The Mississippi Gulf Coast

I spent Thursday March 27th and Friday March 28th on the Mississippi Gulf Coast from Gulfport to Ocean Beach.

On Thursday I focused on the coastal stretch from Gulfport to Ocean Beach stopping several times as I drove along. I saw a large number of beach species - waders (shorebirds), gulls and terns - on this drive. At the end of the day I saw over 200 Black Skimmers including 12 skimming the waters with their bills.

Black-bellied Plover

Common Loon

Dunlin

Ring-billed Gull & Laughing Gulls

Laughing Gull & Herring Gull

The easterly point on my drive was at Gulf Islands National Seashore where I spent some time looking for forest birds. I had good luck with Carolina Chickadee, Carolina Wren, Northern Parula, Brown Thrasher, Eastern Bluebird and White-eye Vireo. I also found an alligator cruising through one of the bayous.

American Alligator

My plan for Friday was to drive west from Gulfport but a rainstorm intervened. The Bayou on the USM Gulf Coast campus had spilled over its banks and the roads were badly flooded in many places.

Hattiesburg, Mississippi

I spent Tuesday March 25th and Wednesday March 26th in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I head a Blue Jay calling on the University of Southern Mississippi campus on Tuesday - and saw several of these birds in the next few days. On Wednesday afternoon I went to Duncan Lake which was remarkable for its set of domestic-type Muscovy Ducks.

Mucovy Ducks

There wasn't much on the lake itself but I found Red-headed and Red-bellied Woodpeckers in the surrounding trees and had a small flock of Cedar Waxwings fly in.

Socorro & Albuquerque

After my elder son had returned to Chicago, the three of us took a trip to New Mexico at the tail end of spring break.

On Thursday March 20th we drove to the Bosque del Apache just south of Socorro for a planned 3-hours of birding. However we had arrived too late in the year and the cranes and most ducks had already left. Although I added Ross's Goose for the year we finished up an hour earlier than planned.

After a lovely day at the zoo and aquarium on Friday, there was more disappointment to come on Saturday March 22nd. We began the day with a drive to Sandia Crest House and got to enjoy the views from 10,600 feet. However there were no rosy finches at the feeders or on the ground and the only birds we found were Common Raven, Mountain Chickadee, Dark-eyed Junco and Steller's Jay! We then went to the Rio Grande Valley Nature Park and again found ourselves in a area with little bird life.

Cornville and Page Springs

On Saturday March 8th my wife and I took a leisurely trip to the Verde Valley. This was my first real trip for a couple of weeks, not counting a couple of trips out to Kachina - including a 'work day' with Diane - and one to Upper Lake Mary.

We stopped first at Windmill Park in Cornville hoping to find the Wood Ducks that Vic had told me about; we did not find them but instead found a FOY Common Black-Hawk.

We then went to Lo Lo Mai, which had disappointed bird-wise when I had visited with Vic early in the year (I did see an otter!) This time the Wood Ducks were there but, alas, still no sign of Dena's screech owl.

A visit to the Bubbling Ponds delivered nothing of note, and I again failed to find Common Gallinule at the Sedona Wetland Preserve.

North and West Phoenix

I accompanied my wife on a work trip to Phoenix on Thursday February 20th and Friday February 21st.

On Thursday I headed first to a feeder in hopes of a Ruddy Ground-dove that had been reported a couple of weeks earlier. Others had tried without luck and I was not surprised when I failed to find it. I did see a few Inca Doves, a bird that is getting harder to find these days.

My next stop was at Lake Pleasant, somewhere that I went to just once a couple of decades ago. I was surprised to find such a big lake. Sadly the winds were strong and the water covered in white-tops and I had no luck locating any of the hoped-for water birds. I did add three birds to my year's list - Turkey Vulture, Osprey and Ring-billed Gull! I did find a bunch of wild burros (mules), something that I regularly see warning road signs for but never the animals themselves.

Wild Burros

 My final stop of the day was at some very quiet recharge ponds in Glendale where I added Lesser Yellowlegs for the year but birds were generally few and far between.

On Friday morning I went out to the Buckeye Thrasher spot where I had my best ever views of LeConte's Thrasher, seeing three birds running on the ground very close to me. I failed to find any other thrasher species but added a couple more year birds.

