robsbigyear2019.com

Failing to see anything new this morning at San Pedro House, where once again we packed them to the rafters with about 40 visitors, I made a run for some night birding, a rich source for new ticks for the Big Year. As soon as I got out of the car I heard the silly laughing of Elf Owl (212). Farther up the road I’m sure I heard Whiskered Screech-Owl but it was brief and distant so I’ll let that one go for now. One of the Elf Owls was calling in the tree and another was flying around in the trees right overhead, branch to branch. I watched it catch a large moth and eat it. The bigger thrill was watching it fly around so close and finding it without any recordings. More calling nearby may have been a third Elf. This is where I mention that the two sand traps I’ve set out for this Big Year are native-only species and no tape playback. No gadgets, no devices, no clutter. Just me, binoculars, and the birds. Birding the way it used to be and the way it should be.

Now for the headline news. Last Sunday I was up Carr Canyon looking for and finding Cassin’s Finches. One other birder was up there. An out-of-stater with a rental car in the parking lot. I can spot a goofy beginner a mile away. He was all jazzed up in new LL Bean-type clothes and was very focused on playing tape for Buff-breasted Flycatcher. The flycatchers were all over the place so the last thing you needed was to play a recording. I sighed. As he walked closer all you cold hear was the rustling of clothes and gadgets. I rolled my eyes. I wanted to go over to him and tell him to put away all the contraptions. Focus! Bird! It was well I didn’t.

Last night I looked up the blog of John Weigel, reigning ABA Big Year Champion of 2016 with the extraordinary total of 783. He’s doing another Big Year this year. I clicked on his list and my jaw dropped. He was in Carr Canyon on Sunday and added Buff-breasted Flycatcher. Pictures of him on the blog matched the birder I saw in Carr Canyon! That was him! The champion! Imagine being a duffer golfer and running into Arnold Palmer on your backyard course. Imagine further you wanting to correct his swing! I mentioned in an earlier post about Weigel being at the White-throated Thrush sighting and wanting to meet him. Sunday I had my chance. Imagine, I could have learned his secrets, asked him “how?”, could he pass some of his magic my way. But I missed out. He was right there and I mistook the champ for a rank amateur. Now that I know to look for a tall, goofy, gadgety guy, I’ll be on the look out.

Birders have been seeing and/or hearing Northern Goshawk at Beatty’s Guest Ranch in Miler Canyon. I figured I better go up there now before things get busy around here. I’m thinking that this could be the only one I see this year. I put in my 4 hours of looking and waiting but not a bite, nothing. But not all was for naught – while sitting on a rock in the shade a Black-chinned Sparrow popped up not 10 yards away, my best look ever. Sitting still can be a good technique to see things up close since they don’t recognize you as they otherwise would – big and scary.

Plus I added two new ones: Scott’s Oriole (210) and Ash-throated Flycatcher (211). Tomorrow for sure I will add Lucy’s Warbler at the San Pedro House and maybe one or two others. I’ve been re-reading Noah Stryker’s Global Big Year Blog (noahstrker.com/projects/globalbigyear) and I was surprised to see how many days he would only add 1 or 2 or a handful of new species. But he “only” needed 14 a day – every day – to meet his goal of 5,000, which he easily exceeded. If I only get 1 bird a day for the rest of the year I will come up short of 500. But if I get just 2 more a day every day I will just about break the current ABA-area record.

I can’t believe its this close! Three weeks from today starts the most exciting 2 weeks of this Big Year. First I head off to Texas – by train! What a way to travel! They’re already calling it the “Adventure of the Century!” I start from Benson, just up the road and ride it all the way across the lonely southwestern desert to San Antonio. Just imagine: the parching heat, the biting flies, bandits, thieves, and card sharks – and that’s just in the Benson train station. When I get to San Antonio – city of the River Walk, the Alamo – I pick up a car and head for the hills to see two species I have longed to see: Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo. Then it’s straight down to the Lower Rio Grande Valley for all the specialties of the border – Great Kiskadee, Green Jay, Plain Chachalaca. After a week of packing the List, it’s on to Florida, starting with Fort Myers – Sanibel Island, Corkscrew Swamp – then down to Key West for a boat ride out to the most storied islands in all of birding: the Dry Tortugas. I have to be home before May 1 – they hired me on as a bird guide for the celebrated Southwest Wings Birding Festival. For details about the guides and the festival see: http://www.swwing.org.

