Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Something About Mary

From Kachina Springs, Flagstaff, AZ
There are some wonderful benefits to the new Ebird IPHONE app known as Birdlog.  It's great! Let's say you want to go to an unknown place and bird. All you have to do is turn on your phone from your location and pretend to submit a report.  Highlighted red, blue or yellow tags will pop up showing you places where birders go seek new life and new civilizations.  And that's how we found Mary lake, Kachina Springs, and the Mormon Lake in Flagstaff.
I have lived in Arizona for a good portion of my life and had never known about these places. It was a fun car ride and along the way we made stops.....many of them! Our best views came from a family of Osprey fishing on Lower Mary Lake.  The weather was just perfect and made for some great birding!   
There were so many waterbirds that I had to really be careful.  I'm glad I did because I was able to get my Common Goldeneye.  The pic below shows many "ducks" to the common eye, but if you blow that pic up, you'd see it's a massive mix of Buffleheads, Mergansers, Ducks, Coots, and oh so much more.
So let's do it for fun!  Let's blow this pic up and take a look at some of these fantastic water birds! Here's a Common Goldeneye(below) that I found in Wisconsin. Once I have a good shot of the lifebird, I relax and observe the birds as they are.  At Kachina Springs, I was able to breathe in the fresh mountain air and count birds.
Buffleheads made for a great show.
Western Bluebirds surrounded the water areas.
Ruddy ducks....
Ring-necked ducks......
Canvasbacks....
Northern Shovelers....
Redheads.....
Common Mergansers....
Lesser Scaups....
and Green-teals ducks are all swimming together.  The trick is taking a closer look and never assuming that they're all one species.  Something Kathie taught me. Not Mary.

I do love ducks, but I love Osprey more.  It's hard to count ducks and other waterbirds when these gorgeous birds of prey are out in full hunting mode.
The views were enjoyable.  The walks were fantastic.  And the birds were just icing on the cake.  I think driving through the woods with my car window down was my favorite part.  It was like being back home in Wisconsin again.  Perfection for some is fishing.  Perfection for me is this.  All of it.  The birds, the plants, the new discoveries and of course......the experiences.  If you're up in the Flagstaff area, check out Kachina Springs, Mormon Lake and the Upper and Lower Mary Lake recreational areas.  All I have to say about it is, "Frank and beans!"  More to come....


20 comments:

  1. would love to see a ruddy, goldeneye and bufflehead, but really want to see a redhead in person. my favorite wooden decoy is a redhead.

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  2. Great images, you have some of them I do recognize, love them.

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  3. Great selection of beautiful birds! That goldeneye is just so classy!

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  4. Sounds like a glorious day with birds galore! With the exception of the Western Bluebird, I have seen each of these bird in our area recently. All so very pretty. A beautiful series of photographs, Chris!

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  5. Wow, awesome collection of ducks, Chris! And I love the Osprey too! I do not have the patience for fishing. Great post and pic's!

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  6. And once again you found some great birding.

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  7. Hi Kreesh, friend, i can see you are really enjoying this and congratulations for there are a lot of birds there. That close-up of the merganser is marvelous! You are radiating the happiness! Take care you and Kathy!

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  8. Such great places we used to hike when visiting friends. I envy you!
    You found such a color palette.

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  9. What a beautiful place to go birding :) Especially love the Goldeneye and Osprey shots.

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  10. It's been wonderful catching up with all your gorgeous birds Chris. I see from your last post that a few changes may have to occur this year, but I'm quite sure you will still get in a fair amount of birding, it's in your blood now right! Love the little flycatcher and common (there's nothing common about it) yellow throat, and the ducks are amazing the 'redhead' made me think of Aimee :)I can see how you would get addicted, I was soooo mad the other day, the very first time I went out without my camera and a pair of osprey were right there, swooping down into the water in front of me, I could have cried!

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  11. Your first shot looks like heaven is coming to visit the earth :)

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  12. Beautiful closeups of the birds, ducks and hawks; amazing array of colours.

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  13. Great shots today. Here long the shores of Lake Michigan a number of the same birds travel as they head north for the Summer. I see so many, like the buffleheads, Mergansers, etc. This is an excellent place for birdwatching. In fact a number of the towns along the lake here are now listed as Bird Cities. Thanks for the posting today.

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  14. Looks like you found some great places! It's always interesting when so many different types of birds converge into one area. How many birds do you have? What's your goal for this year?

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    1. Hmmm.....I have found this year 238 birds so far. The goal is adding around 140 lifebirds. I've added around 40 new birds so far this year. I'm at 316 lifebirds right now:)

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  15. What an amazing collection of ducks. I'm in awe at the Golden Eye! Also love both the top and bottom photos. Fantastic!

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  16. I love the way your minds works. I love the way your mind wanders! What a fun post!

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