Month: February 2019

Yesterday I started the day at sunrise at the Coronado National Monument for another search for Montezuma Quail. Finding none, again, I decided that it was time to finish off the last common permanent resident in this area. So I went to the San Pedro House and tracked down this Crissal Thrasher (177). This is the only time of year you can see this bird, in winter when they tee up and sing. Otherwise, it is heard-only. In the east we have one thrasher but around here there are 4 plus 3 others in the west and another in Texas. Separating Curve-billed and Crissal can be tricky but in studying this bird and pictures on eBird, I found that facial pattern is the most reliable field mark. Notice how you can barely see the chestnut undertail coverts. But look at the moustachial line dividing the white throat and white malar. Compare that to this Curve-billed:

The face has almost no markings at all. Getting a good look at the undertail may not be possible but I say it is unnecessary. (While you’re at it, compare this bill to the Bendire Thrasher bill in the January 15 post.)

With that one out of the way, I walked down to the river for a look at the Green Kingfisher, once again showing regularly. But not even the accompaniment of John Broz, who sees it regularly, and Socks The Good Little Dog, could change my luck. I sat on a log extending over the river for 40 minutes but no luck. Today after our Wednesday morning bird walk, I went down to the river again. The kingfisher had been seen this morning only hours earlier. It was right there. All I had to do was look. But once again, it slipped away, escaping somehow. Soon they will be calling it the “El Chapo” Kingfisher. It always finds a way out. But I’ll keep looking. I’ll be back. And the beat goes on.

Here’s what it looks like out my front door today. This is the third snowstorm this winter compared to none the last 2 winters. It may not look like much to some but it may as well be a nor’easter. All Sierra Vista schools are closed today. A complete shut down – too much snow. I hear that with this wind, snow drifts are piling up 4 inches deep. Notice how Arizona snow doesn’t stick to paved surfaces. That’s not because it’s been plowed – it just doesn’t stick. I don’t know how they do that here. But don’t drive a bus on it.

Needless to say, birding is pretty slow right now and I’m not adding much to the list. But that doesn’t mean I’m not hard at work on my Big Year. Here in my office, at my Big Year Department of Planning and Development, Division of Strategic Research, Special Office of Preparations, we are busy arranging my upcoming trip to Texas and Florida, reserving plane, train, and boat tickets; rental cars; hotel rooms in McAllen, Fort Myers, Homestead, and Key West. From bird checklists I drew up for each state months ago, I am preparing sub-checklists for individual sites I will visit so I will know not to leave until I have checked them all off. Which birds do I search for at Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park, where should I go after a morning at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, can I get Clapper Rail at Babcock-Webb Wildlife Management Area. Maps need to be drawn and directions plotted, efficient routes planned. I’ll have so little time in each place I have to script most of it out. Then when I get there at least some of it should fall into place.

Meanwhile, I am hunkered down during this “winter storm”, dreaming visions of kiskadees, Green Jays, Roseate Spoonbills, and Swallow-tailed Kites.

My favorite TV show growing up was Get Smart. Even the name is clever, it was years before I saw the double entendre. In the fourth grade we used to play Get Smart on the playground. I was Chief, my best friend, Edgar Kidder, played Agent 86, and we had a girl we both like who played 99, it might have been Pam. Don’t ask me how the game went, the important thing was I was Chief. Down the street from us, on Long Island, we had neighbors who claimed they were not-too-distant relatives of Don Adams and they promised me they would take me over sometime to meet him. That never happened but just knowing it could was enough thrill.

Yesterday’s post recounted an unsuccessful chase of Montezuma Quail. After I got home, I received news from one of my many thousands of contacts that someone in the Sierra Vista area had regular visits in the afternoon in their yard by none other than Montezuma Quail. I made arrangements and made a beeline over to Karen Lemay’s house. Her feeders were full and the yard was bursting with birds. When I asked, she said the quail had been visiting regularly for 2 weeks. My odds looked good so I waited. I waited some more and then a little more. Two hours later at 3:30 pm I gave up. Later in the day I got an email from Karen with a picture of a pair of Montezuma Quail in her yard at 4:30. I really did miss them by that much.

This morning I again searched for Montezuma Quail by driving the road in the Coronado National Memorial. My strategy is to arrive near sunrise when traffic is minimal and hope to see one sitting along the road like they sometimes do. I figure driving Montezuma Pass Road can do me no wrong. But no luck today.