I’ll be in Arizona until late May when I make my annual migration to New Hampshire for the summer, where I’ll rack up a long list of eastern and some boreal species. In August I visit Colorado to pick up several Rocky Mountain targets, then back to Arizona. There may be some other unscheduled trips in the fall, wrapping up with the finishing touches in southern California with all of its West Coast specialties in December.

We have a new puzzler! This one was sent in by an esteemed reader and follower, one Dave “Bud” Buddinsky of Oaks of the Ozarks, Missouri. Dave says: “Rob, I love your Blog, it’s the highlight of my day”, bla, bla, bla, “insightful, entertaining, poignant,” yada, yada, yada, “wish the year could last a decade”, etc, etc, etc. Then he says: “I have a new puzzler for you. Six species of landbirds – and ONLY six – nest on all the continents of planet earth except Antarctica. Name those 6 birds.” If you know up to 2 birds, you manage to stay awake all day. If you can get 4 I’d like to go birding with you some time, call me. Six correct answers means you read too much. The Top Brass here at Rob’s Big Year Blog says there’s plenty of dough in the till so we are rewarding the winner an all-expenses paid round-the-world cruise to see all 6 species. Write your answer on the back of a new pair of 8 x 42 Victory SF Zeiss binoculars with ultra light magnesium construction featuring the ErgoBalance concept with an 18.3 twilight factor and the Schmidt-Pechan Prism system, boxed in a case of polished Corinthian leather. Send it to me, care of this blog, Sierra Vista, Arizona.

Yesterday I saw a Cassin’s Kingbird and a Cassin’s Sparrow. Today I saw some Cassin’s Finches (209) way up Carr Canyon. Here’s one of them:

They remind me of Purple Finch with a sharper bill. I’ve had my eye on reports of this bird for a few weeks. It’s only an irruptive here and it hasn’t even been much of an irruption year for them. When I saw reports in Carr Canyon for the past few days I figured I better strike now while they are here. I could probably get this in Colorado in August but now I don’t have to spend the time on them and I can search for other things there like nutcrackers and dippers.

John Cassin was a 19th century ornithologist, museum man mostly, curator of birds at the prestiguous Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. Besides a flycatcher, a sparrow, and a finch, he also has an auklet named after him. I had a bird named after me. Go to the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles and you will see the gigantic Woodward’s Vulture. It’s the only place you’ll see one. It went extinct.

I read somewhere that more birds in the west are named after people while more birds in the east are named for physical features of the birds. On this morning’s 4th Saturday of the month bird walk at the San Pedro House a Swainson’s Hawk (208) rose out of the cottonwoods along the river, hitched a ride way up, and continued his journey north. This is the 13th raptor of the year with maybe 9 more to go.

William Swainson was a 19th century British naturalist who was a contemporary of John James Audubon. He was a member of both the Royal and Linnaean Societies and named many North American birds. I tried to find a Lucy’s Warbler, named by Dr. Thomas Cooper after the daughter of Spencer Baird, but I couldn’t find one yet. When I get to Virginia’s Warbler, Scott’s Oriole, and Bell’s Vireo, I’ll tell you about their name origins.

In a couple of days I’ll have an update on upcoming travel plans as I begin the long ascent to the next hundred. I think I can hit 300 before the end of April.

Today I wanted to go up Carr Canyon with the gang but I just didn’t make it. So instead I took a leisurely stroll through the woods in lower Garden Canyon just to see what I could see. The highlight was a Townsend’s Solitaire in the same spot I saw one in January. It might even be the same bird. My experience with this species is limited so its a thrill to see one:

With more spring migrants around, I can now find a new year bird without too much effort. Today a certain loud buzz alerted me to the presence of a Broad-tailed Hummingbird (207), the seventh hummingbird of the year.

And now an important announcement. We have a winner to the puzzler! This should come to nobody’s surprise, that ingenious engineer of Hampstead, NH, Al Maley, cracked this impenetrable puzzle. The grandfather with the birthday is the girl’s maternal grandfather. Her parents enjoyed a classic May/December wedding. Al, your prize of cash, stock certificates, and shinju knives will be delivered right to your home imminently. No need to take any action. We thank you for playing.

