Birding at Breakneck Speed: Part 1

Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese at Whitewater Draw 1-16-09 by Gusto!

(Note: Most of today's photography is by Gus with the Nikon D80 and the 70-300mm lens. Click on any photo to enlarge for the best view.)

Last Friday was Gus' alternate Friday off. With such fine weather we headed to Whitewater Draw. I had been out birding the day before at Sweetwater Wetlands and Lakeside Park. I only had a few hours sleep, but we were up by 7 and on the road by 8 a.m. While a few cranes flew overhead the mass landing didn't happen until an hour after our arrival. In the meantime, we went looking for sparrows and owls. Gus is the photographer today, while I handle the binoculars searching for birds.

We found the Great-horned Owl in its usual place in the rafters of the pavilion. He cracked one eye open to watch us, then went back to sleep. In the dried winter grasses outside I spot my first song sparrow of the year. Later I find more down by the water, scratching in the weeds. A lone Eastern Meadowlark walks along the fenceline. Gus calls me to come see the owl while i try to be sure which species of meadowlark I am seeing. we can have Eastern, Western and Lillian's, a very light version of the eastern. But this one is bright buttery yellow, not pale enough for that.

We head off to the wooded area by the wetlands where we find a barn owl deep in the trees. The owl roosting area is marked off with signs to keep out, so this is the best photo Gus could get from the boundary line. We searched the trees for Long-eared owls, but without success.

However, over at the marshland the snow geese shine like chemically whitened teeth in the bright morning sunlight. A search through these photos reveals a Ross' Goose as well. Can you see it in the left hand side of the photo? Its forehead is more rounded, and its beak is triangular with a bluish blush near the top. It lacks the prominent grin path of the snow geese.




Gus captured this photo of an Eared Grebe in the pinkish water, another first for this year.




We saw a few shoveler's floating about, along with American Coots. This is their typical posture when not upended looking for food.

Many birds hide in the dry reeds, and this white-crowned sparrow is no exception. We saw some with the starkly contrasting white and black crowns, as well as this buffy-striped headed variety.

As always and everywhere were the raptors. A lovely Ferruginous flew overhead when we were watching the cranes land, but Gus was off by himself with the camera, and I was not able to tell him to get a shot. Harriers glided over the marshland, and almost every phone pole had a red-tail on it. We saw this juvenile Red-tail as we were leaving. I counted 25 species at whitewater draw today, adding 9 more species to my Big January count. But we weren't done yet. Gus decided he wanted to drive over to Rio Rico to visit our favorite place, which we call hawk Hill. Rio Rico is more than 60 miles form where we are now, but since he is driving, I agree to go.

In Rio Rico we stop at the Rio Rico pond alongside Rio Rico Drive. The pond is located in a fenced off pasture, but you can walk up tot he barbed wire and look at the birds. Last time I saw a black phoebe here, but today a little gray flycatcher is hunting form a thorny bush, dipping its tail in the sunlight. Out on the water the ducks immediately paddle to the far reaches of the pond where they are backlit by the sun. Not too great for photos but I could see and count ducks. And out amongst the mallards, shovelers and wigeons I spot a couple of pintails and some gadwalls. We are here less than 15 minutes and then we head up to Hawk Hill.

Before Gus has even parked the car a turkey vulture comes soaring over the ridge line. It is soon joined by another and another until I have counted four in all. If you wonder where the turkey vultures go in winter... well, here they are! I am taking the pictures now while Gus stands on the hillside and gazes out over the valley below.

We enjoy the view from the mountainside and listen to gentle breezes ruffle the grass. All the mesquite trees are little more than scraggly shrubs and with the winter have shed their tiny leaves so that they appear dead. Soon spring rains will come, and with them spring warmth, when once again this dry brown land will blush with green for a season.

For now the black-throated sparrows sing their silver song to me in the waning light of this long day that started with sandhill cranes in the east, and ends with vultures and sparrows and the setting sun in the west.

Big January update:

84. Snow goose: Whitewater Draw 1-16-09

85. Ross' Goose

86. Barn Owl

87. Killdeer

88. Sandhill Crane

89. Eastern meadowlark

90. Song sparrow

91. Ferruginous hawk

92. Eared Grebe

93. Gadwall: Rio Rico 1-16-09

94. Turkey Vulture

Please come back to read about Birding at Breakneck Speed: Part 2 after Skywatch Friday!

