Willcox, Portal and Whitewater Draw, Cochise County, Arizona

August 24-25, 2018 
Friday & Saturday

SCALED QUAIL - Target Bird  [internet photo]

Leaving the Phoenix East Valley at 4:30 a.m., Hinde Silver and I were able to start looking for the SCALED QUAIL in Willcox at 7:35 a.m. Having been seen recently at various places at Twin Lakes Golf Course, I was stoked for a good day of birding. Taking our time and being thorough, we searched the applicable sites for this chicken-like bird. It also looks very much like the female Gambel’s Quail. If you live in Gambel habitat, you know it is not a bird that stands still and waits for you to find it. At this time of year, it is on the go either feeding young or with young out in desert grasses or good hidey places under stacks of tree limbs. GAMBEL’S QUAIL was all we found — a half dozen of them at the brush recycling area beyond the golf course. Some back-up spots came to mind, so I figured we’d give it a go elsewhere.

At the golf course pond open to the public for bird viewing, we located a distant pair of VERMILION FLYCATCHERs; a GREAT BLUE HERON, 3 LESSER YELLOWLEGS, and about a dozen WESTERN SANDPIPERs. As we returned to the car, a female BLUE GROSBEAK flew to an open branch of a snag tree as if to say, “You didn’t come to see me?”  Of course we did. 

LESSER YELLOWLEGS on right

BLUE GROSBEAK  (female)

Nearby Lake Cochise was definitely our next go-to birding spot. The lake was full of ducks, sandpipers, waders and more.

One of my favorites there was the LONG-BILLED CURLEW. What's not to like about a bird with such soft warm cinnamon coloration and an unbelievably long bill. Take a look for yourself below:

Note top of head: no wide crown stripe of Whimbrel (sometimes confused with LBCU)

The large lake posed several challenges. How to ID distant small birds?  Using my spotting scope, I was able to make several calls but it's excruciating tough. It looks like it should be this...but is it that??  In eBird, I listed all those that I was able to confirm; the rest didn't get listed. Since we see some of these birds only in migration, I had studied up a bit to refresh identification markers and I was happy with the results, even though I left some in the lake not named.

WESTERN WILLET

AMERICAN AVOCET
Note curve in bill: male on left has slight up curve; female on right has more angled upturn

The three AMERICAN AVOCETS are transitioning to basic plumage (from breeding rusty head/neck color)

WHITE-FACED IBIS in non-breeding plumage  [white face only in breeding]
[originally from the east coast, I thought these were all Glossy Ibis when I started birding in AZ]

Juvenile CALIFORNIA GULL has been hanging out there lately

Lake Cochise was sprinkled with very active WILSON'S PHALAROPE.

WILSON'S PHALAROPE

WILSON'S PHALAROPE

The phalarope has an interesting feeding behavior. Several birds (sometimes large circles of them) will swim in a tight circle stirring up the water bringing food up from the bottom. So, when you see these birds out on the lake, they are not usually swimming alone. Teaming up, they're fun to watch. In the top picture, they seem relaxed, not in their quick-paced feeding mode.

With temperature rising out of the 70s into the 80s (F), we turned the car toward Portal via I-10 through Rodeo, NM, over to Portal Road and the simple Portal Peak Lodge where we relaxed for a short period of time. 

After eating the lunch we carried with us, we drove up to Dave Jasper's bird-feeding yard (open to the public). The sky had darkened and a few rain drops were falling, but it wasn't really raining. Clouds just seemed to be letting loose of a bit of moisture. Still, I left my camera behind - almost a sure way to see good birds. Did we ever!

What a wonderful variety of hummingbirds coming to the feeders and plants!

Rivoli's Hummingbird  1

Blue-throated Hummingbird  5     

Black-chinned Hummingbird  14

Anna's Hummingbird  1

Broad-tailed Hummingbird  2

Rufous Hummingbird  5

Calliope Hummingbird  1

Broad-billed Hummingbird  2

After thirty minutes there, we figured we might be able to visit Bob Rodrigues' yard, too, before heavier rain arrived. Off we drove to his place (formerly Dave Jasper's). It's a very nice trail to a woodsy arrangement with fewer hummingbird feeders but lots of seed-eating birds. Many GAMBEL'S QUAIL walked out from the shrubs and we looked closely, because the females and young of this species are very easily confused with the SCALED QUAIL if you don't see them very often.
Wishing for my camera, there were three colorful birds on one feeder at the same time:
PYRRHULOXIA (reddish), BLUE GROSBEAK and BLACK-THROATED SPARROW.
Then, the rain got serious and we left.

