Close, but no Saguaro

April is migration time, both for birds, and their devotees. I thought I would spend this April in Florida. However, due to inadequate planning - which I admit may be the only kind of which I am capable - I opted an auto trip, much closer to home.

Southeast Arizona is an extraordinary local for birds, so it became my destination. Left home yesterday, and today I started my birding tour with the Sonora Desert Museum just outside of Tucson.

 The last time I visited the museum was in 1999. The museum is actually more of a zoological & botantical gardens carved out of the natural desert landscape. Not much interesting to tell of my little tour of the facility other than what happened before I even made my way to the front gates.

Two museum employees with long poles were poking around in the desert shrubbery. I thought 'Rattlesnake!'

They told me they were after a devilishly tricky critter that was eating up all the delicate and rare lizards in a zoo exhibit - a roadrunner. They were not running a Roadrunner cafe so the bird was being coaxed into finding it's lunch elsewhere.

I was amused;The roadrunner in question, was not.

When I left, the bird was still reluctantly traveling three feet forward & two feet back, with the men and poles in pursuit.






The Museum was as nice as I remembered it to be, and as with my last visit, I discovered the free parking lot was as much fun for a birder as the pay-to-get-in facilities. When I left the park I meandered the parking lot, finding uncooperative photograph-wise Gambel's Quail, lots of Verdin (a desert tit) and a nice cooperative Curve-billed Thrasher.

I said the bird was cooperative. I did not say it wasn't cranky.

Next I visited the western half of Saguaro National Park, located just a jog up the road from the Museum. Half way there before it dawned on me (big DUH here) I was wrong thinking this was my first visit to the Saguaro. Should have realized if I visited the Sonora Desert Museum, would I have not visited Saguaro Park?  Despite my temporary brain strain, I enjoyed my brief park visit and drove its auto tour to view sweeping vistas of towering Saguaro cacti. I think I stared at a b'jillion holes in the cactus hoping for an Elf Owl to look back at me, but no such luck.

View from the Saguaro National Park's visitor center

Forest of Saguaro

I feel thirsty and hot just looking at this otherwise awesome scenery

After my scenic drive, I realized how wise I have been to keep my home away from deserts. The arid look and dusty feel leave me feeling drained just to look it all. I won't say I wasn't a tad disappointed that I didn't spot any new bird species, but this is only day one of my SE Arizona sojourn. Tucson isn't as far south or as far east as I intend to go. So after a pleasant afternoon, I drove off to where I am spending the next two nights, in the southeastern mountains, in the town of Sierra Vista. There I found a tiny & old but clean & cheap motel from which I will bird the area the next couple of days or more. Wish me luck!

The Cactus Wren is standing on Saguaro Cactus flower stalks.
Poor me! Those flower buds totally creep me out - look like pimples.

Yay! First lifer for 2014 & About Time

I got up last Thursday morning in my usual state of grumpy and shlumpy. Bleery eyed, I perused my email and saw this message from birder buddy Don, message header: Marsh Sandpiper, message content: Ready?

HELL yeah I was ready!  I immediately went on line. Found out an astute birder just outside of Dixon (about a 45 minute drive from my house) looked into a irrigation type ditch and spotted a 'different' looking shorebird. He reported it to one of the area's premiere birders and shortly thereafter all hell broke loose. There was a mega rarity vagrant bird in Yolo County.

The Little Bunting I missed out on
NOT on my life list
photo by lucky & talented birder, Rob Fowler

This Marsh Sandpiper is yet another Eurasian juvenile bird with no sense of direction. Only once before has one ventured into the lower 48 states. I'm still smarting from my having not gone to see another Eurasian bird - Little Bunting - that meandered into Humboldt County around Christmas. That little bird ought to have been my Christmas present to myself, but I stalled.  End result; nothing ventured, nothing new on your life list. So back in December I went all Scarlet O'hara, raising my thwarted fist to the sky, swearing 'As God is my witness, I shall never miss a rarity again!'

Determined not to miss this one I was out the door in under an hour. Of course, being an idiot, instead of following the directions given in the birding report, I navigated via Google. Said drive was beautiful, taking me through the River Delta, along the shores of the Sacramento River. It put me onto Liberty Road - on the wrong side of the river. Felt like a moron. Took another hour to drive around to the correct side of the river.

