Mad AZ Monk

Jaegermeisters--Updated

Scooted back to Ashurst Lake for another look at the Long-tailed Jaeger and, hopefully, the Sanderling I dipped on yesterday. I'm happy to report that both were on fine display. The Sanderling is, completely unexpectedly, my third lifer this month, and 26th of the year from the ABA region. Anyway, here's a portrait of our rare lovely for you all to enjoy, courtesy of Jeff Estis, using a lens that looked like it could have analyzed the bird at the sub-atomic level:

Update -- Here's the Sanderling. Mr. Estis takes a hell of a nice photo, doesn't he?

Arizona Is So Damn Awesome!

Checked in at my local internet bird forum at 3:30 p.m. and just blinked at it. A total four-alarm bird had been seen at Lake Ashurst near Flagstaff at 10 a.m. by a reliable birder and not one of my (possibly soon-to-be-ex-) friends called me. I frantically phoned around to learn when it was last seen, and when I heard that one of the ace local birders was up there, I said screw it, and jumped in the car.

Got caught behind an agonizingly slow Missourian going up Oak Creek Canyon but eventually braked in a cloud of dust at the lake's south end. Hustling down to lakeside, the first birds I saw were two Willets. Excellent birds, my first for the county, and I nearly kicked them aside to get in position for the other.

Scanning the lake revealed small knots of ducks, four White-faced Ibis, a Wilson's Phalarope and some distant terns, but not the prize I sought.

Then BAM! everything scattered. "What the hell," I thought, just as a Peregrine Falcon streaked in like a missile and terrorized the lake for a few minutes. It felt like concrete hardening in my chest as the "everyone's-going-to-have-seen-this-bird-but-me" fugue tuned up in my head.

I shambled away, thinking I'd just drive to other side of the lake and see if one of the terns was a Common, which I need for ABA. Next thing I knew I was in a cartoonish, eyeball-popping freeze. There, happily feeding on the bank, stood my bird: a juvenile Long-tailed Jaeger.

The bird was so fearless, I came within 10 yards and just drank it in--the complex plumage and the fact that it was even there at all. Checking in at the Arizona Bird Committee site, it seems that this is the 11th state bird seen in 9 sightings, three of which had been found dead. The last record was from 1996. A great lifer and a massive bird for Arizona.

But check this out. In Arizona, middle of the desert, no coastline, I have seen my life Yellow-billed Loon, Sabine's Gull, White-winged and Surf Scoters, Pacific Loon, and now the jaeger. I think this is #316 for the state, having lived here less than four years.

In my excitement, I didn't even look hard for another potential lifer that had been seen there today, a juvie Sanderling. But my friend and I will go back tomorrow morning early. Stay tuned...

Casualties of the Ground War and the Air War

The leading edge of the southbound migration is beginning to drop into Arizona, but that doesn't mean that seeing the birds isn't fraught with danger.

I was in Flagstaff yesterday on business. What business, you ask? Well, interviewing someone for a magazine story I'm writing on alpaca ranching (really). But you probably already guessed that.

Anyway, my friend Tom and I arranged to zip out for a late afternoon scan of Ashurst Lake. Seemed quiet at first, save the ubiquitous Osprey and three interesting blobs at the south end.

Driving there, the blobs magically became very nice birds -- three Marbled Godwits. Admiring those, we watched a flitty flock make its way toward us from the north side. I should have known that the Eternal Axiom of Birding was in play -- after you see a lifer once, you see the bird everywhere. In this case, a delightful flock of 11 Black Terns, eventually joined in aerobatic competition by several Common Nighthawks.

I was really digging all this, kind of mesmerized by the feeding terns, lulled by the sunset, when Tom's voice shouts, "Dagnabbit!"

I turned to see him near water's edge, shin-deep in rich, black, volcanic muck and doing those moves where you try to haul a foot out but all that happens is you spring back to your original position. I wanted to help, really I did, but I figured what use would I be when I couldn't even see through my tears of laughter?

Tom made it out, his boots encased in three inches of cold mud. I tried to cheer him up by observing that once he peeled the mud off, he'd have the prettiest feet in Flagstaff. His look suggested that he was seriously weighing whether to drive me back to town.

But, as we know, karma is as karma does.

More alpaca business took me in the other direction today, toward Prescott. I wrapped it up in time to check a body of water there called Watson Lake. It's a nice deep lake with one marshy end, just like we like it. And the waning rays of the Arizona sun were illuminating the unusual yellow rock formations on the east side called the Granite Dells. Lovely.