Hoping for some good OWLING that evening, I drove out along Cave Creek Canyon Road stopping at Sunny Flat Campground to walk that trail (still too early for owls), and poked around at various spots before heading to the trailhead parking lot for South Fork. There we waited for dusk to turn dark. Hinde surprised me by hearing the first call: NORTHERN PYGMY OWL. Then, we both heard a GREAT-HORNED. It would continue off and on until we left. The others, didn't repeat nearly as often. Next we heard the WESTERN SCREECH-OWL and I was ready for a happy dance. Just a few weeks ago in Madera Canyon, I had been skunked in my search to hear these nocturnal wonders.

DAY 2: Saturday, 08/25/18
As we packed out of our room at the Lodge, we saw or heard four nifty birds while we loaded our gear back into the car. An ANNA'S HUMMINGBIRD fed at a feeder next to our room (on the deck); a couple CHIHUAHUAN RAVEN were perched beyond the parking area and we heard a CANYON WREN singing. THAT was a good omen!  When I looked up after closing the door to our room, there sat a male HOODED ORIOLE up on snag. 

HOODED ORIOLE (male)

Then we were off to one more spot in Portal before leaving the area. Willow Tank is a nicely developed area (by volunteers) with a berm around a tank  - that today was dry. But CACTUS WREN seemed to be claiming the entire area as its own. Lots of grasses and other desert bushes and scrub but as we walked the berm, we saw one CACTUS WREN after the other. Back closer to the blinds (for viewing waterfowl), we found a BLUE GROSBEAK. Across the street, I heard two CASSIN'S SPARROWs and we saw two CASSIN'S KINGBIRDs.

Hinde navigated us over to Whitewater Draw where we were hoping to spy the Groove-billed Ani reported off and on over a recent period of time.
The trip offered up some good birds, including TROPICAL KINGBIRDs, SWAINSON'S and RED-TAILED HAWK, LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, NORTHERN HARRIER, GREATER ROADRUNNER, and male WESTERN TANAGER.  

Non-birds included about a dozen Pronghorn, a Black-tailed Jackrabbit, a coyote and some white-tailed deer.

Whitewater Draw had water in several ponds, so was not as dry as I've seen it in some prior years. It had been quite a few years since I had last visited and although the ANI was a no-show we enjoyed some of the other birds along the trail. YELLOW WARBLERs, COMMON YELLOWTHROAT and a SORA with its whinny, were among my favorites.

Time to turn toward home, we connected with 191N again all the way to I-10.
Not long after we got on W. Lee Road to make that connection to 191, I spotted three quail run across the dirt road in front of me. "WHITE TOP-KNOTS" ! 

Stopping the car immediately, I watched them head into the desert around some creosote bushes. They hadn't gone far, so after a truck went past (very little traffic out there and, then, when we have our bird - a loud truck goes past..grrr), Hinde watched them forage on the desert floor with binoculars. She had good looks, too.

Not only had we had two good days of birding, finally, I saw my target bird that had eluded me all year.

SCALED QUAIL  [internet photo]

We managed to find 87 species during our two-day visit to one of the most beautiful places in Arizona.

'Til next time.

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More Recent Birding in Central Arizona

August 11 - 15, 2018
One of the biggest problems I've faced with this summer's birding is "bites". Never quite sure if the source is chiggers or mosquitoes, they definitely leave big red itchy spots. But Granite Reef won the "bite" prize. I drove over there the day after a huge monsoon storm (not the microburst) and found tree limbs down all over the picnic area, trees down on the west trail, and marsh grasses almost flattened. Whether I got the bites when I was scampering over a downed tree with leaves or elsewhere, I'm not certain. But, in some way, a large Ant got trapped at my belt line where it rode comfortably along with me. I didn't discover its presence until I got home. At that same moment, the ant begged for its freedom all over my belly. OMG.  I'm guessing fire ant. I'm not quick to kill insects, but there was no question with this biting sucker. Squish - into a tissue. In the hours and days that followed, those bites spread with red inflammation from one spot to another making me look "on fire".  Don't really know if this makes it a fire ant or not, but, it is not one I want to meet ever ever again. I'm still scarred with red blotches...that still occasionally itch.

