Saturday, March 9, 2019
A long day for sure! Off to SE Arizona with Susan Fishburn, our first bird sighting in Sierra Vista was a CHIHUAHUAN RAVEN at 8 a.m., as we drove eastward on Route 90 past Fort Huachuca. Spotting its smaller size and more spatulate tail than our Common Raven gave me a FOS (first of season) sighting.
About 20 minutes later we were at Mary Jo's Ash Canyon bird habitat waiting on the rare Montezuma Quail to make an appearance. With two other birders already present and two more too come, we may have been too many (6) for the shy birds to come in to feed. Nonetheless, we waited it out for 2 1/2 hours before deciding we might be more successful to do this again at a later date...not a weekend day.
Other birds caught my attention:
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| MEXICAN JAY |
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| SPOTTED TOWHEE (note red eye) same bird above and below |
Woodpeckers find lots of good eats there, too.
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| LADDER-BACKED WOODPECKER |
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| GILA WOODPECKER (female) |
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| ACORN WOODPECKER |
Surprise of the day and solace in the absence of the Montezuma Quail was a fly in by a SCOTT'S ORIOLE. Seemed very early in the season for one to show up. It was a young male, not yet with a full black head. It knew where to come for good eats.
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| SCOTT'S ORIOLE - young male (juvenile) |
Other good birds seen there included four (4) PYRRHULOXIA
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| PYRRHULOXIA |
and GREATER ROADRUNNER
Next stop was San Pedro House where we went directly to the San Pedro River to look for the rare Louisiana Waterthrush and Green Kingfisher. We "dipped" on both those birds but enjoyed walking along that riparian area beyond the bridge then back along the marked river-viewing spots. Saw lots of sparrows, a MEXICAN DUCK, BELTED KINGFISHER, two pair of VERMILION FLYCATCHER and a COOPER'S HAWK among other species.
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| MEXICAN DUCK with clear yellowish bill (no dark spot as in female Mallard) |
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| COOPER'S HAWK |
As usual, when I'm out with Susan there's always, "I wonder if we can find . . . -fill in the blank?"
Today, she mentioned "the YELLOW-BELLIED SAPSUCKER on our way back home?" She knew the location so I was up for it. When we arrived two other birders (Erin and Derik Bowen) announced that we just missed it by 5 minutes!! Yikes! What a day! Being a Sunday, the park was full of people and activity but we stayed over an hour with no luck; it didn't return to its favored tree near center field from the baseball diamond. So we scouted all the pines around the area including the tennis courts and swimming area. Nada.
Home again by 8:30 p.m., it was a feel-good tired. Got a big fat zero on our target birds but still, I returned with an overall good birding day in the field.
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View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S53643727
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