A New Year of Beginnings

Hello all!!!  Happy New Year!  Well it will soon be:)  I'm having a blast out in the field on my time off. And it's because of this change in my life that I won't be able to blog everyday like I have for the past 2 years.

Osprey at Kennedy Park, Tucson

It has finally caught up with me and I'm finding that the daily writing etc is impossible:)  I will be posting when I get the chance and of course reading all of your work.  It's one of the reasons why I started blogging .... to network with all of you.

I want to enjoy that part again without worrying about posting once a day.  There's a lot to look forward to next year at Las Aventuras and I am so excited for the schedule coming up, but you'll have to wait and see all the happenings that will be going on.

For now, I wanted to share with you....finally!....a most accidental and wonderful thing....the Osprey.  After many many outings trying to find this bird in Tucson, it came out of nowhere while I was searching for a Horned Grebe.  No Horned Grebe.....but who cares!  The Osprey was the star of the show.

I also got closer to the Western Grebe than I have been able to since my search for them.  Las Aventuras has a trek coming up from outside of the state of Arizona.  I hope you'll join me as we discover even more birds than before.......I'm not going anywhere:)  I'll just be out in the field A WHOLE lot more:)

Western Grebe

My goal for this next year is to add about 150 more birds to my list.  I think it's achievable.

So how about something new?  How about the Hooded Mergansers!  There were 18 on this day.

Hooded Mergansers at Sam Lena Park

The males(or drakes) look like aliens while the females look quite the opposite....but still....striking.  Both genders made me do a double take.  They look so different from each other!  How could they both possibly be the same bird??!!!  And yet they are.

Las Aventuras isn't going anywhere in the blogoshere, it's just doing what it does best....exploring strange new life and new civilizations and boldly forcing me to go where I've never gone before.  Happy New Year everyone!

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.....