On Friday January 9th I met Rich, Nanette and Sam in Camp Verde and we headed to Lake Pleasant to chase a few birds that had been recently seen. Our first stop was at the boat ramp in Maricopa county where a friendly Rock Wren kept close watch. We found a White-winged Scoter and Black Scoter there and had good views of these birds before they flew off never to be seen again! We also saw two, perhaps three, Horned Grebes at this site.
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| Rock Wren |
Driving from there but staying in Maricopa county we saw lots of Ring-billed Gulls, American Coot and Common Goldeneye but failed to find other taget birds such as Red-necked Grebe, Brown Pelican, American White Pelican, Red-breasted Merganser and Common Loon.
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| Female Common Goldeneye |
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| Male Common Goldeneye |
We saw similar species on the water at the Yavapai county end of the lake, but Sam took us to a known site to see unusual Yavapai county birds in Gilded Flicker and Black-tailed Gnatcatcher. We also had Pied-billed Grebe and a Spotted Sandpiper at that end of the lake.
We then drove to a location off Jackrabbit Road in Buckeye to chase McCown's longspurs. We found the place but the field was being ploughed restricting us to the edge if the field and leaving birds lots of places to hide. We saw many Horned Larks and American Pipits, a few Killdeer and Great Egrets, several Red-tailed Hawks and American Kestrels and a single Savannah Sparrow. We ended the day looking, and dipping, on Burrowing Owl but ended the day with a Northern Harrier, Peregrine and Osprey.
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