The cool pines of the Cleveland National Forest were a welcome relief from the 100 degree days in western AZ and eastern CA. They offered some welcome additions to our bird list too. At Horse Heaven Campground we heard Mountain Quail singing. We made a brief effort to try to see the bird but he just kept getting farther away so we had to be content to list him as heard only. During a picnic lunch at Desert View Picnic Area, a flock of warblers came by for our viewing pleasure. Mixed in with them were at least three Hermit Warblers (including one gorgeous male), the only western warbler we still needed.

A bit farther down the mountain we found a campsite at Cibbett’s Flat. After setting up camp we took a walk through the riparian area. It was birdy but we did not find our target species, Pacific-slope Flycatcher. It was quite warm at the lower elevation so we waited for the day to start cooling off and then took a hike up the Kitchen Creek Road beyond where the Border Patrol has locked the gate. Within a few minutes we saw our target bird, Gray Vireo. Two birds put on a show for us, complete with singing and fussing.

On Thursday we searched for California Thrasher without success before heading off to Otay Reservoir to try to find California Gnatcatcher. We arrived in the middle of the day and the habitat of the area looked pretty beat up so we were less than optimistic. The weather was cool, however, so we decided to give it a shot. We had walked no farther than 100 yards up a small dirt road between the two lakes when two gnatcatchers went chasing across the road. Immediately behind them, two more were fussing at us from a fence and some low shrubs. One even posed for photos.

Today we will be hanging around San Diego looking for a few more target birds and getting ready for our pelagic cruise on Saturday. We’ll update you when that is done.

The first part of this post is about our attempt to find the Five-striped Sparrow in California Gulch, near the ghost town of Ruby, AZ, but it is also about the exceptional people who made that trip possible for us.

We met Jim and Sally Lockwood back in January when we were visiting Goose Island State Park in Texas. They had been volunteering there and were on their way back to their home in Arizona. They invited us to get in touch with them when we went west on our Big Year. We saw them again when we visited Lake Patagonia State Park in Arizona. They were leading birding tours there and invited us to come and stay with them while we were in their area.  Then, this month, we needed help getting to California Gulch because the road there was too rough for us to travel in our low-clearance Prius. Jim and Sally offered to put us up in their home and take us to the gulch in their SUV. They even arranged for another birder, Bill Adler, to come along to help us find the bird. Thank you Jim, Sally, and Bill for being the best birding buddies we could ever hope for!

So, what about the sparrow? We’ll let the picture tell the rest of that story:

While we were chasing after the sparrow we ran into Mike McClintock, whom we had met while chasing Buff-breasted Flycatchers together in the Chiricahuas. Mike was watching the sparrows as we rounded a bend in the trail and “found” the birds. He sure has proven to be a good luck charm for us! He told us about a pelagic trip from San Diego he was planning to attend and we checked into it and signed up. Hence, we are heading west, even though we had decided not to a few days ago!

Along the way we stopped at Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR and picked up some good birds for our list. The first was the Yellow-footed Gull and the second is shown by the picture below:

Despite the long distance view, they sure looked like American Flamingos to us and we were excited to find them. There had been no reports on the bird alerts we usually watch so we were completely surprised to find them in Unit 1 of the refuge. We’re sure that we won’t be able to count them for our year list under ABA rules (There are no accepted records for wild birds in the west. They are all considered escapees.), but we are putting them on the list anyway just because of the sheer excitement they caused when we first saw them in the scope! (When we got a chance to look at the pictures some more we decided that they might actually be Lesser Flamingos. There is no entry for that species on the ABA accepted species list so we left our “Flamingo sp.” entry under American Flamingo on our year list. Yeah, we know it won’t count but it’s our list, so there!)

(We saw a third new bird on Tuesday, the Red-necked Phalarope, but we are holding off putting it on the list until we can get a better view. The flock of phalaropes we saw was too far away for us to be 100% sure we made the right id.)

In the past three days we have searched for and found a bunch of birds that are usually less than easy to see. In fact, many of the birds on our last few days’ list are real stumpers for many a life list. For us they have been easy-peasy!