Anyway, I've also enjoyed a bit of good birding that always offsets the discomforts that nature provides. A Madera Canyon visit on Saturday 8/11 was for the main purpose of finding owls in the evening and early nighttime. Thankfully, birding up to that point in time had been rewarding at various places I visited, but there I stood in the top dead-end parking lot with seven other birders hoping to hear owls - and all we heard was picnickers!!  OMG! Couldn't believe it. But it WAS a weekend. While kids screeched, I heard no Western Screech Owl; I heard no Northern Pygmy Owl. The other birders were shaking their heads, too. Glad that families were out enjoying nature, we stayed and stayed until the families left or got quiet. One young birder heard a Whiskered-Screech Owl, but it was too distant for my ears. Although I stopped at several locations as I went down the mountain (with others following me since I was the local and they were out of town), we all came up with zero owls. But I felt beautiful under the starlit sky while letting the dark quietness fill my pores.

Birds that I did see that Saturday included the following:

RIVOLI'S HUMMINGBIRD (formerly known as MAGNIFICENT) - above and below

ARIZONA WOODPECKER

HEPATIC TANAGER  [above and below]

Not often I get an opportunity to photograph this handsome tanager.

Before leaving Santa Rita Lodge feeding station, the WILD TURKEYs trotted in.

Turkey Trot

As I left Madera Canyon, this deer stopped along the road to watch me pass. It seemed strange until I noticed her young had not yet crossed behind her, so I moved slowly forward allowing them to follow "Mama".

Birding doesn't seem "real" anymore unless I visit cattle slop ponds or water treatment plants. Today, I checked out two water treatment plants where I found some enjoyable birds.

SOLITARY SANDPIPER [migrating through]

WILSON'S PHALAROPE - also migrants, not residents

TROPICAL KINGBIRD [In AZ more frequently each summer/fall, I think]

While I thought that birding "fix" would last me awhile, wouldn't you know two good rarities were reported the next day at nearby Gilbert Water Ranch -- A Painted Bunting and a Dickcissel--neither of which are "ordinary" but they are both nice surprise drop-in migrants.

Having broken a tooth eating a raw carrot, I sat in the dental chair for two hours on Tuesday morning before heading to the Water Ranch to see if I could lay eyes on these rarities. Sheesh, it was humid. I did get a good look (but no photo) of the DICKCISSEL but dipped on the female PAINTED BUNTING (a greenish bird unlike the multi-colored male). Spent just an hour or so there before returning home -- able to wring the moisture out of all my clothes!
So, I got an earlier start on Wednesday, arriving before 6 a.m. and staying until 9:00 but, again, was unable to locate the Painted Bunting. Other birds intrigued me, though.

INCO DOVE--color edging the feathers gives it a scaled appearance

BLACK-NECKED STILT - with bubble-gum pink legs

Two SNOWY EGRET

SNOWY EGRET - giving just a glimpse of its yellow foot

Then I came upon some excitement. I heard a GREEN HERON making the worst honking groaning sound at the edge of a pond that was too overgrown for me to see what was happening. But I soon found out.

The GREEN HERON flew from the edge of the pond, landing in the tree right next to me.

GREEN HERON - trying to evade a predator as it turned out

Take a good look: a COOPER'S HAWK is on lower left of the GREEN HERON trying hard to get hold

COOPER'S HAWK - after missing its target meal

Then, to cap off the morning, I was able to get a photo of a highly secretive bird -- an adult female LEAST BITTERN out foraging in order to feed her young at another location.

Adult LEAST BITTERN (fem) [poor photo but best I could get from my angle]

Now, I'm kicking back while pondering my next adventure. It may be tomorrow; it may be next week....depending on what the weather and my summer spirit can muster.

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Recent Birding Adventures in central Arizona

Although I've not posted a blog for awhile, I have been out and about looking for a few birds I haven't yet come across this year.

On Tuesday, July 31st, I ventured down to Pima County's Green Valley Wastewater Management Company to see if the somewhat rare FULVOUS WHISTLING-DUCK would be present still. Checking in at the office first, I drove back and parked at the spot for birders. The pond directly in front of me appeared to be full of MALLARD - no lighter or smaller duck among them - but they were backlit. Arriving from the office right after I parked was birder, Thomas, from Tucson. With a look through the scope, he agreed. So, we walked over to the next pond with water and picked up a few BLACK-NECKED STILTs and other shorebirds.

When Thomas headed out to what appeared to be empty ponds, I turned back to catch another view on the first pond.  Sun was now behind me - but it didn't make any difference.
Other birders had shown up and walked out to where they saw Thomas. They would all stand back and view our target bird nicely, while Thomas came running for me to join them. By then, a third birder arrived and walked past those waiting and managed to spook the FULVOUS WHISTLING-DUCK into the air. Those waiting for me knew that bird well and told me what to look for in flight among the flock of Mallards. Ah, yes, smaller size, lighter color, but most of all, that crook at its neck/breast area. Helpful pointer!  So, yes. I did see the "target" rarity. From my perspective, it was great to be able to ID it in the air since I had already seen it resting on land in TX and swimming in a farmer's pond near Tres Rios (AZ). It was not a "Lifer" for me, but it was a "Year Bird".  

