Escape to Gilbert

I escaped my quarantine the other day, in the late afternoon, for a couple of hours. I went to the Gilbert Riparian Preserve where I go about once a year. I should really go more often as there is an extreme diversity of all sorts of birds…water birds, songbirds, raptors, and always a rarity or 2. I went in pursuit of a rarity this time. I had seen literally hundreds of photos of a Roseate Spoonbill that has been there for a few weeks in my Facebook birding group. Most of the photos were so pretty, up close, so you could see its pink feathered fluffiness in detail. Well, I didn’t get there until about 4pm and I heard it had left for the day so I walked around looking, to no avail, but saw a lot of other birds. About 6pm, as it was getting dark, disappointed, I headed back to my car and saw it in a different pond than those it usually frequents! It was out quite a ways and it was getting dark so I didn’t get those pretty, detailed photos that I had seen from other people. But I saw it and it was awesome and it was a new life bird (lifer)! And I have proof:

It has giant black feet! This is not a bird that you find in Arizona normally. It likes Florida and Texas and other Gulf coasts. Actually, right now there are also 3 more of them at Glendale Recharge Ponds, too, on the completely opposite side of town. I would love to go see them and if it ever cools off here before they leave, I am going to go look for them, too.

But here are a few more of the birds I saw before finding it…

Great Egrets

Great Blue Herons

Green Heron

This beautiful red amaranth was all over; I had never seen it there before.

Now for some songbirds…

Yellow-rumped Warblers (last photo indicates source of name)

*Vermilion Flycatcher, immature male, SO CUTE!*

Different than my yard birds! This makes me want to get back out there birding after this intense heat we have had, much longer than usual, and this horrible quarantine we’re in!!!! It was nice to have a change of scenery…

Global Big Day

Desert Spiny Lizard (regrowing his tail after some incident or accident)

Phainopepla, male

On May 5, Global Big Day, 28,000 people ventured outside in 170 countries, finding 6899 species: 2/3rds of the world’s bird species in one day. This is a new world record for birding and more birds seen by the Global Big Day team than any one person has ever seen in an entire year. You can read more about the results here.

My birding friend, Karen, and I went to Hassayampa Reserve Preserve, near Wickenburg, that day so that we could participate. By submitting our sightings to ebird.org, our results are included in all this data, too.

I have a slight disclaimer. While we did see many Desert Spiny Lizards and Phainopeplas that day, the above 2 photos are actually from another day when I was at Desert Botanical Garden because the shots I got on May 5 were not as good. That said, all the following shots were taken at Hassayampa on May 5. It is very dense and dark there, tree-wise, so I’m not pleased with many of these shots.

Yellow-breasted Chat (lifer)

This bird, above, was the bird both of us were most hoping to see as it was a lifer for both of us. They were very elusive but I finally got a couple mediocre shots. You can see, in the second photo, that this bird has a band around its left leg.

I got 2 more lifers that day (with no photos):

Common Yellowthroat
Lazuli Bunting~the male is gorgeous but we saw only the female, pretty but not nearly as colorful

Yellow-rumped Warbler, Myrtle subspecies

The above bird was a little unusual to see as we usually see the Audubon’s subspecies around here. The Audubon’s has a yellow throat and the Myrtle has a white throat and other subtle differences.

Vermilion Flycatchers, male and female

Wilson’s Warbler, male

Townsend’s Warbler

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Song Sparrow

Summer Tanager, male

Pine Siskin

Red-winged Blackbirds, male and female

Ornate Tree Lizard

A couple more excerpts from the article I mentioned earlier:

For the second year in a row, Colombia led the world in bird species on Global Big Day. The herculean efforts of the Colombian birding community found an unfathomable 1546 species in one country in one day.

The final US tally was 716, bolstered by great totals from Texas (408), California (361), and Arizona (310). US eBirders also documented 577 species with photographs in their eBird checklists, and 172 with audio—quite remarkable!

And there you have it—another birding world record in the books! Never before have so many birders gone out in this many countries, found so many birds, and noted them all down in eBird for their fellow birders, researchers, and conservationists.

Looking Ahead to 2017

Cactus Wrens (Arizona State Bird)

(above graphic credit)

Gilded Flicker

Queen Butterfly

Northern Mockingbird (pondering what lies ahead)

Wishing all of us peace, love, and understanding…as well as health and prosperity in 2017!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Visions of Yellow

Wilson’s Warbler, male

Wilson’s Warbler, female

It’s that happy time of year again, Warbler Season, when the migrating warblers pass through our area on the way to their northern summer breeding grounds. These two Wilson’s Warblers were in my yard. I only saw the female once but the male has been around a couple days so far.

I saw some at the Desert Botanical Garden (DBG), too, where I also saw this warbler (which I think is a female but I’m not positive). I saw one of these last year in the same exact Mesquite tree but the photo I got was pretty bad):

MacGillivray’s Warbler

Warblers are really hard to get photos of because they never stop moving and they like to hide behind branches and leaves all the time.

The following warbler was a lifer and a lot of people are trying to get looks at him! I succeeded on my first day of searching for him at the DBG, flitting around in some Texas Ebony trees.

Hermit Warbler, male

Orange-crowned Warbler

I also saw some Townsend’s Warblers at the DBG but didn’t get a shot. This is what they look like (from last year at the DBG):

Townsend’s Warbler

There are many, many other kinds of warblers so I hope I get to see something else new and exciting before spring migration ends.

As tiny, bright, and yellow as warblers…these guys were all over at the DBG although I’ve never had any in my yard:

Lesser Goldfinch, male

Lesser Goldfinch, female

Yellow is such a happy color. Happy May Day!

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Headin’ South

Wilson’s Warbler

As I mentioned in a post earlier this month, I’ve been seeing some migrating birds around town as they pass through on their southward journeys. Even though I had already seen a Wilson’s Warbler at Desert Botanical Garden, I was totally excited to go out in my backyard a few days ago and see one happily hopping around one of our trees. He didn’t stay for long and I never saw him again but you can see he politely posed for me at many angles.

Townsend’s Warbler

And I was totally happy to see some more Townsend’s Warblers at Granada Park, another beautiful little bird that seems to like pine trees.

Pacific-Slope Flycatcher

And, yup, more of these flycatchers, too! I also saw a flycatcher in my yard but it was gone in a flash before I got my camera so I don’t know what kind it was 😦

But there were also a couple more lifers in the last few days. These were both at Scottsdale Xeriscape Garden: