My World: Lakeside Park

Lakeside Park, Tucson, AZ 10-30-09

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It’s been a busy day this last Thursday of October and I have come to town late in the afternoon to do a couple of quick errands. Nearby to the store I have stopped at is a Subway sandwich shop. Since my stomach is growling and it’s long past lunchtime, I stop in and pick up a 6” turkey sub and a bag of Barbeque Baked Lays. Not wanting to sit and eat on the corner of a crowded and busy parking lot I jump back in my vehicle and head down the street. Now, where can I eat and watch birds at the same time? Ah, Lakeside Park is not far away. I head south on Kolb, then turn right on Stella. I drive east to Lakeside Park and pull into the parking lot there on the east side overlooking the lake. I want to get out and eat my sandwich at one of the many picnic tables, but a chill wind has blown in from the north and it is gusting to over 25 miles an hour. Thus is without surprise that I notice a couple walking down the street in fleece jackets in this 54 degree weather. I almost laugh at them all bundled up as I sit inside my warm car with sunlight streaming through the windows to warm me until I step outside myself.

From my vantage point here on the east side of this manmade lake I see ducks and coots paddling in the water below me. Swallows swoop low over the lake catching insects and getting drinks. As I finish my sandwich I realize that this is not the best position to view the birds, since the sun is setting in the west and is in my eyes. So, I turn the car back on and drive around to the Northwest parking lot and get out of the car. Immediately that cold wind slices through me like ice. I grab my tattered birding jacket and put it on over my long-sleeved shirt. It’s getting late and I just want a quick look at the birds, a quick count to put into eBird. Besides, I am not dressed for tromping around. I have on my high-heeled boots, but at least I did bring my bins. I never leave home without my bins. But I did leave my camera behind. Too bad I did.

Osprey 10-30-09 Lakeside Park

As I walk down the steep slope towards the lake I notice a large raptor soaring above me. I look up to see an osprey hunting the waters below. It flaps its long wings rapidly, hovering over the water searching the depths for prey. Below the osprey a flock of mallards, domestic waterfowl and a few widgeons vie with the coots for pieces of bread tossed out by a child. Over the water the violet-green swallows swoop and dive and I follow their erratic flight with my binoculars. Then, I am distracted by a bird at the far end of the lake. I see a white pelican floating like a medical ship in the water and then, could it be? A western grebe! This is my first sighting of a western grebe here in Arizona. I look carefully at the head trying to be sure that it is a western, which has the black cap extended below the eye, and not a Clark’s, which limits the black cap to above the eye. This one has the black below and so it is a western. Suddenly I hear something, I am not sure if it is the sound of the osprey breaking the water or the exclamations of the boys fishing at the south end of the lake, but I look up to see the osprey rising from the water with a bright orange fish help tightly in its talons! It re-adjusts the fish so its head and tail are aligned with the bird’s body and then it flies straight at me and over my head! OH! If I only had my camera! I follow the bird’s flight off to the north over the bank and the treetops until it is out of sight.

I can still feel the rush of adrenalin as I turn to walk back towards my car. With the sun sinking lower the wind is getting even colder and I am ready to leave. I have only been here a half hour and already I have seen such drama, but as I turn to drive out of the parking lot I notice another flock of birds on the other side of the baseball field fence. Though I have already counted about 50 great-tailed grackles, this seems like it might be some Brewer’s blackbirds, which I have not seen or counted in awhile. So, I drive over to the Westside parking lot and I use my car as a blind. Because I do not get out, the birds actually let me get quite close and I can see and count them easily. A flock of 25 house finches is feeding near the curbing in the grass. Next to them a flock of Brewer’s blackbirds feeds. Something startles the birds and they fly off a bit, then quickly return to feed again. This time some other blackbirds join the flock and as I am busily sorting out the red-eyed bronzed cowbirds from the winter-speckled starlings and plain Brewers Blackbirds there is a sudden explosion of feathers and wings and my mouth drops. Some other raptor has just hit this flock of birds so fast that none of us saw it coming. I watch whatever raptor this is lift off with a dead bird in its grasp. Though I can see the feathered carcass dangling below the raptor, the predator is flying into the setting sun making ID impossible for me. Oh for my camera! Though I am not sure I would have been quick enough to get this shot. I am stunned; gape mouthed and stupid. If I were a ground squirrel I would be dinner.

The birds have fled for good. The sun is sinking low. I have a half hour ride home, so I put the car in gear and turn around. I have only been here for 45 minutes in a city park that is well populated but I have seen more “nature” than I ever expected. In that space of time I counted 18 species of birds and added another species to my Arizona Life List. What a great way to spend my late lunch break! Glad I thought of it! Come to think of it, so did the raptors! I must admit, I’m glad I didn’t have to hunt and kill my meal though.