On a personal note, it's 4 a.m. and I am tired, but I cannot sleep when I have a blogpost on my mind. However, I don't write as well when I'm tired but I needed to get this done. I'm off to bed now to listen to the pitter patter of rain and breathe in the fresh perfume of the wet desert through my open window. Its been unseasonably warm here and our heat has not been on for days. The clouds moved in yesterday, and we have had a few showers during the night.

Crepes For Cranes

I could have had crepes and art work,
Both of which I love,
But I traded crepes for cranes
Instead. In a place
Rimmed by mountains, wind whipped and wild,
A noisy place of gray feathers and scarlet caps,
Garrooing voices raised in camaraderie,
Calling out, “Come join me! Come join me!
In my wild dance upon a dry field of grain,
In this watery place, in this wild isolation
Where we congregate.”

~kathiesbirds (2-25-08)

I Traded Crepes For Cranes

It was my birthday this past weekend. I thought I would be spending the day alone. Gus was scheduled for a flight out of Tucson Thursday night. He was going to see his parents and our grandkids, whom he had not seen in a year and half. I had resigned myself to a quiet day at home doing art work or working on my Blog. I dropped him at the airport to catch the redeye and headed home in the darkness. I was almost to the interstate when my cell phone started ringing. When I answered it I was shocked to hear Gus say, “Come pick me up. My flight’s been cancelled.” I drove back to the airport pounding the steering wheel shouting “No! No! NO!” to the elements that caused this change. Though the weather was fine here, a big storm on the east coast caused his flight to be cancelled. Not only was it cancelled, they wouldn’t even be able to fly him out until the 25th and his return flight was scheduled for the 26th. He was supposed to change planes in New Jersey. We saw on the news the next morning all the flight cancellations and delays, and the ice and snow that fell in another world but was affecting ours.

Once home I realized that we could do something special for my birthday instead, though I would have traded it all in a heartbeat if we could just get Gus on a plane. I talked to Gus about having lunch at a French restaurant a friend had told me about, and then maybe going to the University of Arizona Art Museum, which we have not been to yet. I fell asleep thinking of crepes and culture and woke up with cranes on the brain. During the night I remembered that Jean, the leader from my IBA survey group, had said she had been to Whitewater Draw just a week ago and saw thousands of Sandhill Cranes. Just last week a count was entered into the Great Backyard Bird Count of 12,000 Sandhill Cranes at McNeal, which is where Whitewater Draw is located. I wanted to see what 12,000 Sandhill Cranes looked like. I know they will be migrating north in a few more weeks, so I proposed we give up crepes and travel to Whitewater Draw instead. Thankfully Gus agreed.

Whitewater Draw is about 1½ to 2 hours drive away from here. There is nothing else out there, so we stopped in Benson to buy drinks and snacks to eat in the car. Our route takes us through the historic town of Tombstone which is busy with tourists as we drive through the center of town. Just south of Tombstone we take a left on Davis Road and head east for 22 miles. Finally we see the sign for Whitewater Draw and head 2 miles down a dirt road. As we get closer to the entrance to the Conservation Area we see the cranes wheeling in the sky. Waves after wave of cranes descends into a flooded field past the entrance. We drive past the entrance and pull off the road and park.

Though the wind is howling it still can’t cover the cacophony of crane voices. I’m so excited I can hardly stand it. While Gus gets out his camera, I jump out of the car with my binoculars and start scanning the skies and the ground. The wind whips my hair into my eyes and sears through my jacket, but I stand firm and watch. There are cranes everywhere. The field is thick with gray bodies. Up above the sky looks like it is covered in fleas. It is amazing to me that these huge birds can attain such heights. As they descend they switch from their fighter plane silhouette to their landing position. They bend their outstretched necks into a chair shape, then they drop their extended legs beneath their bodies, and their wings fill out like a parasol. When I sent photos to my birding friend Kathryn from Utah she emailed me back that they look both gangly and graceful at the same time. I would have to agree.

We watched and watched cranes for 30 to 45 minutes. Waves after wave of cranes descended. The field filled up more and more. I tried to do the counting method described on the eBird for counting large flocks. I counted out a group of 100 birds and multiplied that block over the flock. I gave up counting after I reached 8,000 birds. I decided to trust that there are still 12,000 cranes here today. 12,000 cranes for my birthday. Not a bad gift, don’t you think?

