The Highs and Lows

The carpeted green valley below Kitt Peak

Lately, I've been focused on the job that pays for my health insurance.  The start of the new year for every teacher is a tricky one.  If you set the tone right during the first several weeks, the rest of the year is perfection when it comes to classroom management.  On top of the main job, I've also been working on our house project that includes lots and lots of planning.  And on the weekends, I eagerly escape to go birding with friends. 

a Canyon Wren plays hide and go seek with us

Gordon came down for the weekend and we decided to do fun birding in cooler settings.  Kitt Peak was new for Gordon and it was just a nice get away from the heat.  For the first time in a LONG time, we should have brought our sweatshirts!  It was cold!  What a wonderful thing!

Yarrow's Spiny Lizard

 In fact, this is the end of summer for us.  It's the height of insects and migrating birds and bats.  September is so GREEN and buggy!  This is the best time of year for butterflies.  The trails are full of them!

a stock photo from several years ago on Kitt Peak.  This is the area we covered birding

We headed south of Tucson towards Sells on the Indian Reservation.  There's a peak that has telescopes on it.  And that's where we birded the morning finding lots of fun birds.  

Mexican Jay

We found Mexican Jays collecting acorns from an oak tree. 

juvenile Mexican Jay

 Spotted Towees appeared to be marking territories for yet another nest.  

Spotted Towhee

Meanwhile butterflies stole the show. 

Bordered Patch Butterfly

Down below in the valley, the wildflower show was incredible.  The rains have been good to Southern Arizona and the oranges, blues, purples, reds, yellows and pinks are confirmation of a happy desert. 

Arizona Poppy

One area was thick with wildflowers.  A beautiful carpet made by nature. 

Trailing Windmills

 There was no shortage of bugs. I try to escape the chiggers and mosquitoes, but they somehow find me. 

Plains Lubber Grasshopper

 The heat finally ends our Saturday of birding fun.  Sunday comes and we were looking forward to exploring Reddington Pass.  This was another new area for Gordon, but as we exited our place, we hit a wall of heat and changed the plans. 

American Snout

We wanted an easy place to bird, get water, have a nice lunch and see fun things.  The Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum was the perfect fit.  While it's technically a "museum", it's much more than a building full of crap.  Here you can explore the wild spaces and see lots of real and wild critters that hang inside and outside of cages.  It's a great place to look for desert birds like the Cactus Wren or Gilded Flicker. 

Gordon and Micheal scour the Desert Museum property for butterflies, lizards, birds and other odd insects

Another unique species that lives on the grounds is an iguana that has survived decades on the property.  

San Esteban Island x Sonoran Spiny-tailed Iguana

Meanwhile we checked out the other critters hanging out around the riparian/desert corridor of the museum grounds.

male Bighorn Sheep struts his stuff

Eventually we made it to the aviary.  This year, I have spoken with many people about this subspecies of Northern Bobwhite below. The Masked Bobwhite is VERY rare and can only be found at the very close border of Mexico and Arizona on a few ranch lands.

the extinct-in-the-wild subspecies of Northern Bobwhite(Masked Quail)

They are breeding these birds to release in the wild, but even when we go to study them in the cages, they can be difficult to see!  So it was a real treat to find that this pair had mated....and had a chick!

I know it's a caged bird, but it's so rare in the wild that practically no one has seen these birds at all beyond a stuffed model on display for what used to live in the grasslands. To see them like this close up was spectacular. Over the years, I've seen only one in the aviary and she was always hiding.  Not on this day!

And that chick was adorable. 

After work, I'm exhausted.  The heat drains the life out of me. The mornings are lovely and it's really the only time to do any birding.  You get a 4 hour window and that's it.

Olive-sided Flycatcher

A lovely win for the week was an Olive-sided Flycatcher hanging out at my local patch that I monitor weekly.  And a very human downer happened when I misidentified a juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron for a super rare Yellow-crowned Night-Heron.  To be fair to myself, many others thought it was a juvi Yellow-crowned Night-Heron as well.

American Avocet

I got two minutes to look at the bird from a distance, snapped my shots and then had to wait until I got home to look at them.  Magill got home before I did and looked at the pics up close and said, "Nope.  This is a juvenile Black-crowned."  Our hearts sunk.  The ID is a tricky one, but next time I'll be looking at that bill better. 

Birding in Dateland and surrounding areas for shorebirds

The juvenile Yellow-crowned Night-Heron has an all dark conical bill where the juvenile Black-crowned Night-Heron can have some yellow in the bill. Oh well.  You win most and lose a few every once and awhile.