Lakeside Park is located at 8300 E. Stella Road at the corner of Sarnoff in Tucson, Az. The lake itself is 14 acres when at full capacity. There is a one mile walking path around the lake. It has baseball and soccer fields and a playground for the children. There are also picnic tables and ramadas. The lake is stocked with fish by the fish and game and fishing is allowed. There is a boat launch at the west end of the lake for canoes and rowboats. The park is a well known spot for bird watching and many errant species have been documented here. I know it as a reliable place to see spotted sandpipers in winter and both brown and white pelicans have been seen here. This was my first time seeing an osprey here and Lakeside Park is also one of the places I have seen vermillion flycatchers.

On Friday night, October 30, Gus and I stopped by the park again, this time WITH my camera, so I could get a shot of the lake for this post. Unfortunately the western grebe was gone, but as I was taking shots of the trees and the water, Gus told me to look up in the large eucalyptus tree I had photographed only moments earlier bathed in the golden light of the setting sun. The fingers of gold had left the tree but in their place the osprey now perched large and dark and beautiful. I started snapping right away, trying to control my excited shaking. Even vibration reduction cannot overcome this! I slowly calmed myself and slowly inched my way forward as far as I dared. I did not want to scare the bird off. I finally felt I had a shot decent enough to post, and so we left. What a magnificent bird. One look at that beak and those talons tells you why this bird is known as a fish eagle.

5 days of Birding: Day 4, Patagonia

It isn’t until Sunday morning, March 30th, that we decide for sure to head to Patagonia Lake State Park. Kathryn and I rush around eating breakfast and packing up. The drive to Patagonia takes us about an hour as we wind our way down Highway 83 through Davidson Canyon, past the proposed Rosemont Mine site to the Sonoita Junction. There we turned right on Highway 82 where we see a Border Patrol Checkpoint we will have to pass through on our return trip. Highway 82 proceeds through the town of Patagonia with all its little artists’ galleries, craft shops and bars. I have never stopped to check out the town and we talk about doing it on our way home.

About 7 miles south of Patagonia is the State Park. It is a world class birding destination with the Elegant Trogon being the Holy Grail of the trip. Would we see the Trogon today? My heart pounded with anticipation as we turned in the winding road to the lake. I immediately started scanning the skies for vultures because this is one place in the state where you are likely to see black vultures. I learned from one of the naturalists later on that, while black vultures have better eye sight, turkey vultures have a better sense of smell, so the black vulture will often follow the turkey vultures soaring high above them. When the turkey vultures have gotten close to carrion the black vultures will spot it from above and swoop down to join in or even pre-empt the feast. However, the only bird of prey we spotted was a southwestern version of a red-tailed hawk. Here in Arizona our red-tails are lighter colored and often lack the traditional “bellyband” that most birders look for as a field mark.

We stopped in the visitor center first to use the restroom and get some information with the intention of heading out to the north end of the lake to the well known birding trail. The visitor center desk was manned by a naturalist named Ken who informed us of a 10:00 a.m. Avian Boat Tour which still had space available. The tour lasts an hour and only coast $3 a person. We didn’t even know about this and we had no idea we were so lucky to get spots on this trip. The next day we met people from Oregon who had tried for months to get space on one of the boat tours and couldn’t. At the moment we were blissfully ignorant and signed ourselves up, though we foolishly almost didn’t!

Since it was only 9 a.m. we had about a half hour to go birding before we have to be back in time to get fitted with life jackets for the tour. We drive through the parking lots to the north end of the lake and walk a short distance down the trail. The trail winds along the edge of the lake on a high bluff but soon descends through the trees down a steep path and through a barbed-wire fence opening. The north end of the lake is part of a rangeland where cattle still graze and come to the lake to drink. Right now the trees are full of yellow-rumped warblers gleaning insects from the new spring leaves. Coots cackled and squawk down in the reeds and we spy a green-winged teal dabbling in the shallow water.

We haven’t gone far before it is time to head back to the visitor center for our boat tour. As we are fastening our life-jackets someone rushes in from the deck to inform us a gray hawk is flying overhead. Park Rangers and visitors alike crowd through the doorway and spill out onto the deck, binocs raised to catch the sight of the gray soaring above the lake. In the trees surrounding the visitor center the great-tailed grackles whistle and call. Red-winged black-birds trill, and broad-billed hummingbirds hover at the feeders suspended from the roofline.

A group of 6 passengers, including Kathryn and I head down to the dock to take our seats on the flat platform-like boat. The volunteer naturalist leading the tour is a guy named Larry from Colorado. Ken, the ranger we met earlier is driving. A group of 4 other women birders sits at the front of the boat while Kathryn and I take our place at the back near Ken. Ken and Larry have laminated pages from Sibley’s Bird Guide of the most likely species to be seen on the lake inserted into a 3 ring binder to make it easier for all of us to look up field marks. We head out of the cove past fishermen lining the banks or out on the lake in their own boats. The campground is full for the weekend with people everywhere.

Out on the lake the first bird we see is an eared grebe paddling away from the boat, then diving beneath the surface. We find another near the shore with its tiny head, red eyes, and black “ears”. The birds are still in their winter plumage and have not acquired the gold ear feathers of their breeding plumage as of yet. Ahead of us at the north end of the lake a group of 25 or more Neotropic Cormorants are roosting on some willow snags in the water. Larry and Ken set about telling us that Neotropic cormorants are the most likely species to be seen here, however, they are not easy to distinguish from double crested cormorants. They proceeded to tell us that Neotropic cormorants have longer tails, are slightly smaller, and the bare skin patch at the backs of their bills is pointed instead of curved. There are a couple of larger birds that we wonder if they were Double-crested Cormorants, but in the end the consensus is that all were Neotropic. I have no complaints about this as I have seen Double -crested Cormorants from New England to Utah, but these are a new species and a life bird for me.

The boat slowly churns about the lake along the shore line. Patagonia Lake is really a manmade reservoir created by damming Sonoita creek. The lake is long and narrow with many hidden coves and arms. Along the western border we spot some black-crowned night herons roosting in the trees, but they are so far in and the boat so shaky that I don’t attempt a photo. The winds really start to pick up while we were on the water. Someone exclaims, “An osprey!” and all binoculars point skyward. We can hardly believe it when the hour is up and we have to return to the shore, but after a quick lunch purchased from the little convenience store in the park, Kathryn and I are really to go at it again and we head back to the north end bird trail.

This time we meander down the path through the mesquite and willows. Green-winged teals, dabble in the shallow water near the reeds. Yellow-rumped warblers bustle about the tree tops. Vermillion flycatchers are in profusion with a new one around each corner. We count 11 in all, including a mating pair. In the tangled vines atop a small tree we find a nesting pair of Lesser Goldfinches. Then, as we rounded a corner we come upon some bridled titmice bustling among the treetops covered in yellow pollen.

At the west side of the north end of the lake we have a clear view of the water again where ruddy ducks and northern shovelers share the water with the cormorants we saw from the boat. While we are watching the cormorants we hear a sound of flapping wings and look up to see a great-blue heron flying up from the reeds. It's slow heavy wing beats soon carry it above the lake to some other hidden feeding ground among the reeds.

Where Sonoita creek tumbles into the lake a Green Heron flies up and off into the woods. We try to follow it for a better view as Kathryn has never seen one before, but it circles around just ahead of us to land back at the creek mouth again. By now the winds are gusting and we decided to head back to our car. As we head back on the trail we spot a yellow warbler high in the willows, our first for this trip. I keep searching for a black phoebe for Kathryn for some other birders we met had seen one, and this is prime habitat for them. We are almost back when we finally spot one near the water's edge. On our way back along the trail a golden heifer crosses our path to drink from the shallow lake end.

Nearby a cinnamon teal floats unconcerned with the heifer's presence.

As we ascended the trail up the bluff we pause to photograph two white-tailed does walking along the ridge above us. While we never saw the Elegant Trogon, we did record 52 species of birds today.

It is late afternoon as we head back towards Sonoita and home, but on the way we pull off Main Street in Patagonia to check out Paton's Bird Haven, a spot every birder and park naturalist told us about today. Apparently the Patons feed the birds in the back yard of their modest home near Sonoita Creek Preserve, a Nature Conservancy Property. We find their home on a dirt road just past a wash on the left, as we were told it would be. At first we were timid about entering someone else’s backyard, but then we see other birders in the backyard looking through binoculars and scopes, so, we park the car, grab our gear, and walk across the front yard to the back.

In the backyard are park benches set up under a crude awning. When I see the set-up, I can't help but think that the bird watchers are being watched! Meanwhile, people walk about quietly or sit on the benches with binocs and scopes. As we enter through the gate we see a white-breasted nuthatch making its way down a tree to a nearby feeder, but we are quickly distracted by the humming birds buzzing around the numerous nectar feeders suspended along the roof line and from trees.

“Rufous on C” someone calls out, and we quickly lock on it. There is a Rufous Humming bird shining like copper in the sun. Numerous broad-billed hummingbirds hover over the feeders or sit at various ports drinking nectar. The rufous soon flies off but then the most elegant hummingbird I have ever seen alights on a perch and starts to sip nectar up its broad red beak.

It is a Violet-crowned hummingbird, another lifer for me as well as for Kathryn. We watch amazed as hummers flit from feeder to feeder. I take as many shots as I can sitting quietly on the bench. Then at the far end of the yard Kathryn spies lazuli buntings on a feeder over there. I creep up to a nearby tree, using it to shield my presence, and snap off a few photos from this position. While I have seen lazuli buntings in Utah before, at Kathryn’s house as a matter of fact, this is the first time I have seen one here in Arizona.

One by one the others leave as the afternoon shadows grow longer. Soon only Kathryn and I are left and we stuff a couple of dollar bills in the “sugar fund” box before we leave. In Sonoita we pass easily through the Border patrol checkpoint, then turn north on highway 83 towards home. We are exhausted and the sun is setting as we finally turn into Sycamore Canyon, but this trip was well worth it and I can’t wait to go back again. The Elegant Trogon is just waiting for me there. I know it!