Scanning among the mobs of breeders, I counted 27 loafing Double-crested Cormorants (one of the funniest moments in my early birding career was proudly announcing to my housemate that I had just seen my first Double-necked Cormorant...) and then was startled by a mass of white. Closer inspection revealed ~75 Black-necked Stilts, flying and landing, flying and landing, as though they were being manipulated from above by a single set of strings.

Then, near the far shore (of course) I saw a patch of white on a snag. I could make out it was a tern, somewhat small with a black cap and white body, leaving really only two likely choices.

So, what did I do? Got down to the nearest point to it and waited for it to fly. For an hour. And then quick as a wink, it did. I scrambled up and tracked it along the shore, alarming some domestic geese into raucous honking, and then I stopped and concentrated. Really staring, I was trying so hard to pick out the salient details that I barely registered a rush of wings, an audible grunt (I swear) and thwack! something the size of a ping-pong ball hit the front of my right shoulder.

For the first time in my birding life, I'd been dive-bombed with bird poop. I whirled about, but the culprit had disappeared (though, by the looks of its missile, a duck). By the time I regained my composure enough to check back for the tern, it had returned to its inscrutable perch. I'm fairly sure I heard Tom's laughter on the wind.

Thirty minutes later, the bird got into motion again, and I determined it was a Forster's Tern, not the Common I need for a state bird. But still. Some nice sightings and a story that made me chuckle all the way home.

Anticipaa-a-tion

Talked with my sister today, who just got back from a New England trip. She told me that plans were cookin' for a family reunion in mid-July of next year in the western lake country of Rangeley, Maine.

Did I get misty about beloved, long-lost cousins? Start sending notes to my (imaginary) filthy rich aunt telling her how she "was always my favorite"? Fret about the growing gulf between my waistline and the size of my current bathing suit?

Yeah right.

You know what I did. I swiveled around, snatched A Birder's Guide to Maine off the shelf, and started counting up potential lifers. Among the definite breeders, there are 11. Here they are:

Tennessee, Cape May, and Mourning Warblers
Black-backed Woodpecker
Boreal Chickadee
Spruce Grouse
Bicknell’s Thrush
Yellow-bellied Flycatcher
Pine and Evening Grosbeaks
White-winged Crossbill

Not a bad potential haul, huh?

But how's this for a potentially monumental snag? July was the month floated for a possible trip to eastern Tibet. The trick will be convincing my mother that I'm agonizing over the choice.

My Tern!

Took a tour around the Sedona Wastewater Plant (or, as the marketing folks are trying to call it, the Sedona Wetlands--well, there's land, and some of it's wet, so...) on Saturday morning.

It's still that funny August time. There's some southern movement of the early landbird breeders. Nashville Warblers, for example, are being reported in good numbers throughout the state. But just a trickle of shorebirds and no waterfowl yet. And then, the juvies and molters make some ID's a real challenge. I was puzzling quite a bit over warblers in the pondside tamarisks and now feel that the majority of what I was seeing were juvie female Yellow Warblers. The other double-take birds were the pale, teenage coots (slouching at the corner of the pond, smoking).

As I was scowling at all of this, a slender, agile flyer flitted into view--a tern!

Now, terns may provoke stifled yawns amongst you seashore sophisiticates, but please recall I'm birding in the middle of the Arizona desert. So if you meet me, have some courtesy. Have some sympathy, and some taste.

Ahem. Anyway, it didn't take much inspection to determine my bird was a much sought-after (by me, anyway) Black Tern, an unexpected lifer. And I spent the next 20-30 minutes marvelling at its aerobatics and admiring its sleek lines and snappy garb.

I drove home well-satisfied. But what is it about birders and our unchecked desire mechanisms? This week, I'm beyond swamped with work, and two major eastern strays -- Prothonotary Warbler and Eastern Phoebe -- have been reported in the general vicinity. I'll probably have to pass and my housemate will have to put up with the muttering and sharp whacking at the keyboard.

With the tern, however, I'm really sneaking up on the magic 500 on my life list (tern was #486). So I may divert myself with scheming how I can scoop up 14 lifers before the end of the year.

Update From Hell

Upon mildly rebuking the source of my flawed Burrowing Owl directions, he writes back saying, "You went to the Gilbert Wildlife Area? You were supposed to go to the Gilbert Water Ranch. Didn't I mention that? It's new, by the way, and not in the guidebook."