Black-crowned Night-Heron

We randomly explore the state and search for something fun to show up. I wouldn't do it alone as it's more fun birding with friends during this nasty and beautiful time of year. We motivate each other to bird during these trying times. Migration is upon us and every day, there is something just waiting to be found.  Will you find it?  Until next time.

Vaporizing Cold Rub

Photo courtesy of Babs Buck.  Left to right, Gordon, Me and Muriel

The intense desert heat lifted as we entered the autumn like weather near the town of Greer. Finally!  It was cold again!

The abandoned South Fork cabins

We found an abandoned camp littered with old mattresses and broken glass.  Our mission was simple......find two tricky birds, the American Three-toed Woodpecker and Dusky Grouse.

Left to right, Muriel, Babs and Gordon

I joined Babs, Gordon and Muriel as we searched high and low for these two would-be-lifer birds.

The storms hindered much of our stay, often chasing us off the trails due to intense lightning storms.

Olive-sided Flycatcher at Butcher's Campground

The wildlife was cooperative. Maybe too cooperative. At one point, we encountered Mexican Gray Wolves on the trail.  We left the dark woods quickly.

Elk

Squirrels. Wolves. Deer. Elk. Coyotes. Chipmunks. Coyotes.  All seen while searching for our birds.

Abert's Squirrel

A juvenile Olive-sided Flycatcher made everyone happy as it hung out near the road bathing.

Often times, this bird hangs out high up in the trees far far away from photographers.

During the bad weather, we stopped at some great eats in Springerville. Booga Red's and Los Dos Molinos provided some tasty Mexican dishes spiced up with green chiles.

At the dawn's early light, we searched for American Dippers and Gray Jays.

We combed the grasslands for Mountain Bluebirds and Pine Siskins.

Pine Siskin

We were surrounded by life everywhere.

Gray-collared Chipmunk

We encountered young and old alike.

Adult and Juvenile Pied-billed Grebe

And eventually, after a lot of hard work, we found JUST ONE of our target birds. The amazing American Three-toed Woodpecker.  FINALLY!  After 4 lifetime attempts and about 100+ hours of trekking over the years, I found my bird.  Whoever said birding was "easy" needs to have their head examined.  It's not easy!  The more birds we find; the trickier the game gets.

American Three-toed Woodpecker-new lifebird; found on the often reliable Butler's Trail in Greer

The rain won't keep us away:)  My treks move forward to coastal waters with a special lady.  I will return home to the frozen North.  And in the meantime, we'll be meeting up with old friends(and new) again on the trails both here and elsewhere over the next two months. 

A fun shot.  I'm reenacting my happy hobbit side on the trails

A special thanks to Gordon for driving the several hour journey from Phoenix! One chapter of my life is ending and another is just about to begin. Over the next several months, things are about to get good. It has been a difficult year with a lot of hard work involved, but I see a light at the end of the tunnel and things are going to get exciting:)  For my international friends out there, I'm coming your way:)  As of now, I'll be on blogger hiatus for a couple weeks.  I'll be back again reporting from the trails. Until next time....

Moment of Forever

Sometimes when I explore nature, I get sidetracked and lose myself in a moment.  A butterfly lands on top of a leaf or a bird flies from a perch.

I reflect on that moment and try to interpret that image artistically. Within that moment, there is an entire universe waiting to be unraveled. 

An emerald carpet of grass, dotted by tiny wildflowers, surrounds the charred remains of gnarled trees. I imagine a young boy saying good-bye to his dying grandfather.  One passing on; the other only beginning his journey.

I look from an airplane window and see the endless flat stretches of land marked by human settlements. And sometimes it looks quite barren. As my plane touches down, I begin to see roads with cars, homes with people, and birds in flight over treetops. I see the details.  Sometimes nature can look barren. With closer inspection, I discover quite the opposite. They are the little worlds that exist within this larger natural universe. Hummingbirds rule their territories over wildflower patches. A camouflaged snake rests on a rock while bees selectively bounce from flower to flower. Each world home to something special and unique. 

A building, from a bird's point of view, is an agave stalk or a hole inside a tree. 

Sometimes when I bird, I forget to bird. 

It's enjoying a moment with a friend, exploring new habitat, finding new birds along with the old ones, and discovering new truths about the world around us. Each part linked to the other like a 10,000 piece puzzle.  I've only begun working on the corners:)

From within a perfect moment, I could spend a lifetime.

Gray Vireo

Check out more birds at Bird D'Pot and Wild Bird Wednesday.  It's all about birds:)

Data Gaps

Black Squirrel

 During my research, I utilize several methods to find birds. Obviously I use Ebird to help track down recent sightings, but I also do a lot of reading on habitat and range using guides and the internet. Arizona is Ebirded to death.  The professionals will tell you that it's not true as there are some large gaps in the state that don't have many reports.  This is true.  But if you are like most people wanting to bird the state, you'll fly into Phoenix or Tucson and have no issues finding all of our hotspots with recent reports from those areas.

