Today was the year's first 'real' birding as 5 of us headed to Tom's assigned area in the Camp Verde CBC circle. Although it was cold when we started (11F; -12C), we had our best birds in the first couple of hours with a group of 500 sparrows - 8 different species - and a Northern Shrike. The latter is at the southernmost point of its range and we were happy to find this bird for the third year in a row! By early afternoon we had added 3 further sparrow species to end with an 11-sparrow day, the best being singles of Black-chinned and Grasshopper. The latter was a state bird for me, the first of 2011. The middle part of the day was quite slow but included a Gray Flycatcher and a Sage Thrasher. We finished up with some riparian habitat and took the tally for the day to fifty species. I ended the day with 64 species for the year.
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| Gambel's Quail |
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| Western Scrub-Jay |
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