AZ Birdbrain: Osprey

Sunday, November 16, 2014

Better Late Than Never

It's been a very busy fall for me! Luckily the little birding I've been able to do has been good. Here are a few of the goodies, all seen in Tucson.

Fortunately the male Baltimore Oriole that's been around for a few weeks showed itself nicely yesterday. I dipped on it last weekend after two hours of scouring the area it had been seen. I only had an hour to look for it Saturday morning, but spotted it right away. It moved around a lot from tree to tree but gave a few of us great looks in the morning light. Handsome dude!

lifer Baltimore Oriole, Sweetwater Wetlands

There are only about a dozen records for Southeast Arizona.

Back at the end of September I found this scene at a nearby flood-control basin.

Sam Lena Park/Kino Ecosystem Restoration Project

One of the most common birds in the world, Cattle Egrets are rare year-round here. They were a nice surprise! Also invited to the party were Great Egrets, Neotropic Cormorants, and Least Sandpipers. By sheer dumb-luck this photo was selected by the Flickr algorithm for its Explore page and has over 16,000 views. I took it solely for documentation purposes so it's funny how that happened. My girls think of views on Instagram or YouTube as cool points, so it was nice for them to think of me as cool... for a minute.

Here are a few others from the same location.

Barn Swallow

Osprey

Burrowing Owls are always a treat to see,

as are the abundant Vermilion Flycatchers around town.

Reid Park

For some reason, McCormick Park is a rare sapsucker magnet. Must be the sap, duh! It recently produced these two suckers.

Red-breasted Sapsucker

immature Yellow-bellied Sapsucker showing red head feathers

That's all for now friends, hope to be back soon!

Monday, September 2, 2013

Patagonia Booby

Patagonia Mountains

The drive from Tucson to Patagonia is gorgeous right now. It's amazing how lush and green everything looks from the recent rain. But rain isn't the only thing that's blown in recently. A few weeks ago an immature Blue-footed Booby was discovered at Patagonia Lake, becoming the first documented species of booby for Southeast Arizona. I finally got a chance to make the trip and it didn't disappoint.

After running into fellow Arizona blogger Laurence Butler, the booby did a fly-by. For the next half hour I enjoyed watching it fly around the lake, dive for fish, and even scratch an itch in mid-air! I wonder how long it will stick around, there's plenty of fish to eat.

Later I was joined by Will Russell of WINGS Birding Tours. It was a pleasure talking with him. He amazed me when he identified a Yellow-billed Cuckoo flying 100 feet away in the sun, a bird I wouldn't have even tried to ID. We watched the booby make passes with a backdrop of cactus, pretty cool!

Will and I also enjoyed close views of an Osprey.

We watched one have a face-off with a Turkey Vulture, but not much happened.

My next stop was the Patagonia Roadside Rest Area to try to photograph a Thick-billed Kingbird. They were very cooperative and even seemed to be wearing their brighter fall feathers. Check out that massive bill!

A Blue Grosbeak shared a nearby perch.

There were also a few beautiful Varied and Lazuli Bunting, but they weren't cooperative for photos.

No trip to Patagonia would be complete without a stop at the Paton's yard, the most reliable spot to find the Violet-crowned Hummingbird.

The Paton's property is now up for sale. The American Bird Conservancy, Victor Emanuel Nature Tours, and the Tucson Audubon Society are trying to acquire it to preserve it as a sanctuary for birds and birders. For more details and a way to contribute, visit here.

Here are a few other birds that were in the yard.

a young Abert's Towhee

Inca Dove

Western Tanager

White-breasted Nuthatch

On my way back to Tucson I visited the grasslands north of Sonoita in hopes of finding a Grasshopper Sparrow. The first birds I heard were Botteri's Sparrow, but then the grasshoppers chimed in and a few even posed for me.