Duluth Field Trip

Sunday February 16th was the final day of the festival and despite Saturday's disappointing tour I decided to go ahead and go on the Duluth Tour I had signed up for. This was probably  mistake as the roads were clear and Rob & Virginia saw some good birds on their own.

The Duluth trip started with a stop at a feeder - just Black Capped Chickadee and Red-breasted Nuthatch - and a successful Northern Hawk-Owl stake out spot. The Snowy Owl was gone from its spot and although we wandered an area where a Great Grey Owl had been seen we came up empty. Very empty we saw no birds at all, just a totally frozen  Lake Superior. We saw a camp of tents out on the ice, wind breaks for ice fishermen. Crow, raven, pigeon and a bald eagle were fly-bys in the morning. We crossed into Wisconsin to visit the Superior dump and found 2 Great Black-backeds and 1 Glaucous among many Herring Gulls and then stopped at Duluth's Canal Park for a small patch of open water with Common Goldeneye, Common Merganser and Mallards. A pretty dismal return for a planned tour!

I did an afternoon dash to the Sax-Zim Bog driving McDavitt once and Admiral three full times and once more from the south end to the feeders and back, I saw a perched crow, one Gray Jay and one Northern Shrike as well as 7 Black-capped Chickadees on each pass of the feeders. What I did not see, of course, was a Great Grey Owl. At least 7 other cars were doing the rounds in search of this bird.

Lake County Field Trip

On Saturday February 15th I went on the festival's trip to Lake County. One of the trip leaders had scouted the route ahead of time and in a posting on the listserve, said that birds were few and far between. This is exactly how things turned out and it is surprising that the trip wasn't adjusted.

I left my motel in Hibbing at 4:30 in order to be at Meadowlands for 5:30 bus boarding and 6:00 departure. We then drove at speed to get to Lake County and having reached a road where we hoped for Spruce Grouse continue to drive very quickly. A walk down the road followed by a stop at an Outward Bound camp to use their restrooms meant we reached 9:30 with just ravens and feeder birds to show for out time. We finally founds some birds in Ely - 100 miles from Meadowlands- but with the exception of an earful of Bohemian Waxwings, we added only bird feeder band feral rock pigeons to our list.

Bohemian Waxwing

Black-capped Chickadee

Downy Woodpecker

Red-breasted Nuthatch

After driving to Sax-Zim Bog we cruised around, making two passes down Admiral Road hoping to relocate a Great Grey Owl seen earlier in the day. Although we had no luck with that we saw a total of three  Ruffed Grouse and watched a Stoat (Short-tailed Weasel) in Ermine form dashing around in the snow so that only the black tip of its tail was obvious.

Sax-Zim Bog

I flew to Duluth on Wednesday February 12th paying a visit to the University of Minnesota -Duluth ahead of participating in the 7th Sax-Zim Bog Birdinf Festival, On Friday February 14th I attended a pre-festival field trip to the Sax-Zim Bog.

I had registered in November and by the time the trip came around I knew that two of my targets were out of reach. It was not an invasion year of Boreal Owls and White-winged Crossbills had not been seen. My four main targets were my final North American woodpecker - Black-backed, and three owls - Snowy, Northern Hawk and Great Grey.

 I left Hibbing at 5:30 for bus-boarding at 6:30 and departure at 7:00 and the trip began with lifer Pine Grosbeaks at the first house with feeders and then a male Snowy Owl atop a conifer tree. We had a second male on a tree line and then a female on the roof of a house!

Snowy Owl  - male

Snowy Owl - female

After a quiet period including no-show Great Grey Owl on Admiral road we did find two Boreal Chickadees at the feeders there and later in the day on a second pass down the road we had four Gray Jays - my first outside of Alaska. Red Squirrels were common on many feeders throughout the day. On our third pass down the road by the Visitor Center we finally found a Northern Hawk-Owl.

Gray Jay

Red Squirrel

Northern Hawk-Owl

The trip ended around 2:30 but there was nothing planned until dinner at 5:00. A couple I had met on the bus, Rob from Kent and Virginia from Tucson invited me to come along with them and we spent two hours cruising the roads dipping again on Great Grey Owl and Rob's wished fro Northern Saw-whet Owl, but we got lucky and ran into a group of people who had just located a Black-backed Woodpecker.  ABA area woodpecker number nineteen to complete my list.

