The tropical weather system that
moved through the area did not deliver the hoped for displaced seabirds. The worst of the weather (mostly flooding
rains) went south & east of Tucson/Green Valley; Nogales, Patagonia, &
Portal/Cave Creek areas flooded. On Thursday 18th I found a Forster’s Tern at the Amado Pond that
was more likely a migrant slowed down because of the weather rather than a bird
displaced from the Gulf of California.
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| Juvenile Forster's Tern Amado WTP |
On Friday
19th, I took Terry & Virginia up the Catalina Highway
birding. We had scheduled to make this
trip earlier in the week however because of the forecasted rains we
rescheduled. The whole day was a calm
enjoyable experience with wonderful clouds and few migrants. One bit of excitement occurred while we were
walking down Incinerator Ridge Road and a juvenile Northern Goshawk flew up to the road turning away only a few yards
from our position.
I always get a charge out of
seeing something new. Saturday 20th afternoon
after picking up a bag of birdseed at the Amado Feed Store, I noticed a couple
of Swainson’s Hawks soaring overhead. It
turned out to be at least 26 Swainson’s Hawks, both light & dark morphs,
soaring over the field west of the highway and north of the feed store. I don’t
notice kettles of Swainson’s Hawks very often in Santa Cruz River Valley. As I was photographing a couple of the dark
morph birds, I watched them randomly diving as if attacking a fellow raptor but
I could not see what they were diving at. Then I noticed several times that
they would bow their heads and bring their talons forward towards their bills.
I had witnessed this latter behavior before with aerial feeding Zone-tailed
Hawks & Swallow-tailed Kites, but at the time didn’t realize that
Swainson’s Hawks also aerial feed when their prey is an invertebrate. I get
home and look at my photos finding several images showing the transfer from
talons to bill of some sort of flying invertebrate (like a grasshopper). I read the behavior paragraphs in the
Swainson’s Hawk section of “Raptors of Western North America” by Brian Wheeler
and confirm my observations. A wonderful
personal discovery!
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| Dark morph Swainson's Hawk near Amado, AZ |
For days I had been toying with
a trip to Lake Havasu to search for jaegers, terns, & Sabine’s
Gulls. I felt as if I was running out of the window of opportunity these
birds. Saturday evening Troy Corman
reported that he and two fellow birders found a juvenile Reddish Egret west of
Gila Bend. Well, my plans solidified
instantly - leave the house early Sunday afternoon, drive to Gila Bend, see the
egret, continue to Havasu, and hopefully bird sunset at BWD, and Monday all day
& Tuesday morning birding around Lake Havasu City. Simple and high risk, the egret should stay
around and time of day shouldn’t be important, Sabine’s Gull have been
unreported from Havasu this month, and the only jaeger was a Long-tailed more
than two weeks prior. In order to break
400 I will need to take these risks and do the best I can. After hiking in Madera Canyon with Louse Sunday 21st morning I leave
Green Valley at 13:35 in route to an area ten miles west of Gila Bend. I’ve never been to this particular spot,
following Troy’s direction with one south to north substitution I find the
canal that the Reddish Egret was seen along yesterday. There area numerous white egrets and a few
Great Blue Herons along the canal. About
a half a mile in from the paved road (Painted Rock Road) I find the Reddish Egret standing on the dirt bank
above the canal. I snap a few
“for-the-record” shots and then work my way closer. This egret and all his white colleagues are
very skittish. I eventually get a fairly
close shot followed by a flying away shot. And later get a shot of it with other egrets
at a mud hole. Great bird for Arizona
and particularly for the year. The sun
had long set by the time I reached the south end of Lake Havasu (BWD area). I check into a hotel in Lake Havasu City and
rested for the big day tomorrow.
I am scoping the lake before
07:00 Monday 22nd from
the red & white lighthouse on the north side of Pittsburgh Point. There were surprisingly very few gulls &
terns out on the lake. I was equally
surprised to see several Common
& one Pacific Loon. My big excitement came in the form of a
jaeger. At 07:30 I found a jaeger
sitting on the water that I immediately believed was long-tailed. I was even more convinced when I saw it
flying & chasing some terns. However
it has been such a long time since I’ve seen let alone studied jaegers, I
thought it best to leave it unidentified until I could compare my notes with
some reference material. [See http://ebird.org/ebird/view/checklist?subID=S19912950
for my write up after determining it was a Long-tailed
Jaeger!] A little mishap between the tripod & myself caused me to lose track
of the bird while it was chasing terns and I was not able to find it again for
the next forty minutes from this location or any other spot around the lake for
the rest of the day (and the next). The
next spot I check was Site 6. As I was
approaching a place to park I saw a small gull very close to the shore. A quick check revealed my first Sabine’s Gull. By the time I got parked and had my camera
ready, this bird had moved further off the shoreline and joined four
others. I watched five juvenile Sabine’s
Gulls for thirty minutes; mostly on the Arizona side though I am sure all ventured
into California waters multiple times.
Where would a jaeger go? Surely it would go to where there is a
concentration of gulls. Where do gulls
concentrate on Lake Havasu? Rotary Park of course, so I make my next stop
Rotary Park. There was a small group of
31 gulls but not what I would call a concentration. My next stop was Lake Havasu State Park at
Winsor Beach. If it weren’t for the Sanderling I probably would have left after 30 minutes. While trying to get pictures
of the Sanderling, I see a very dark bird far out on the water. I turn the scope in its direction and find
another jaeger. This one is very dark
brown and different that the one seen previously. I send an email to Lauren Harter and she
informs me the David Vander Plyum is in the field also looking at a
jaeger. After phone calls & text
messages we determine that David & I are looking at the same jaeger feeding
on a dead fish and we both conclude that it is a Parasitic Jaeger. After I take the best photographs I can manage
from this distance (digitscoping, long lens camera, flying, swimming) I meet
David, Michael Lester, & Andrew Eberly at Mesquite Bay south view point
hoping for a less distant look. David
finds the bird; it was not less distant and flying directly away to the south. I end up back at the red & white lighthouse
on Pittsburgh Point. After a few minutes
of not seeing any jaegers, I return to my hotel for a short rest. Then before sunset return to the lighthouse
and let it get dark. What a fabulous
day!
I am at it again early Tuesday 23rd. My plan is to leave Lake Havasu City by noon
so that I can get home at a reasonable hour.
Starting again just before 7AM, I search the lake from the red &
white lighthouse, Windsor Beach, Mesquite Bay South, Site 4, and Rotary
Park. I returned to the hotel, closed my
eyes for about five minutes, checked out, and started the drive home. I thought about stopping at BWD but that was
about it, a thought.
What a week! The year list climbs by five and I am at 390. Only ten more species to go! Ten more difficult species!
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