On Wednesday we headed up the South Fork of Cave Creek to look for the Elegant Trogon. We had driven less than half a mile up the road when we heard a male calling off in the distance. Michael jammed on the brakes and within a couple of minutes we heard the bird again and watched it fly right over our heads and land briefly in a nearby tree. Easy.

After finding our first-of year Dusky-capped Flycatcher at the picnic area we were heading back down the road when we heard a strange call along the creek. Michael looked up and saw a flycatcher in the trees. We jumped out of the car and there was a Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher less than 20 yards away. Easy.

On Friday, we were following a tip about Buff-breasted Flycatcher along the Herb Martyr Road. We drove to the parking area and met another birder who was seeking the bird as well. As we were chatting, Michael spotted an empid in a tree less than 10 yards away. Sure enough, it was the Buff-breasted. Not only that, but we watched the bird and its mate at their nest! Easy.

From there, we headed west to look for the Spotted Owl in Miller Canyon. We drove up to Beatty’s Guest House and spoke with the folks there. They gave us information on the last known area and we hiked up the canyon less than half a mile. On the way up we met another couple who were coming down. They updated the location and we walked right to the area and saw the bird in a tree without even working up a sweat on the hot trail. Easy.

Since it was still early in the afternoon, we decided to drive to Madera Canyon and look for the White-eared Hummingbird that was coming to feeders at Chuparosa Inn. Michael dropped Renee off at the inn and went to park the car. Before he had walked down from the parking lot Renee had seen the bird. A few minutes later it returned and Michael ticked it as well. Easy.

Today, we left our campground at 5:30 am and drove to the entrance road where Botteri’s Sparrow was supposed to be. We pulled up to a random roadside pullout and immediately heard a bird singing. We couldn’t get a good look and drove to a better, more open habitat to have breakfast and wait for another chance. Before we had even opened up the yogurt a male popped up in a bush about 15 yards from the car and gave a brief song. He came back later and gave us good looks. Easy.

Immediately after seeing the sparrow, we headed to the Patagonia Roadside Rest to look for a Thick-billed Kingbird that had been reported there. We did not see it but decided to drive along the river to the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve and try there. Along the way, even before we reached the entrance we heard the bird but could not see it. We went to the preserve and checked the list and saw that it had been reported there yesterday. We paid the entrance fee and walked in toward the area where we had heard the bird. Within just a few minutes we heard the bird calling. A few minutes later we looked up into a huge cottonwood tree and there he was! Easy-peasy.

So, the next time we complain about how hard it is to find some bird, remind us of our easy finds!

The Mexican Chickadee is restricted in the United States to the Chiricahua and Peloncillo Mountains of Arizona and New Mexico, respectively. Since the fires in the Chiricahua Mountains, Mexican Chickadees have been hard to find in many of their previous haunts. Much of their former habitat at Rustler Park is gone and nearly every patch of pines was damaged throughout much of the accessible parts of their range. Because of that we had been unsuccessful in finding the birds on all of our attempts and we had elevated the bird to “arch nemesis status” meaning that we were going to make a special effort to see the bird before the year was up.

Our efforts finally paid off today at the Turkey Creek junction along the trans-mountain road. We had tried the area late in the day yesterday and had heard what we thought was a chickadee scolding but we could not get a view of the bird. Today we went out early and tried again. We were rewarded with a very birdy morning but no chickadee at first. Then, despite our general reluctance to play tapes, we decided to pull out all stops, as a last resort, and play some chickadee songs by the side of the road. Michael played the tape once through and put it away. Almost immediately, despite the fact that there had been no chickadee sounds earlier, a single bird popped up from the canyon below us and flew to within 20 feet of him. Renee was a short distance away and by the time she got to the spot the bird had flown up high in a pine tree and she had to be satisfied with a more distant view. That was it, end of show. But it was enough! It was a high-five moment to be sure.

Once we had nailed our main target bird we turned our attention to an Empidonax flycatcher that we had heard as we arrived but had ignored for a long time as we focused all our energies on the chickadee. Very soon after we had seen the chickadee, another group of birders had arrived and had been birding in the area where we had heard the flycatcher. As we walked over we exchanged greetings and information. The leader of their group had seen the empid and told us it was a Cordilleran Flycatcher, another of our target birds!

As we have readily admitted before, we are very rusty on our western bird sounds and we had not recognized the call at first. We knew it was an empid but we had to listen to the tape to confirm that it was indeed a Cordilleran. Off we went to find the bird. We soon heard it calling but it took us quite some time to find the bird and get a good look at its field marks: yellowish color, almond-shaped eye-ring, etc. Our second tick of the day!

Following these successes, we headed to the Walker House to ask Jackie, the owner, for some advice on finding our other target birds. She always welcomes birders to her place in Paradise and will talk to anyone about anything birdy (and the local news around town as well). Thanks, Jackie, for all your help!

We were also fortunate to find Gavin Bieber, from Wings, leading a group at Jackie’s place. When we told him we were doing a Big Year he immediately offered to tell us his favorite  hotspots for the birds we still needed to see. What a great gesture on his part! Thank you for all your information, Gavin. We hope we can follow up and actually see everything you pointed out to us.

Oh, by the way, yesterday we recorded four new birds: Whiskered Screech-Owl, Dusky-capped Flycatcher, Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, and Elegant Trogon. That’s not a bad day, is it?!

In the Rio Grande valley, near Michael’s old stomping grounds when he worked for the Bureau of Reclamation, we visited Percha Dam recreation area. Percha is known as a migration hotspot but we were disappointed by low numbers of migrants. After spending several days in fallout conditions on the Tortugas and Florida keys we have been spoiled! Although the numbers were down, there were still good birds to be seen. We added Lucy’s Warbler, Virginia’s Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, and Western Wood-Pewee to our list.

From the Rio Grande we headed west into the Black Range near the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Area. Along the way we tried several locations for Gray Vireo but came up short. At Emory Pass we added Western Tanager to our list and then searched for migrants in the canyon below. We found little in the late afternoon temperatures and winds and decided to pitch an early camp at Iron Creek campground. Just after dark we heard Flammulated Owl calling in the canyon. He kept it up most of the night and was joined by Mexican Whip-poor-will later on…two more new species while birding from bed!

In the morning the canyon was alive with bird song and we were frustrated by hearing so many birds and not being able to see them in the thick and high tree canopies. We are not very good with birding by ear, especially with many of the western species. We have spent the last 19 years in South Texas and feel like we have a fair degree of competence with the bird songs there, but we are so, so rusty when it comes to our former state of New Mexico. Finally, we were able to start getting our binoculars on the birds and we added Red-faced Warbler, Black-headed Grosbeak, and Grace’s Warbler from Iron Creek and Gallinas campgrounds.

In the afternoon we drove over to Silver City to get gas and food and then headed to the Glenwood Fish Hatchery, where we had seen Common Black-Hawk earlier in the year. He was nowhere to be seen and there were very few other birds near the fish raceways and ponds so we headed up the narrow, twisting road to the tiny ghost town of Mogollon and on into the high country near the Gila Wilderness. On the way up we met Felipe. He was conducting a bird survey of the San Francisco River, Gila River, and the mountains nearby. It was his first day in the Mogollons, so he had little advice for finding our target birds there, but he did give us some tips for lowland birds along the rivers below.

Our stay in the high country was disappointing. Of the 10 target birds we had for the area, we only saw one! (Olive Warbler) Spring migration was weak and most of the summer resident birds had not really arrived yet. At the higher elevations, temperatures were near freezing at night and we had very slow birding. Given these conditions, we decided to cut the trip short and bird our way back down the mountain into the river valleys to follow up on Felipe’s tips. We checked a number of locations for Gray Vireo, flycatchers, and other targets on our way down but had little success; just one Willow Flycatcher at the Catwalk Recreation Area. We decided to stay in a nice mid-elevation pine forest for the night, hoping for Lewis’s Woodpecker, but were shut out once again.

In the morning we headed for the San Francisco and Gila Rivers in the lowlands. We had never birded these areas before and just picked a spot on the map that looked like it had road access and ended up at the Gila Box Riparian Conservation Area administered by the Bureau of Land Management near Clifton, AZ.

