Urban Birding in the Phoenix area, Maricopa County, AZ

Wednesday, February 21, 2018
With a brisk temperature of 40°F at 7 a.m., Kathleen McCoy and I started birding various trails throughout the Desert Botanical Gardens.

Some birds are definitely easier to photograph than others, as some of my pics will show. But some birds were perching up for the morning sun.

CACTUS WREN (above and below)

A Northern Flicker looked fluffed and cold and stayed in its spot for its photo session!

Red-shafted NORTHERN FLICKER

On the East Coast, the NORTHERN FLICKER is yellow-shafted with yellow underwings unlike the red of ours here in the west.

Always fun to see:

ROSY-FACED LOVEBIRD

Every now and again, a tall saguaro cactus will grow a crest at the top of its main stem. Instead of continuing to grow upward, the main stem sends out a number of shoots that end up looking like this:

Cristate or Crested Saguaro

The four (4) COSTA'S HUMMINGBIRDs we saw eluded the camera quite well moving from spot to spot in the penstemon and other flowering shrubs. Nonetheless, I tried and got two poor photos highlighting, at least, its colorful purple gorget.

The Garden's Art Exhibit consisted of very unique hand-built glazed ceramic forms by Jun Kaneko.

103x48x55"

Three hours of viewing the blooming and budding cactus, the art exhibit and, most especially, the birds, Kathleen and I drove over to the spot she birds on a regular basis.

That pond in Papago Park is farther east than the three I usually bird from the west entrance. Quieter than when she usually birds early in the morning, the pond still gave us some nice birds.

GREAT BLUE HERON

GREAT EGRET

SNOWY EGRET

In addition to the tall wading birds, there was a Mama Pied-billed Grebe with two immature who were begging her for food.

Young PIED-BILLED GREBE swimming toward the adult

The other immature was already next to the adult demanding some of her catch.

Before leaving the pond and canal area, we looked up at the buttes and were delighted to see a Desert Bighorn Sheep on our side of the rocks. (Zoo property)

Desert Big Horn Sheep (above and below)

We wrapped up our birding together with a 30-minute stop at Tempe Town Lake Marsh accessed from the Tempe Marketplace behind Bevmo where we parked to watch from the paved walk/cycle trail. Lots of GREAT and a few SNOWY EGRETs were present but our best sighting among our sixteen (16) species there was the overhead circling of an OSPREY.

Our cities give wilderness areas real competition for best bird sightings!

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View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S43070693

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S43071490

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S43071856