By the way, Gus shot over 800 pictures this day, and I met some really nice people as we walked around the rest of Whitewater Draw. We met a couple of beginning birders from Tucson named John and Mina. We had fun watching a flock of snow geese and a couple of wading avocets. Then I met a woman from Pennsylvania named Nancy B. She has an orchard out there but every winter she and her husband try to take a trip out here to see the birds. While we were talking with John and Mina, something must have startled the cranes for the huge flock rose noisily into the sky and started whirling about. Some cranes broke off and flew over us until they felt safe enough to settle down again. I had to remember to keep my mouth shut as I tilted my head back to watch. Fortunately none of us got bird bombed!

It’s still hard to grasp that I saw that many cranes that day. Until then, the most I had seen at one time was maybe 50 birds. This has to count as one of the best birding experiences of my life. On Saturday I received a gift from my friend, Kathryn. It is a book by Jonathan Rosen called The Life of the Skies, Birding at the End of Nature. Though I have only just begun it I am already hooked. Rosen writes about why we bird and why we are so drawn to birds. He writes about his love for birds in one passage describing it this way, “Just as I love watching birds, knowing full well they couldn’t care less about me. Their existence is still bound up with mine, we share a secret, though I am hard pressed to tell you what it is.” For me, part of the attraction is the mystery of flight. Oh! to soar on silent wings above the world without boundaries! Part of the attraction is what Rosen also writes about; it is the chance to glimpse a bit of the wild even in our urban and suburban landscapes. It reminds us there is a natural world out there, that all is not artificial and manmade. Finally, it is the beauty of the creature, the endless color combinations, the exotic plumage, the shining feathers, the wild discovery, the chase. It is pursuing without harming and the serendipity of the thing. You go out expecting one thing, and come back with a basket of surprises. Birds bring us closer to nature and closer to God, and, as Rosen says, they help us to more fully understand ourselves.

My birthday ended with dinner at the Longhorn Restaurant in Tombstone. By the time we arrived most of the tourists had left. Then we wandered across the street to the Silver Hills Trading company where we met a woman named Claudia who visited Tombstone, fell in love and moved there permanently. Gus also bought me 2 pairs of earrings for my birthday, though I was already overwhelmed with all the goodness the day had brought me. But it was not over yet. When we finally pulled into our garage and I started unpacking the car, Gus came walking in with the most beautiful bouquet of flowers from my oldest son and his wife. I went from an expectation of a lonely birthday to a day of abundance and joy. It will be a day I will remember for the rest of my life.

Whitewater Draw

On Sunday, November 11th I awoke at 4:30 a.m. to prepare to meet another group of birders from Tucson Audubon, only this time, my husband was going with me. I kept expecting him to come up with some excuse to back out. I still couldn’t believe he agreed to go with me, especially on a Sunday when his Giants football team was playing, but he insisted he was going and he never changed his mind.

I was told to never be late to a meeting place as the others would not wait for you, so Gus and I rushed around the house feeding pets and trying to eat breakfast ourselves. The meeting time was 6 a.m. We had put most of our belongings in the vehicle the night before. Now we packed our cooler with drinks and sandwiches. As Gus reached in to grab one last can of Pepsi his hand brushed a glass bowl which smashed all over the tile floor spreading broken glass and green goo everywhere! Somehow we were able to clean it all up, stop and fill the car with gas, and still make it to the parking lot north of I-10 on Houghton Road in time.

We met the other birders and headed out with 10 people in 4 cars. We headed east on I-10 and stopped in Benson to pick up one other birder. After a brief restroom and snack break we continued through Benson to highway 80 where we turned south towards Tombstone. It is an odd thing to me to travel through these historic western towns. They are stuff of TV westerns, not reality. However, I grew up in the east where George Washington was suppose to have eaten at just about every wayside Inn in the state. I grew up surrounded by history also, but it was the history of pilgrims, Puritans and Patriots. The Revolutionary war just didn’t grab my imagination like the west does.