What a lucky find it turned out to be! We had one of the birdiest mornings so far this year. At the Gila Box the river was nothing more than a wide trickle and the riparian forest on its banks was no wider than 50 yards on each side, sometimes much, much less than that. But the birds were incredible. At nearly every turn there was something to see. We saw dozens of Wilson’s Warblers, Lucy’s Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, including one Myrtle-race female, and MacGillivray’s Warblers. There were singles or twos and threes of Virginia’s Warbler, Yellow Warbler, and Yellow-breasted Chat. Warbling Vireos filled the air with their songs, sharing airtime with Bell’s Vireos and a single Plumbeous Vireo. Summer and Western Tanagers sang and chased each other through the trees. There were even one each of our target birds, Dusky Flycatcher and Olive-sided Flycatcher, both new to our list. (Felipe had suggested we try the confluence of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers for these birds and the Gila Box proved close enough.) A highlight of the morning was a fly-over by a Common Black-Hawk as we sat at a picnic table having an early lunch. All-in-all, we had 37 species in the riparian corridor in about three hours of birding.

Our list stands at 551 species and we only have a reasonable expectation of seeing about a dozen more in Southeast Arizona and about five more in Southern California, if we decide to extend our trip in that direction this time. We’ll wait a while before heading back up to the high country to let the area thaw itself out for the summer. Then we’ll have a half-dozen more species to seek up there.

It is going to start getting very hard to add more species after that without traveling a long way!

The eastern species count was great. Of all the migrants we expected to see we only missed a few. (We’ll have to look for Black-billed Cuckoo, Mourning Warbler, and the Empidonax flycatchers on their breeding grounds or in the fall.) We also saw almost all of the Florida specialties we targeted. (We only missed the Smooth-billed Ani and the very rare Bahama Mockingbird.) We even saw some things we didn’t expect, most notably the Black Noddy.

Our swing through central Texas was also good. We got both of the Texas Hill Country specialties (Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo (poor picture below)) and picked up most of the local “expected birds” too. There are a few holes still in our Texas list that we had hoped to see this spring (Mississippi Kite and Groove-billed Ani come to mind.) but we still have plenty of time to get those birds, and plenty of budget left to travel for others if we need to (at least for a few more months).

Our goal for the rest of the spring is to get 20-25 more species in the west. Then we can plan our summer trip (or trips) to try to fill in the holes we still have in the list.

We have been traveling through Texas and you can see that we have been getting some good birds: Philly Vireo and Nelson’s Sparrow before we left High Island; Zone-tailed Hawk, Golden-cheeked Warbler and Black-capped Vireo in the Hill Country; Common Poorwill, Bell’s Vireo and Varied Bunting to round out our visit to Junction; and Western Kingbird, Bullock’s Oriole, and Scott’s Oriole as we slogged our way across Interstate 10 in hot, dry West Texas.

We don’t know when we will have internet access again as we head to New Mexico for some late migration searching. We’ll update as we can. Gotta go!

On April 28th we broke one of our rules about chasing rarities and went from Sarasota to Cape Canaveral, FL to look for the Bahama Mockingbird. The rule was that we would chase rarities only if they were close to our planned itinerary and the Bahama mocker was about 170 miles away, certainly not close by our standards. We went anyway because it would have been a true lifer for both of us and we were not planning other birding for that day. Long story short: we waited nearly seven hours for the bird to show at its favorite bush and did not see hide nor feather of the beast. We vowed never again to make such a long trip for a single bird!

On the 29th, we left Sarasota and headed towards Gainesville, where our oldest son is in grad school. Some Budgerigars had been reported in Hernando Beach (the only countable population of those birds in Florida under ABA rules). We calculated our route and found that the extra mileage to visit Hernando Beach on the way to Gainesville was well within our definition of close. We arrived at the correct neighborhood and within five minutes we had the birds.

On the 30th, we drove most of the day on our way back to Texas from Florida. As we neared Texas we realized that we would be back with time to spare before sunset and that we could try to see the Tropical Mockingbird before dark. Again, the bird was located close to our intended destination (High Island), so we would not waste time or money chasing it. We pulled up to Sabine Woods about 7:15 PM and saw the bird, presumably with its Northern Mockingbird mate, within just a few minutes.

Two out of three of our searches for rare birds were as easy as pie, but it is still that deadly boring, and ultimately futile, third example that sticks with us.

Despite the success of the two easy examples we are determined never to chase a rare bird that is more than about 200 miles out of our way (round-trip) and only if there is a very high likelihood of success.

The bad weather that plagued us at the Everglades National Park brought perfect fallout conditions to the Dry Tortugas on Saturday and Sunday, April 21st and 22nd. Our trip was scheduled for the 23rd but the winds were still high and the seas were rough and the boat captain didn’t make the final decision to go until just a few minutes before our scheduled departure. It was a very rough trip and most of the passengers were seasick along the way. We had taken some dramamine and were ok. In fact, we were at the bow and spotted four Bridled Terns skimming low over the water on the way out!

Once at the island we quickly set up camp and started to look for birds. It wasn’t hard to find them. All you needed to do was look down at your feet and it was likely that a thrush, Palm Warbler, or redstart would be there! The few trees on the island were crawling with birds. Warblers, tanagers, orioles, cuckoos, buntings, and more were there and it was an ever-changing list. The winds continued from the NW and N throughout the time we spent on the island and each day brought different species. Monday was dominated by Prairie Warblers and Cape Mays, Tuesday brought more Magnolias and Yellows, and Wednesday was the day of the Blackpolls.

The land birds were the highlight of the fallout but the local and migrant seabirds and shorebirds were not to be outdone. We counted 15 different shorebirds, including White-rumped Sandpiper, new to our year list, and the boobies, noddies, terns, and frigatebirds that make up the main breeding attraction were everywhere.

Soon after we arrived a private tour boat moored in the harbor and some birders we had met at Bill Baggs State Park were among the guests. Also on-board were two birders from New Jersey who were friends of Michael’s brother. Birding sure is a small world!

The tour was being led by Larry Manfredi of Miami. Larry was extremely helpful to us and let us tag along with his group at times as we all shared information on our latest birding finds. It was Larry who found the White-rumped Sandpipers for us, after we had shown his guests a Baird’s Sandpiper on the beach. Late in the day, Larry found a Black Noddy among the thousands of Brown Noddies in the breeding colony and sent one of his party to find us to make sure we saw the bird for our list! Thank you Larry for helping to make our stay at Fort Jefferson even better.

As day one drew to a close we watched nighthawks feeding over the fort but they would not talk to us and we had to go to bed without an id. We were exhausted from the boat trip and the hectic day of birding.

Early on day two we watched a Purple Gallinule, who appeared as exhausted as we had been the night before, swim ashore. The winds were still fairly strong from the NE and the poor gal just was not up to flying against them. Some of the previous day’s denizens had left however. We noted a marked drop in the total bird numbers as the days progressed.

But birding and bird photography were still great. New species like Bobolink and Veery dropped in and the number of Merlins on the island climbed. We had seen four on day one and counted at least seven on day two. The increase in their number also contributed to the decrease in the numbers of the smaller birds. Larry refound the Black Noddy and Michael even got a fuzzy picture of it.

One of the highlights of day two was meeting an 11 year old birder from New Hampshire named Aiden. Aiden is a young birding phenom and he was great at getting photos of the birds too. On the return trip on the ferry Aiden even managed to see and photograph an Audubon’s Shearwater that we missed! (We had been on the bow with him but decided to get out of the wind and went to the top deck at the stern. The shearwater flew by as we were moving around the boat…bad luck for us but great luck for Aiden, and he deserved it.)

By day three the fallout was petering out. New birds were arriving, but the winds had fallen and it was clear that many birds had managed to fly off the island and continue their migrations north. Some of the birds were not so lucky. We found a couple that had died on the island and the Merlins had surely taken a quite hefty toll. But it did not appear that this fallout had dunked large numbers of birds into the sea as sometimes happens. It had been a spectacle for the birders without being a disaster for the birds.

Once back on the keys, we continued our searches and managed to add Mangrove Cuckoo and Antillean Nighthawk to our keys birding total. Maybe we’ll have more to say about those events later on.

Right now we are debating whether to chase some rarities that showed up in central Florida while we were on the keys, so we had better sign off.

We also saw almost all the local specialties you can expect from the area. It was a very special three days. If you ever have a chance to camp out on the island during spring migration, we highly recommend it!

Details of our trip to the Dry T’s will follow as soon as we get a better internet connection.