Coon Bluff Recreation Area along the Lower Salt River, Maricopa County, AZ

Tuesday, September 19, 2017
With birder friends, Kathleen McCoy and Beth Whittam, I pulled into Coon Bluff Rec Area around 6 a.m.

Barely light when we began birding, we were thrilled to see, up on the ridge west of us, a lone wild horse posing between two mesquite trees. Too distant; too dark for photo op even though it was "picture perfect".

One of our first sightings that I'll return to later was at the river close to the bluff. A hard chip or chirp was not quite like an Abert's Towhee (nor Northern Cardinal) and I had no idea what might be down on the small island below us. But when we heard many chirps all at once, we couldn't believe our eyes. It was a highlight that I'll talk about at the end of this blog.

Meanwhile, both women were seeing birds they can't always identify. Going out with birders a bit more practiced helps people new to birding get a handle on the birds around them.
Kathleen had never seen a VERMILION FLYCATCHER (below). We would see at least five (5) of them in our three hours of birding Coon Bluff. I doubt Kathleen will forget this species!

The female Vermilions were also out and about but too distant for good photos. They are exquisitely colored -- brown on top with a touch of peach-color located on its lower belly and vent (area between its legs). Thus, it is camouflaged on the nest, but shows its subtle beauty when perched.

The BLACK PHOEBE was present whenever we were close to the river. Two pair of them appeared to be hawking insects from the smorgasbord of them right above the water. It's voice was our constant companion.

BLACK PHOEBE

Our resident woodpecker, the GILA was drumming on the mesquite limbs where a female allowed a photo (below). With no red on the back of its head to indicate "male", this female was prepared to take off.

One of my favorite birds is the little BLACK-TAILED GNATCATCHER. A desert bird, it is less well known than the Blue-gray Gnatcatcher. Our tiny desert bird rarely sits still but when I'm lucky, I snag a photo.

BLACK-TAILED GNATCATCHER

We capped off the day laughing when we were treated to a rare sight. A first-year juvenile COOPER'S HAWK was "perfecting" its skill at catching prey. There were some ground squirrels running around. We watched the young COOPER'S HAWK make at least three attempts to catch that squirrel, but it never came up clean with it. The squirrel would hunker down among the weeds at the base of a mesquite until it felt it might be safe...not knowing that the Cooper's was on the ground just beyond the tree. But, try as it might, it didn't make a successful catch while we watched. A sibling flew in once from elsewhere in the mesquite bosque, perhaps thinking it could share some food from this one, but it flew off immediately when the noise of wings in the weeds did not result in food for one, let alone two hawks. We felt fortunate to have witnessed this hawk's learning curve.

COOPER'S HAWK (two above photos)

My best bird of the day was the BELTED KINGFISHER, mainly because it was my First of this Season or (f.o.s.) sighting since they had departed for the summer. Hard to photograph, the photo below is from my files. And, I'll post another file photo of a female so you can see the difference.

Male BELTED KINGFISHER with one blue/grey band across its chst

Female BELTED KINGFISHER has two very rufous belts across its white belly.

And, now, back to our delightful discovery in the early morning in the river below the bluff. Who knew that River Otter chatted up a storm? Oh, how they played!  In lieu of my horrible photo, I went online to find something similar to what we saw right below the bluff. Three river otter rolled, played and chirped like nothing I've witnessed before.

It's my understanding that the southwestern subspecies of river otter is extinct or not known to be alive. In the 1980's some North American river otter were released into the Verde River and here they were in the Salt! They were around last season, also, so they must be an established population. 

Lots of good memories this morning!

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View this checklist online at http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist/S39283672