May Recap

As expected May was a good month for my year list. With semester over I was able to get out more, and with my friend David in town we did some chasing to both southern California and southeast Arizona.

We had 158 species in the week long California trip. I hadn't birded in California for a long time and had no idea if I had seen California Towhee or Oak Titmouse before. They had been split from Canyon Towhee and Juniper Titmouse in the intervening years and my old records had been lost. I counted California Thrasher as a life bird when I may have see it before but the two swifts -Vaux's and Black - were definite lifers for me. I made a strategic error on the trip going after birds at the southernmost part of their range (Yellow-billed Magpie, Chestnut-backed Chickadee, White-headed Woodpecker, Tricolored Blackbird), all of which are much easier further north and all of which I had seen before anyway! I finished the trip on 253 species of which 50 had been seen in California.

After just a few days rest we set off again, this time to SE Arizona, seeing 121 species in 3-and-a-half days with some successful chasing of life birds. I found several of the birds first seen in California (Wild Turkey (Madera Canyon 26th), Swainson's Hawk (Willcox 27th), Semipalmated Plover (GWR 30th), Pacific Slope Flycatcher (San Pedro House 29th), Townsend's Warbler (San Pedro House 29th), Yellow-Breasted Chat (San Pedro House 29th), Rufous-capped Warbler (Roadside Rest 28th), Blue Grosbeak (Madera Canyon 26th) and Hooded Oriole (). So ending the month on 284 species, 243 had been seen in Arizona - just 7 shy of my year's target!  I am almost at my goal for state-birds for the year.


I added California Ground Squirrel, Merriam's Chipmunk, Harbor Seal, Western Gray Squirrel, Gray Fox, Desert Pocket Mouse, Merriam's Kangaroo Rat, Bannertailed Kangaroo Rat, Desert Cottontail, Eastern Cottontail and Brush rabbit to reach 27 mammals for the year. I added American Bullfrog, Red-spotted Toad, Western Fence Lizard, Eastern Fence Lizard, Zebra-tailed Lizard, Western Whiptail, Desert Grassland Whiptail, Sonoran Spotted Whiptail, Side-blotched Lizard, Yarrow's Spiny Lizard and Ground Snake to total 15 herps.