10-4, good buddy. Everyone assumes Sedonans are psychic. I'm gonna make him reimburse me for Gatorade and one pair of shredded shorts. And hold me by the hand and take me right to the owl next time.

Forgot to mention that I cracked 100 species at my local patch (scenic Sedona Wastewater). #100 was Solitary Sandpiper (just one, strangely, all alone) and the same morning found a Nashville Warbler.

But all that fades into abject triviality (as though it had monumental importance before) with the news that a Red-footed Falcon has appeared at the Martha's Vineyard airport. First N.A. record. 2500 miles away. I mean, I fantasized about seeing this bird when I was in France (I've heard France provokes other fantasies in men, but I don't understand this).

All I can say is I better see a Black Tern this fall or I'm gonna get in touch with my inner postal worker.

A Tiny Taste of Hell

I like to think of it as a brush with eternal damnation that will drive me to the assiduous practice of repentance and virtue.

I'm speaking, of course, of birding in Phoenix in August. Airport trips took me there Monday and today, with some time to kill. Did I take in an air-conditioned matinee? Seek temporary work in a meat locker? No. I deliberately stomped around outside and squinted at vicious lakesurface glare as the temperature hovered around 112. Are our scientists working on a medication for this illness?

Getting a late start Monday, I only had time to chase one bird. It required a drive out to far NE PHX, to an area called Fountain Hills. It's great, my (climate-controlled office denizen) friends assured me. The man-made lake there has the tallest fountain in the world. 300 feet. Wowzers.

So I find the lake and a sign: fountain broken. Right. Probably melted in the sun. Anyway, no matter. I'm there to snag a good state bird: Brown Pelican. For some reason, AZ is hosting a bonanza of pelicans this year, with mixed results. Even the evening news did a story on pelicans mistaking asphalt heat shimmer for bodies of water and attempting graceful landings in the middle of the highway. Some are going to hit their wintering grounds with serious road rash and a rousing story.

Of course, I can't figure out which is the pumphouse by the bank where the pelis are supposed to hang and I get in and out of the car all around the lake. On my last sweat-sodden stop, cursing under my bins, thar she blows, a lovely specimen gliding with improbable grace tight to the surface only to suddenly bank up and plunge straight down. Apollo is instantly forgiven. Great bird. Actually, birds. There were three.

This morning the target was Burrowing Owl, a nemesis bird. Armed with vague directions, I visit the Gilbert wastewater ponds in SE PHX (only 105 today). A fenced-in viewing platform only permitted partial views of the whole complex. Good views, though. I estimate an astounding 150 Long-billed Dowitchers along with good numbers of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, Black-necked Stilts, peeps aplenty, ubiquitous Killdeer, and one lone American Avocet. But no owl.

I decided to hop a wall in. A thorough search revealed none of the directions' landmarks but did drain me of all internal moisture. And clambering back over a fence, I ripped my shorts so badly it looked like I was attacked by ferrets.

Nevermind. Off to the Chandler airport, where a guide to the county assured me the owls may be found happily cohabiting with the local ground squirrels. Ratty fields produce a couple of desultory squirrels, loath to scamper even slightly in such heat. They showed little interest in my gaze. The local constabulary, on the other hand, took an intense interest.

Frowning at my license, the cop said, "So. Mr. Fry. May I ask what you were doing just now, exactly?"

"Um, looking for a bird, officer. An owl, in fact. A Burrowing Owl, " said I, brightly, hoping it sounded more like "Just enjoying the morning sunshine, sir" than "Plotting the ultimate destruction of the infidel, if Allah wills it, white devil."

The folded arms and hard stare were not encouraging.

Tossing out a light laugh, I stammered, "Must seem kind of funny, ha ha, in these times, looking at airplanes through binoculars, doesn't it? Ha. Ha." He's not going to strip me naked and put a leash on me, is he? Oooh, I hope not. I do not photograph well these days.

The cop's voice sunk alarmingly low. "That's actually a military base. Where you were looking. Not so funny."

"But it says in this book owls would be here!"

"May I see that?"

And, thankfully, that is precisely what it said. He handed it back, fixed me with a "one false move and it's one way to Guantanamo" glare and sent me on my way. I decided to bird elsewhere.

A couple more stops turned up another Brown Pelican but little else of interest. A couple of wild goose chases perpetrated by a guidebook that in seven short years has become hopelessly obsolete (owl habitat seems to be getting torn up for Indian casinos. How's that for irony?) made me throw in the (soaking) towel and skedaddle back to Sedona, where it was a balmy 98.