Black-capped Chickadee

This is not true for many places like, for example, Colorado or Wisconsin. Heading into Colorado was hit or miss.  I wrote down all the major and potential lifebirds to be found. However there were gaps in the data. Or in other words, there wasn't any data on certain areas at all!  If there was data, it was years old.  I had the same issue in Guatemala and Mexico. So on these trips, I had to bridge the gaps with my own experience.  For my Colorado trip, I had about 5 or 6 life birds to find.  My brother-in-law is leaving for Kuwait hence the trek north.  Everyone likes to be outdoors and so we hiked our way through the many beautiful spaces of Colorado Springs.

One of the first things I wanted to do was get the Black-billed Magpie with my camera.  This is a very common bird in Colorado Springs.  I have a post on them from long ago but I was just learning how to use my camera.  One of the places we went to bird was Sondermann Park.  It had several birds on my target list which included an Eastern Kingbird.  This is a beautiful trail along a stream full of birds!  While I dipped on the Eastern Kingbird reported there, I picked up a life bird I wasn't expecting. 

Black-billed Magpie

The Olive-sided Flycatcher!!!  Yes!  It just sat on the branch and said to us, "Here I am.  Take as many pics as you want!"  And I did.  If this had been the only life bird I found for the day, I would have been happy.  But as luck would have it, more birds would pop up along this trail.

Olive-sided Flycatcher

But since it's a life bird and a first for the blog, here are some close-ups of the flycatcher.  They are found in Arizona.  Some of them are in trickier spots to find around the state.  Some of them are too far to chase. And they do pop in Tucson during migration, but I kept dipping on this bird.  When we found this handsome bird, everyone moved on to find more.  Pat understands the word, "life bird" and is constantly trying to aide in my quest to find them.  So when I said "life bird", Pat stood with me longer to observe the bird while the others moved further down the trail.  But what we didn't realize was that there was going to be a cluster of activity along the stream's edge.

It was hard to take my eyes off of this bird, but when someone said, "Blue Jay!", I was forced to move.

But not without spotting the first of the year Downy Woodpecker!  Hairy Woodpeckers are common in Arizona.  The Downy is much harder to find, but in Colorado Springs, they dominate the landscape.  In fact, we saw many Downy Woodpeckers, Williamson's Sapsuckers, and Northern Flickers.  I think Colorado Springs is the headquarters for Northern Flickers:)

Downy Woodpecker

Finally!  As a child growing up in Wisconsin, I had seen many birds but I couldn't trace the dates when I saw them so decades later, I discovered my first common Blue Jay that most people see.  And it was awesome.  Technically, another lifebird in molt:)

Blue Jay

Another fun place to bird is Garden of the Gods.  It's popular among the tourists and overall, just a nice place to hike.

Garden of the Gods

This area is a hotspot for Western Scrub-Jays and Magpies.  There are lots of beautiful Aspen trees and red rock formations.

Western Scrub Jay

One last note.  I have learned to balance the birding bit by birding in local areas around the neighborhoods of family and friends.  Another spot that was not really birded well was Quail Lake which was 5 minutes from our place. So I jumped in the car and did a quick walk around the lake and discovered.......

Quail Lake in Colorado Springs

Several juvenile Common Grackles.  Another life bird!  I heard the "grackle" sound and watched them for quite a bit of time to make sure I was actually seeing a Common Grackle and not a Red-winged Blackbird or Great-tailed Grackle or Brewer's Blackbird:)  These birds were mixed in with Red-winged Blackbirds. It was really gray and cloudy making the black on the bird tricky.  But to ID Common Grackles, I looked for the yellow eyes(check), their vocalizations(check) and a variation in color from the bluish head and darker body(check).  In the pics, it's hard to see that bluish sheen on the head because of the lighting.

Common Grackle

We had a nice trip and visit.  I have more photos from several other places coming up.  And hopefully I will have added more data to Ebird that will be useful.  Recently, four of my lists that I marked as a Hotspot for Ebird in Colorado Springs were accepted. That never would have happened in Arizona. Hopefully other Ebirders will visit and bird these beautiful parks and trails.

Keep your eyes open for the hummingbird moth below during summer and early fall:)  Rumor has it that snow has fallen over there!

White-lined Sphinx Moth

They were all over!

Dear blogger friends, I will be visiting soon.  I'm on vacation right now and will be back next week. There is a lot more to report, but for now I hope all of you are enjoying fall....or spring wherever you may be.  All my best.  More soon.....
I'm linking up with Wild Bird Wednesday.  So many amazing birds out there!