Verde Valley Loop

On Saturday February 8th with my wife in Malaysia I decided to have a day of crazy chasing. I looked at my 2014 Birdlist and came up with a list of 10 birds that it could be possible to get in a long morning in the Verde Valley. Vic was free and joined me on my chase.

We started at Red Tank Draw and had no problem finding Sage Thrasher and Black-throated Sparrow. Indeed both these species were present in large numbers. We then went to the v-bar-v Heritage Site and watched the feeders until a (Tan-striped) White-throated Sparrow came in. At that point I was at 100% and it was only 10am.

The rest of the day went badly; the Rock Wren again failed to show at Montezuma Well, we did not run into any Cedar Waxwings or Juniper Titmice and the pond at LoLoMai was duckless. I thought Wood Ducks were guaranteed there. Also at LoLoMai we went looking for a Western Screech Owl but the bird was not sitting outside his hole waiting for us. The two Common Gallinules on the east side of Pond 2 at the Sedona Wetlands Preserve seen that morning by Rich on his birdwalk stayed hidden in the reeds. And then finally the Cave Springs area was full of  vehicles and we could not even try for the American Dipper. So I ended on just 30%.

The day's most surprising sighting was a River Otter in the pond at Lo Lo Mai. I had expected to run into this animal before now with so much time spent waling along the Verde River and Oak and Beaver Creeks but I never had any luck. The only bad luck this day was that my camera had been left in Fanta.

Prescott

Following the cancellation of the plan to go to Lake Havasu, on Saturday February 1st my wife and I decided to go to Prescott instead. We took the opportunity to stop at Lake Montezuma on the way down to look for the Eastern Bluebirds that had been seen a few days earlier. We were in luck and found 3 of this species in the trees by the duck feeding area. The ducks included a tame Snow Goose and four non-countable Egyptian Geese!

The next stop was at Montezuma Well where I had hoped to get both wrens but although the Rock Wren did not cooperate I found a few Brewer's Sparrows along with the Canyon Wren.

We then headed to Willow Lake in Prescott and were able to spot the Tundra Swan before we got out of Fanta. We wandered down towards the lake and enjoyed lots of ducks and a Northern Harrier. But we had given up on the White-tailed Kite before asking a local (Ryan) who took us straight to the bird perched closer to homes and away from the lake itself.

Our final stop of the day was at Watson Lake where after some searching we were able to find a pair of Hooded Merganser. Sadly while heading back to the car I lost the eyepiece of my Nikon Prostaff spotting scope although I did not notice it was missing until we were back in Flagstaff.

Around town

As the end of the month neared I decided to do some chasing. Jason had found a Varied Thrush at Elden Spring on Saturday 25th and I tried three times for this bird over the next few days.

On my first attempt on Sunday 26th I had no thrush but saw two immature Golden Eagles soaring above the hills. I then drove out to the Kachina Wetlands to add Lesser Scaup to my year's list. The wetlands are usually bleak and frozen in January but following a month without snow the water was open and there was a good variety of ducks on the water, including two Cinnamon Teal, a rare bird above the rim in winter. I also found a Mountain Bluebird among the Eastern Bluebirds perched on the mullen.

On Thursday January 30th I headed out to Doney Park for an hour or so in the morning. After hiking up a quiet Old Caves Crater trail, I drove to Pam's old neighborhood and ran into a flock of 110 Pinyon Jays with 40 Red-winged Balckbirds mixed in. Heading out to Townsend-Winona, I saw a Ferruginous Hawk hunting, and then being harrassed by a raven on the ground. Late that day I made my second visit to a cold and grey Elden Spring and saw very little

On Friday January 31st I began the day at Picture Canyon where I had no trouble finding a Song Sparrow for my year's list. I then met up with Tom, BB, Rich and Nanette at Elden Spring where we searched for the Varied Thrush in the sleet - Flagstaff's first precipitation for 6 weeks. Sadly the group found the bird soon after I left! Worse still I had left because my wife and I had planned to go to Lake Havasu, but we aborted this plan when the snow got heavy and we could hear sirens from emergency vehicles!