Last Weekend of Part One

Ahead of my summer trips, I spent 10 hours outside hiking and birding over the first weekend in June. On Saturday morning I had a birdingpal visitor from Phoenix and after failing to find Pinyon Jays at Pam's spent the best part of three hours at the East Rio. There were few high spots but after flitting about nervously for a while a flock of Bushtits decided to snuggle up together for a while.
 

Bushtits

The final stop of the morning was an hour at Kachina Village seeing many of the birds from the previous week but also an increase in duck species and numbers.

White-faced Ibis

In the evening I went out with Tom and BB to the only known local spot for Barn Owl. While we waited for the birds to emerge, we had a couple of Common Nighthawks fly over and a Common Poorwill call for a few minutes.

On Sunday I took the REU students on a hike up Old Caves Crater where Pinyon Jays were everywhere! I finally ran into Juniper Titmouse. Arriving home I found a post from Jodie about a male Indigo Bunting at the museum. Despite going there in the heat of the day I found the bird happily moving from perch to perch singing away.

Indigo Bunting