Mid-November Birding

On the Veteran's Day Holiday (November 11th) I took the opportunity to go to Cave Springs after an American Dipper that had been seen at the weekend. On arrival I found two people fishing at the prime spot but contiued into the campground and located a bird a little further down.

American Dipper

On Saturday November 14th my wife and I spent an hour at the East Rio in search of a White-throated Sparrow that had been seen a few days earlier. Alas we failed to find the bird among many Song, Lincoln's and White-crowned Sparrows along the rio up stream from the crossing.

On Sunday November 15th Anne and I went out to Buffalo Range Road hoping to some birds mentioned by Jason on his trip out here to weeks earlier. But our day was much quieter than his, and the Eastern versus Western Meadowlark 'clinic' did not materialize. Prior to two distant fly-bys at the end of our visit, our only meadowlark had been a head only shot of a non-vocal bird! The only activity at the tanks came from Horned Larks, the day's commonest birds. Our bird of the day was Sagebrush Sparrow, for which we had double-digit numbers. A last minute Loggerhead Shrike was a nice surprise after such a quiet morning.

NAAS Trip down Lake Mary Road.

On Friday November 6th I headed out to the Kachina Wetlands in hopes of finding a pair of Hooded Mergansers that had been seen the week before. In between we had a 10 inch snow storm, but I was able to find a female among many ducks and coot.

On Saturday November 7th I joined a NAAS field trip for a trip down Lake Mary Road, with stops at both Lakes Mary, at Ashurst Lake and the Mormon Lake overlook.

The trip went pretty much as planned with lots of waterfowl and a few raptors, and we did find a couple of hoped-for surprises, but we found no loons - almost a surprise at this time of year. The Lakes Mary had lots of ducks and a few coot, while Ashurst had lots of both. We had two Bald Eagles at Lower Lake Mary, a Ferruginous Hawk at Mormon Lake and a few Red-tailed Hawks scattered here and there.

The stop of the day was at Osprey Overlook where first a group heading down to the lake shore flushed a Northern Pygmy Owl, first seen by Trevor, who flew into a pine. Then as we were about to leave Jason spotted a diving duck across the lake - a Black Scoter.

Northern Pygmy Owl

NAAS Trip to Picture Canyon

I joined a small group for a NAAS field trip to Picture Canyon on October 3rd. The day began brightly having us sort through many sparrows along the creek yielding Savannah, Lincoln's, Chipping and White-crowned but also an Orange-crowned warbler and my first Cassin's Finch for a while. As expected we ran into many Acorn Woodpeckers at the top of the waterfall and enjoyed a flock of 40 Pinyon Jays and 3 Lewis's Woodpeckers at the far end of the canyon. With the usual suspects on top of these we ended with 27 species.

The following weekend - on Saturday October 10th - I chased and found two Greater White-fronted Geese that Eric had seen at the far end of Walnut Canyon Ponds. (These birds were still around the golf course a month later. So my after tea dash wasn't all that necessary!)

NAAS trip to Holbrook

On September 13th I joined a small group for a visit to Holbrook where Anita greeted us at the Golf Course. The Water Treatment Plant is not what it used to be and there were very few birds along the road into the golf course.

We spent a few minutes at the golf course with Rock Wren, Wilson's Warbler and both Black and Say's Phoebes making themselves known to us. We then drove along the road finding the expected Killdeer as well as a large group of Brewer's Sparrows. The Tree Farm area was very productive with Yellow-breasted Chat, Blue Grosbeak, Hermit Thrush, Green-tailed Towhees and a Crissal Thrasher all of note.

We had a big surprise on reaching the reservoir where a couple of Black-crowned Night-herons were floating on the water like ducks. They soon flushed on our arrival and joined several others on the tree tops. We walked around the reservoir watching an assortment of ducks on the water but finding a Western Wood-pewee, Nashville and MacGillivray Warblers, and our bird of the day, a Black-and-White Warbler on our loop. A Spotted Sandpiper ont he way out took us to 47 species for the day.

Willcox, Sierra Vista and the Nogales Loop

Over the Labor Day weekend my wife and I headed to SE Arizona with a potential lifer in store. We drove down as far as Casa Grande after work on Friday September 4th, but any idea of a quick start to the day ended with heavy rain on Saturday morning. So we changed plans and headed to Lake Cochise in Willcox where we had 14 species of wader in an hour's stay. The highlight being my first Black-bellied Plover in Arizona. We then went to St. David's where we first enjoyed a Vermillion Flycatcher and then were lucky to find a Mississippi Kite. We also had a Gray Hawk while at the monastery and had a Swainson's Hawk en route through. We reached our planned spot for the day - the Ramsey Canyon Preserve at 4pm too late to chase the rarity so after familiarizing ourselves we headed to Mary Jo's for a late in the day hummingbird show: 7 species in all including several Lucifer's!

On Sunday September 6th we went directly to Ramsey Canyon and hiked the 2.25 miles from the visitor center to a spot that had been identified for us the day before. On arrival at the spot we found a few people - including Christina - already enjoying the two Tufted Flycatchers. A Mexican species that had tried to breed here earlier in the summer but which had stayed around over 3 months. I lifer for me, but not one that had been chased at the first chance I had. We then drove to Patagonia for a short stay at Paton's to get Violet-crowned Hummingbird, and then to Amado to add Black-bellied Whistling Duck to my year list. We ended the day in Madera Canyon in hopes of getting Plain-capped Starthroat (which had been making one short stop per day at Santa Rita for a while) or Arizona Woodpecker (which had eluded me back in January). I dipped on both. We headed back to Flagstaff on Sunday.