Cloudy skies.  Cold weather.  Rain.  Hungry birds.  Epic day birding.  Hundreds of Northern Shovelers would fly over my head as I counted birds.

Northern Shovelers

I'm really not sure who these birds are below.  I think they are Red Tail Hawks but the lighting isn't very good here but I have been seeing Golden Eagles in the area.......and one of the things I would love to see is how they free fall together.  As you can see in the pic, their feet are down which made me wonder....but nothing happened.

Some interesting moves

Black Phoebes are cool little birds.  I love how they hop from one rock to the next catching bugs.

Black Phoebe in flight

But my special finds would happen at Kennedy Park.  I knew that there was a rare Canada Goose in the area but I didn't expect to  find this lifebird....the Redhead. There were at least 22.

When a lifebird is present, you work hard to get excellent photos.  Why?  Because once I've documented them, I can just enjoy observing them.

Western Grebes

There were 4 Grebes on this day.  But a failure on my part?  I missed the extremely rare Horned Grebe in Pima County.  I had assumed all 4 were Western Grebes.  To be fair 3 of them had their heads tucked into their bodies.  A report followed the next day stating a Horned Grebe was in the mix.  I am still going to try for this bird again tomorrow.  We'll see if this bird is still hanging around....again, another easy rare bird search.

Canada Goose

While the Canadian Geese or Western Grebes are not new to the lifelist, they are welcome additions to my birds found in Pima County. Very special finds.

Mallard Duck

It began to rain and get dark.  A sign that it was time to go home and stay warm.  More tomorrow.....