As I looked over at the border fence as seen above, I started to think about the limitations to a Big Year. The three big ones are money, time, and space. As to money, you can do a 500 Big Year on very little, a few thousand. A 600 Big Year would get expensive, many thousands, and 700 will cost you six figures. On the other hand, Noah Stryker set the global big year record in 2015 on just $60,000 and he saw 40 countries and six thousand birds. I’d rather do that.

The time limitation is one calendar year. No time-outs, no extensions, no motions to continue. At midnight December 31 it’s all over. The space constraint for a North American Big Year is North America north of the Mexican border. That limitation is clear and obvious around here. When I see that border fence I know I can go no farther.

That same fence is supposed to stop those on the other side from going any farther too. But some do, and around here you can see the consequences.

This is one of three crosses like this around here that I know of. Presumably it marks the spot where her body was recovered. Those are her shoes, to the left. In all three cases, they were not out in the middle of nowhere. In fact, Ximena was only yards from a road where she could have waived down a passing car. Was risking deportation a worse outcome than pushing on a little farther? Who was she? Where was she from? What was she fleeing?

If you can figure all that out, now try your hand at this week’s puzzler. I can think of three species of birds in North America that are members of a monotypic family. Maybe they are the only three. You could see all 3 in just 2 states and only 2 states. Name the 3 species and the 2 states.

Today the Friday birding group visited Willcox and St. David. One of the first birds some of us saw was the Eurasian Wigeon that has been here all winter, the same one I saw back on January 5, a great bird but nothing new. But after a 10 day drought, I added a new species – Northern Rough-winged Swallow followed by Tree Swallow. These are my first spring migrants of the year and surely a harbinger of many more to come. In St. David I added Cedar Waxwing and at the monastery we saw a Peregrine Falcon (176).

So that’s it for today. The forecast is for bad weather for the upcoming week but I will continue the search for Montezuma Quail and I will be back on the river nailing the Green Kingfisher. It’s only a matter of time.

The Green Kingfisher, after a multi-week absence, has returned to the San Pedro River. On Sunday John Broz found it and yesterday Erika Wilson caught up with it. Today on our weekly Friends of the San Pedro River bird walk, we split into three groups. In recognition of my need for Green Kingfisher for my Big Year, I was assigned to lead the group in search of this special rarity. As we got to the river, for good luck I invoked the name of one of my favorite TV shows, Finding Bigfoot, featuring the relentless Matt Moneymaker. They aren’t just searching for it, they are finding it. And if they are finding Bigfoot in Rhode Island, that’s plenty of good luck for me. (For extra points, name Matt Moneymaker’s father’s name. Give up? What else could a Moneymaker be named: Rich!) I don’t know what his profession is but this might be an example of an aptronym – that’s when a person’s name matches his profession. We all know of Usain Bolt, the record-breaking Jamaican sprinter, but how about Dr. Seawright the eye specialist, Margaret Bacon, the assistant deli manager, Lord Brain wrote a treatise on his specialty – “Clinical Neurology”, and I would trust Dr. David Mitten to perform his hand surgery on me.

We spent the better part of the three hour walk looking for Green Kingfisher – that here today – gone tomorrow phantom. We searched in all the right places all along the river but we just couldn’t find it. We may as well have been looking for Bigfoot.

Critics are claiming that reading this blog is a little bit like watching Geraldo open Al Capone’s safe. But I deny it, it’s not true, there is plenty of substance. Why just the other night I was watching Johnny Carson – it was another rerun – and even though the episode was from the late 80’s – early 90’s – he was talking about Trump. It seems he was in the news because Forbes magazine had delisted him as a billionaire – he lost 50% of is net worth. So Trump, being how we know he is, did what you would expect – he tried to convince Ivana he lost her half.

I continue the search for Montezuma Quail but this could take all year. As soon as I find one you will be the first to know. There aren’t many other new birds to search for around here. This winter lacks some of the big-name rarities we had last winter like Rufous-backed Robin and Sinaloa Wren. Rose-throated Becard is showing daily near last year’s nest site in Tubac but they will be around for a while so I’ll wait for other things to show up over there. But things are bound to break, migrants will be trickling in soon, a rarity could drop in. Meanwhile, the blog will keep going, even if it’s just a little filler.