Birders can be a strange lot! I'm not much of a number person, but I count birds to enter into the data base provided by Cornell University's Ornithological School. They, in turn, do nifty things with the data base that allows us to explore birding spots in any state, city, county or nation. It also provides ranking lists for each state, county, city, or region that you might want to explore. In past years, I've ended up a year of birding ranked right at or below #10 for Arizona. This year, I'll need to put the pedal to the medal to get back there, but I happen to be in the top 60 on the American Birding Association list, too. (North America). Since it's now just past mid-year, I'm hoping to work in enough birding to make this my BEST BIRDNG YEAR EVER. It certainly stands there now; and I'll aim for 500 species by midnight December 31st.  

The second bird I wanted to see on this trip south of Tucson would be a LIFE BIRD -- a YELLOW-GREEN VIREO. That species has subtle differences in a similar song. So, when I walked in on the short piece of the deAnza Trail from Santa Gertrudis Lane, I knew immediately, my target bird was present. Wow! It was busy foraging on insects high in the trees, rarely perching.  Three times I saw it fly; twice I was in the wrong spot when others spotted it for a few seconds to get views; and finally some two hours later (with minimal chigger bites), I saw the bird perch out on a limb for a decent few seconds. It was definitely the Yellow-green -- a vireo I had never seen before.  

That trip got wrapped up with ZERO photos by me.

On August 6th & 8th, I joined other birders out at Boyce Thompson Arboretum to walk with Rick Wright, a professional guide with Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT).  Below are a few photos I managed during those two walks.

YELLOW-BREASTED CHAT

HOODED ORIOLE

BROWN-CRESTED FLYCATCHER

Female PHAINOPEPLA (above & below) [male is silky black; female muted gray--note red eye]

Adult COOPER'S HAWK enjoying its prey - also taking notice of us on the trail

Food First!

Yummy!

The next photo was taken at quite a distance over to the mountains from the trail. You're looking at an African Honeybee hive.

HOODED ORIOLEs weave this kind of nest (or sac) - below - fastening the structure on the strong part of the palm frond.

Today, I headed to Granite Reef Recreation Area along the lower Salt River, Mesa, AZ, to see if the TRI-COLORED HERON, reported there two days ago might still be found. Well, not by me but it wasn't for lack of trying!

Other good birds there included the following:

Slightly larger than a WEPE, this OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER perched up nicely for me as it sallied out and back for insects. It wasn't yet completely light; sun not yet up. Not as good with my camera as I should be, I managed to rescue this photo from a black silhouette. It's "vest-like" appearance helps in the ID, along with its white throat and belly marked with dark flanks the length of it.

Apparent juvenile male WESTERN TANAGER

Adult BALD EAGLE perched at this year's nest; two young must have fledged but may return from time to time.

While I was enjoying this BALD EAGLE perched up across the river on native land, I felt the presence of someone close by. I turned slowly -- very quietly a half dozen wild horses had come out from the west side of the area toward the parking lot. I hadn't seen them approach nor had I heard them until they were past me! There was a second young colt with them that I didn't see until this five (5) in the photo turned to run toward the river.  (6 altogether)

Wild horses; Granite Reef Recreation Area along the Lower Salt River [approx. 6:15 a.m.]

Liked the connectivity from the real GREAT BLUE HERON to its shadow!  (GBH)

Although juveniles can be seen now, this GBH with white crown and mature belly markings in an Adult.

Our local monsoon storm last night reached this location; many tree limbs and small trees were downed. Young green marsh grasses were very bent over but not quite flattened; the cattails remained strong and tall. Mud greeted me everywhere. The water catchment (for Power Road) was full and continuing to fill but no waterfowl on it. With the latest upgrade by the Flood Control, water was flowing out of the catchment to the Salt River making it impossible for me to walk out to the usual small "beach" there to look around. Quite muddy in that whole area, I eventually gave up on reaching the river right there and headed for the trail on high ground. Before leaving Granite Reef, I also walked the east-most trail still hoping to find the Tri-colored Heron, but no. What I found were young SONG SPARROWs.

Our Southwestern species of SONG SPARROW is very light-colored for desert life. This juvenile had no fear of me and continued to looking for morsels on the ground.

Tomorrow is another day; so, now that I'm somewhat caught up with my birding this past week or so, I'll head to cooler places....or just find cooler things to do!

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