I thought I had a fair shot at getting this bird and everything worked out beautifully. Finding a Golden Eagle seems very hit or miss so I went to Ebird to see if there was any place where they were appearing regularly. I found such a place – Florida Canyon in the Santa Ritas. One or two have been recorded almost daily since December. So today I got to the lower Florida Canyon trail at 9:00 am and hiked up the trail about a mile to where you can look down on the waterfall. I found a rock and took a seat at 10:15. I didn’t know if I would be there for 5 minutes or until 5 o’clock. Fifteen minutes later I thought I saw 3 ravens out of the corner of my eye. I got up to look but only saw 2 ravens. Then I saw the third bird. That’s no raven. It was a large raptor, all dark, long flat wings, and a long tail – Golden Eagle (206). It dropped down below the ridge and that was that.

On the way back down I saw other birders searching for the lost Varied Thrush so I poked around a little too but no sightings. Highly unlikely I will catch up with that one this year. Instead I ran into my favorite Arizona bird:

I missed the Hooded Oriole that someone else saw and failed to find anything else new, so I declared victory, packed up, and got home in time for lunch at Taco Bell.

After fulfilling my bird guide duties and responsibilities at San Pedro House this morning, and not seeing a Barn Swallow, I stopped by the sewage plant … er … uh … I mean “The Environmental Operations Park.” It sounds like something you should say with a snooty accent. “The Environmental Operations Pahk, dahling.” Normally this place doesn’t smell but today it was stinky. Usually it’s not stinky, but today it was stinky. The Big Year birder doesn’t care. He goes anywhere anytime. I needed a Barn Swallow, partly to keep the streak alive but mostly because I didn’t want to get into April and still not have one. With a little searching I found some Barn Swallows (204) and a distant Violet-green Swallow (205).

Tomorrow I’m going on a chase for a special bird, one that I didn’t think I would be able to chase, that I hoped I might get incidentally. But it is showing almost daily and I think I have a good shot for it. If you click on your saved Robsbigyear icon tomorrow you will see how it went.

Wait, my producer is signaling me again. What? Oh, it’s this week’s new puzzler! Here it is. This is a problem that has been vexing me for years, I’m truly puzzled, I just can’t crack it. It goes like this. Back in the third grade, our teacher, Mrs. Crumbum, asked us if anyone was celebrating a birthday that day. Surprisingly, of the 30 kids in the class, no hands went up. Persisting, she asked us if anyone had a relative who had a birthday that day. Sure enough, the chubby little red-haired girl sitting next to me, Phyllis Cyberinski testified: “Today is my father’s birthday,” she beamed, “and (pay close attention) today is my grandfather’s birthday, and (and this is a very important “and”) they are both the same age.” How could this be? Good luck. Hint: forget about Leap Year. (Are you playing this one Jayden?)

Today I went up to Sawmill Canyon to see if I could get an early start on Buff-breasted Flycatcher, a good southeast Arizona specialty. I’ve seen them up there as early as March 16. Today I found two (203), the sixth day in a row I have added a new species, the longest run since a 5 day string from January 22 through 26. The flycatchers are not yet singing on territory so I couldn’t get a picture. Instead I’ll dig deep into my archives for a shot – since half of you only look at the pictures anyway – so you’ll have something to look at. Last year I found a nest in the same area:

I’ve never seen so much water in Garden Canyon. The stream is rushing, water is running all down the road, pouring out of the sides of the canyon, she’s a real gusher.

So why not an American Dipper? I spent a little time searching and I don’t think it’s too far fetched to get one this year with all this water.

Yesterday I missed the Golden-crowned Sparrow at the San Pedro House so I had to go back today and find it. I’ll probably see this West Coast specialty in California later this year but this is my local patch and I don’t want to be the last one to see it. Luckily while I was there I ran into John Broz and Socks the Dog. I told John I needed this bird so he filled the feeder that it has been coming to. Now it was just a matter of waiting. Maybe 2 hours later it appeared (202) and I got a documentation-quality shot:

As you can see it is an immature with just a hint of gold on the crown, more visible in real life. This bird is only considered casual in Arizona. It’s out of the way and now I won’t have to deal with it in San Diego in December.

I ran out of paper so this page 4 of the List is a little overdue but here it is:

Page 3 is at the January 25 post and pages 1 and 2 are at the January 13 post. I have no idea what the next bird will be or what I will chase. You will just have to click here and find out soon.