Friday afternoon, midday Marsh Sandpiper hopefuls

I arrived at the Marsh Sandpiper site midday Saturday. I wasn't the only one there. The Sandpiper was discovered the previous evening, and as many as 100 birders saw it

The gray span to the right of everyone is actually a far side of an irrigation type ditch, dropping about 6 ft down, with a mud bottom.

When rare birds fly in, it is rather like an impromptu, unplanned get-together for birders from all over the west coast to meet up. There are birders who only know each other from previous stake-outs for rare birds.

I hung about for a few hours, then after conversing with other birders on a game plan, I decided to come back at dawn Saturday morning. Come Saturday in the wee hours, I drove hopefully towards the outskirts of the tiny town of Dixon. The sun was adding shades of pink to the sky when I drove in, lugging my spotting scope about a quarter mile to join the teeming mass of birders.

I was about to give up and lament that I would never see the bird when a cry went up, "There it is! The smallest of those three flying in!"

I was on the bird with binoculars quickly and watched in rapt awe. At one point the little guy flew so close I lowered my binoculars so I could stare at it with my bare eyes. Woah... a true Audubon moment.


The bird landed about a mile up the ditch but I stayed put. I was rewarded  - after ten minutes or so, the bird flew back, landing in front of us all, in the ditch. This is where the story goes all Claire-like.  I wanted to digiscope a shot with the iphone through my spotting scope. As I watched the sandpiper meandering in the puddle, feeding, I dug frantically through my pockets and could not find the eyepiece for my iPhone. Finally I resorted to just holding the iPhone to the scope eyepiece but shots taken that way are never quite up to snuff. Oh well.

Greater Yellowlegs (L), my Lifer Marsh Sandpiper (R)

Marsh Sandpiper on left

SIGH! As you can see above, my resulting photos were crap. Insult to injury, it was only after the bird finally flew off, leaving behind happy birders (minus ONE), did I find the missing eyepiece in 'the vault'. Meaning I'd stuffed it down my t-shirt & forgot where I put it. *sigh* Yet another precious Claire moment. I was so annoyed, but oh well, I had my first lifer of 2014. Nothing, not even crap photos can take that away from me.

The Hookupz below is actually a wonderful tool, that works with my binocs and my spotting scope - that is when I manage to have it with me. Best $15 I ever spent.
 

My wonderful $15 digiscope tool
lets me use my iPhone camera
to take photos with my binocs and
spotting scope

Whatever floats her boat... er, her nest

After running a couple of errands today, I was a couple of minutes from home when I passed a vacant corner lot. I caught a glance of what I thought was a sitting duck in my periferal vision. Curious, I did a U-turn and drove back to see what the heck had chosen such a curious spot for a nest.  I took the shot below with my iphone, Zeiss binoculars and a handy $15 thingamajig that holds the two together.

The tiny red arrow points to the sitting, so-called duck

The bird in question was no duck, nor was it a chicken as I next guessed. It turned out to be a hen turkey.  She settled on this crazy spot, that is maybe five miles from the American River where one might normally expect a turkey to set up housekeeping.

It's a difficult job but she's dedicated

She seems... annoyed. Is it something I said?

UPDATE:  I took the photo above on March 31st. I've been by to check on her several times since then, when I happen to be in her vicinity. She's still setting. Today her back feathers were poofy so she looked like a basketball. It was a warm afternoon so I know her feathers were raised to let heat escape her body. But when I drove up she lowered her feathers too look smaller so I had to slink away so she would not become overheated due to my presence. Wish I could set up a lean-to for her. For that matter, wish I could give her food and water too but sometimes a human has to just mind her own turkey business and leave well enough alone. Good luck with your eggs & your family-to-be old girl.

At least a half dozen empty eggshells

Final Update, May 2nd: Having just returned from Arizona, even before I picked up my held mail, I trekked to see how my turkey friend was faring. Success! The hen is gone, and all that is left are at least a halfdozen eggshells, I was able to count through the fencing.

I don't know where the little hen went to with her new family, but I certainly wish them all the best of luck, and NO effing cats.