Sweeterwater, the Santa Cruz Flats and Gilbert Water Ranch

I started the day on Monday January 16th with a 90 minute stroll around Sweetwater. I did not see anything unexpected but met a friendly Marsh Wren at the bridge and saw a number of Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Verdin, Orange-crowned Warblers and Yellow-rumped Warblers on my circuit. The old hand clap routine stimulated three Sora into a response. While there I ran into Jenny (and Leo) who had helped with the Brown Thrasher on Sunday.

Verdin

Cooper's Hawk

Heading home my first detour was at Red Rock where a number of Lark Buntings were off the side of the road near the community park. Present at the feedlot were uncountable numbers of Eurasian Starlings, Red-winged Blackbirds, Brewer's Blackbirds and Brown-headed Cowbirds with plenty of pigeons and Eurasian Collared-Doves thrown in.  At the front of the enterprise a Vermilion Flycatcher seemed out of place.

Lark Buntings

I was a little wary of driving onto the Santa Cruz Flats after all the rain, but it seemed that the rain had not been as bad here as it had south of Tucson, and the roads were fine. The journey started well with three Harris Hawk's atop the telephone poles just north of the feedlot and I saw two groups of Crested Caracara along Baumgartner Road. I stopped briefly at the junction with Wheeler to look for an oft reported Rufous-backed Robin where I met someone I had seen in Glendale on Saturday. The two us then went to Pretzer and Tweedy where Mountain Plover remained too distant to ID with confidence.

Harris Hawk

Crested Caracara

I ended the day with a short stop at the Gilbert Water Ranch adding four easy Arizona year birds - Black-necked Stilt, American Avocet, Long-billed Dowitcher and Snowy Egret - but not seeing anything out of the ordinary. On my return to the library car park I was greeted by a singing Curve-billed Thrasher.

My 3-day trip had yielded 103 species taking me to 161 birds for the year, with 116 in Arizona. With semester about to start little change is expected to the 2017 numbers in the near future.