Tombstone is pretty quiet early on a Sunday morning. It’s not very big and we passed through quietly. We continued our southerly trail until we turned east once again. Eventually we reached a place called Whitewater Draw. I had never head of this place, but hey, I’m new here. It had taken us over 2 hours to get here. As we turned into the gravel road leading to Whitewater Draw the group leader, John Yerger pulled over and we all got out. Overhead a prairie falcon soared, though it took a moment to confirm its identity. Then they set up scopes to view the various sparrows hiding in the field grasses. We saw Brewer’s sparrows, white-crowned sparrows, Savannah sparrows and lark buntings. It was my first time seeing lark buntings and to me they just looked like house finches with smaller beaks, but John and his friend Jake pointed out the eye rings and the white wing patches that became visible when the birds took flight.

On a nearby snag someone spotted a larger bird roosting. A look through the scope revealed a scaled quail just sitting there warming itself in the early morning sunlight. This bird is a rare find and we were all pleased to see it, another life bird for me. We added a meadowlark, a red-tailed hawk, a vesper sparrow and a loggerhead shrike to our list before we continued into the Draw.

This time there was a restroom right in the parking lot. We barely got out of our vehicles before we saw a black phoebe. Then, right under the picnic pavilion we found two Great-horned Owls roosting. But, most amazing of all, on a gravel heap before us was a Crested Caracara, or Mexican Eagle. It just stood there on the mound undisturbed by our presence as if to say, "Hey, look at me! I’m posing just for you." Crested Caracaras are rare in the U.S. This was a marvelous addition to my life list. The bird appeared to be a young one as his colors were more subtle and not quite the dark contrasting black and white of an adult. The eagle’s shaggy leg feathers looked like bloomers on its long legs, which met at an almost 45 degree angle to the horizontal body. From the front of this plane the neck rose almost vertically to the crested head and a huge beak. The hooked gray beak had a blush of pink near its base. A look in my Sibley’s bird guide told me that the beak can change color in an instant! However, it failed to tell me what causes the change—fear, excitement, temperature, who knows. Gus found this bird most interesting and we watched for quite awhile. He said he could have watched it for hours. Even when we moved off to look for birds on the ponds the Crested Caracara never left though the trail passed quite near him.

Whitewater Draw is apparently a wetland with 3 or 4 ponds. Surrounding the ponds are fields and farmland with mountains in the distance. Overhead we heard the "garooing" of Sandhill Cranes as they crisscrossed the ponds flying above us in small groups. We saw more ducks and grebes and blackbirds in and around the ponds. In some nearby willows a ladder-backed woodpecker drummed on a branch. With all the autumn gold and chartreuse of the foliage and the steel blue of the water a beacon of color caught my eyes. The blood-red feathers of a vermilion flycatcher flew up over one of the ponds. It caught an insect and then alighted on its perch once again. It is as if nature concentrated all the red it could in this one tiny bird.
We headed to a willow grove strung out like a tail at one end of the ponds. Long-eared owls had been spotted here in previous years, but this time we were unable to find them. However, someone did find two barn owls roosting for the day in the thick of the trees. Their gray and tawny bodies looked exactly like a broken tree branch until you saw their white heart shaped face peering back at you. We stood on a sandy bank with our scopes and viewed these sleek owls from a distance.

Our lunch was consumed on the fly, so to speak, as we continued on our trip. We were headed north now towards Wilcox, but not before stopping a couple of times along the way. Our first stop was on a dirt road along the central highway near some farmland just south of Elfida. Here we looked for more sparrows in the grasses and were rewarded with a Cassin’s sparrow among others. Gus took a nap in the car while us crazy birders tramped through the fields getting our socks full of stickers and grass seed. We flushed a covey of scaled quail a couple of times. Overhead we trained our binoculars on what looked like a swarm of black flies but was really huge flocks of Sandhill Cranes riding the thermals in the warming sun. The sounds of their garooing filled our ears as their images filled the eyepieces of our binoculars. What a spectacular sight! Just as we headed back to our cars to continue our journey a young golden eagle came soaring across the fields out of the mountains beyond. Its wide wings showed the typical white wing patches of a young golden, along with the white base at its tail. Young Bald Eagles do not have a white tail and in fact take up to 4 to 5 years to develop their typical adult plumage.

We made a couple more stops in a place called Kansas settlement where we were able to see a ferruginous hawk and a roadrunner. We ended our trip at Twin Lakes Golf Course in Wilcox where we saw shore birds and ducks once again. This daylong trip yielded me a list of 63 species of birds, the most I had ever seen in one outing. When we returned home Gus was able to watch his Giants football game with our son, which he had recorded on the DVR.