Mountain Bluebird has been high on my wish list this year. Just look at that picture and you can see why. (Push your screen back at an angle to make it darker.) Is there a more fantastically lovely bird? I followed up on a report of a flock in Sonoita so I went over there today. I drove through town, saw nothing, came back out to Rt 82, stopped, thought, waved to border patrol, and went back down Rt 83. Where it makes a sharp turn to the left (east) I stopped, looked around, and there was the flock, behind Tia Nita’s Cantina (that’s really what they call it), feeding on pyracantha. Eighteen years have passed since I saw my first ones at San Jacinto Wildlife Area near Riverside, California on December 22, 2000. My notes say: “The spectacular color caused me to pull of the road.”

I couldn’t let the day end on such a high note. I went back to Davis Pasture for more Rough-legged Hawk heartbreak. Today I logged a total of 4 hours. My hours total might be as high as twelve. It wasn’t all sitting around. By and by a truck came up the road that to me looked like an old familiar sled dog truck, but there isn’t one of those around here for two thousand miles. But I was close. A weathered Arizonan rolled down his window to see what I was up to. I told him my story and he told me his. He’s a rancher, but not of cattle, instead, he raises game birds, loads his truck with pointers, takes clients out, and they blast the little birds to smithereens. I think that’s what he does. I think that’s what he said. My comprehension rate of “Western” only runs about 36%. The conversation went like this: “(unintelligible) (unintelligible) … game birds … (unintelligible) … my pointers… (unintelligible)…. hunting.” But he wasn’t doing any better with me. Every time I said something it would elicit a “whut?” Me: “Very interesting.” Rancher: “Whut?” Me: “Excuse me??” Rancher: “Say whut?” Me: “Huh?” Rancher: “You say whut now?” After several minutes of these pleasantries he moved on to exercise his dogs, though not with a sled, and I got back to work. Needless to say, the hawk failed to show and I gave up the chase – for today.

I really love it when a rare bird shows up, you give chase, and there it is, right where they said it would be. Served up on a silver platter, just the way I like it. Such was the case with today’s Red Phalarope. Word got out yesterday, I tried to sleep last night, I ran over to Patagonia Lake State Park, and there it was. Red is the most pelagic of the phalaropes. It is only accidental in Arizona and is rarely seen from land anywhere. So this is a real good one for the list.

Another good one there was Greater Scaup. Now scaup can be tricky but this bird was side-by-side with 2 Lesser Scaup so the comparison was obvious – green head/purple head, flank color, head shape, the works. At one point they all swam in close for knee-buckling views! Meanwhile, back at the feeders, I caught this Lazuli Bunting scarfing down one more seed:

Not all is rosy in Patagonia. Once again I am stiffed by Green Kingfisher. In Patagonia! It shows daily, probably on the hour with a matinee. But I couldn’t find it. Sorry for the rest of the birders there but if I couldn’t find it I’m glad you couldn’t either.

On the way back I stopped at the Paton House in Patagonia and added Violet-crowned Hummingbird. A visit to Taco Bell completed the day. I added these birds today: Clark’s Grebe/Red Phalarope/Greater Scaup/Double-crested Cormorant/Common Loon/Neotropical Cormorant/Violet-crowned Hummingbird (171).

Postscript – If you are thinking about chasing the phalarope, word on the street is that later in the morning it was predated by a Red-tailed Hawk. Lights out – show’s over.

 

I’ll get letters on this one. The phone’s going to be ringing. My agents warned me, managment said no. Legal is firing off memos. But that’s what they are. Just scraps.

Today I joined the exclusive ranks of a group of birders generously organized by Sierra Vista birder Erika Wilson. I’m not saying we are A-Listers, or even elite, just exclusive. I know what you are thinking: how did YOU get on this list? It’s not what you know…. So today we walked along the San Pedro River searching in particular for sparrows. I need Clay-colored and they are in here, somewhere. You have to look, good and hard, it’s a tough one. We did that. We found sparrows, lots of them. We even found two new ones for The List: Grasshopper and Cassin’s (164). But these are birds that are easy to get here and elsewhere later in the year. I could even get Grasshopper Sparrow at Concord Airport. And Cassin’s are plain old common here in breeding season. So they are just scraps. But you can’t do that. Birders don’t want to hear ANY bird called something so derogatory as a scrap. They will protest. They will complain. They will call YOU names. But I didn’t call them bits or chips or orts. Just scraps. It could have been worse . So I’m leaving it at that. Scraps.

The quail quest resumes very shortly so I should have a report about that in an upcoming post. (I just have to find a quail.)