Hey ya’ll,

Don’t know how much of a blip this’ll make on the cosmic radar, but given my impending move to Mongolia, I’m going to gently retire this blog. But lest my 2.5-3 readers find that this news dictates they be placed on Suicide Watch, be well comforted: I’ve begun another.

The new blog is called Dreaming of Danzan Ravjaa and you can find it here. It will cover religion, culture, adventure and, of course, the birdlife I encounter during my stay in Mongolia. I’ve already begun posting, to give some background to this crazy enterprise, but don’t actually arrive until March 19 (in time for spring migration!)

I think Surfbirds is a fabulous site and I thank them not only for giving me this space for my inarticulate babblings, but for the others who shared their avian exploits in corners of the world I may never visit.

And if you ever find yourself in Ulaan Baatar (don’t pooh-pooh it — you never know, believe me), look me up and we’ll sling on the bins and tromp the steppe.

Now, if I could just encounter lifer #500 (might be the Northern Shrike that was just reported 20 miles east of Flagstaff!)…

Birding is at its worst when it becomes arbitrary and conceptual, full of what we Buddhists call discursive thought. Consider, for example, my teeth-grinding slog toward my 500th life bird.

Internet queries had kicked up a guy named Chris who was willing to squire me about for a day of birding the legendary mid-coast Delaware refuges and environs. We did so yesterday, a freakishly warm day that seemed to hold such promise. The list of possible lifers was mouth-watering: Short-eared and Snowy Owl, Eurasian Wigeon, Snow Bunting, Lapland Longspur, Nelson’s Sharp-tailed Sparrow, Sedge Wren, Clapper Rail, and a just-reported, super-rare Barnacle Goose!

Well, Caesar-like, I will reserve ornate descriptions only for my triumphs. Suffice to say I breezed by the description in the guidebook of these refuges’ “lull in January”. Even so, many of these species had been reported just days previously, but somehow we bombed on the lot.

Except Snowy Owl.

We started at a place called Port Mahon, along a road that parallels a vast marsh that recently was the site for a reported group of 11 (!) Short-eared Owls hassling a Snowy. A thorough scan produced about a billion acres of short reeds…and a distant harrier. A drive to the end of the road provided the added excitement of one juvenile Great Black-backed Gull.

On the drive out, Chris suddenly yelped and stomped on the brake. There, on a piling not twenty yards to our left, and regarding us with haughty disdain, sat a fabulously gorgeous 1st year female Snowy Owl. With the backdrop of the mists rising off the bay, it will be an indelible memory.

And that, bird #499, had to sustain us for the rest of the day.

I will say that Chris was a perfectly amiable companion, with the ardent zeal of the recent convert, and the little fishing and farming villages in that area are utterly charming. It was a fine day out, even if it ended with scanning thousands of Canada Geese against fading light, at an uncomfortable distance prescribed by private property lines, for an uncooperative Barnacle and what may or may not have been a Northern Shrike; I just think my next visit to the area will be when it’s not in quite such a “lull”.

Blogging’s been tres erratique, I know, but current events have forced it a little lower on the priority scale.

Looks like I’m going to Mongolia for sure, with a working departure date of March 19 on a indefinite stay. So my little typing fingers have been busy with far-flung correspondence and mad research. I’m now at the point of recognizing I’ll never be ready; I just gotta hold my nose, squinch my eyes and jump.

One cool outcome is contact from a dude named Axel, who bills himself as the Oriental Bird Club rep for Austria and Germany. A hotly contested posting, I’m sure, but he dropped a veritable crapload of high-quality intel on me from his extensive experience birding Mongolia. Invaluable. He gets a big ol’ nomad bear hug from me.

So. In between dreams of Clamorous Reed-Warbler, White-backed Woodpecker, and Mongolian Lark, I’ve been doing a bit of birding here on a family visit to Maryland that I neglected when I actually lived here.
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Arizona is a famous producer of cognitive dissonance.

Woke up this morning and had to brush fresh snow off my windshield so I could go get cat food for my little yowling girl. Sullen clouds obscured the hilltops all day until I finished my errands and meetings and could scamper out to the Sedona Wastewater ponds.

It’s been bitter at higher elevations and I reasoned that since the lakes and ponds are reported to be frozen over, the cool waterfowl would be wintering here in the valley.

Approaching the first large pond, I saw a new bird for the patch, Canada Goose, believe it or not. But then a large, slumbering lump among the usual suspects caught my attention.

And there I was, squinting through the freezing drizzle at a Common Loon and for a split second I thought, “How the hell’d I get to Minnesota?” It’s an excellent bird for the valley. The local guidebook says the last observation was ’96, though there may well be other records.

I last saw one back in March of 2002 (I think. There may have been an intervening sighting at Ashurst in between) but it was roundly ignored because we had driven 3 hours to Lake Havasu to witness the stunning sight of a Yellow-billed Loon diving within 20 feet of the dock where we stood.

I don’t even know how to process this, but it looks I’ll be going on an extensive journey next year, to include Mongolia, Eastern Tibet and South India, perhaps followed by an extended stay in Mongolia. The trip is a pilgrimage of sorts, but you know I’ll have my bins!

Departure would likely be May or June, starting in Ulan Bator and working west. I’d like to correspond with anyone who has experience birding these areas. I’d also appreciate up-to-date info on the best guidebooks, etc.

And fear not. I’ll take my pooter and blog from the wilds!

Birding friends are great. But birding friends who build fabulous houses in one of the country’s hottest avian meccas and invite you for a long weekend indicate a karmic reward for which you are certain you are not worthy (but you damn well go for the weekend anyway, and you bring really good presents).

My friend Gary and his partner Ingrid have just traded one artsy/hippie AZ oasis (Jerome) for another (Patagonia). Patagonia (and the adjacent Sonoita Creek Preserve) is, of course, one of the many legendary birding spots in Santa Cruz County, which borders Mexico.

In one (probably unrepeatable) episode last May, I picked up Violet-crowned Hummingbird, Northern Beardless-tyrannulet, Gray Hawk, Thick-billed Kingbird, Black-bellied Whistling Duck, Common Ground-dove, Neotropic Cormorant, Black-capped Gnatcatcher, Rose-throated Becard and Varied Bunting as lifers one morning before breakfast, also picking up Yellow-billed Cuckoo as a state bird. Can you imagine?

None of these birds are present this time of year, but I had good results nonetheless. Still full from Thansgiving dinner, the first order of business on Friday morning was speeding back to San Pedro House, since I wasn’t with Tom Linda and his aura of kingfisher-repellent.

At Kingfisher Pond there were a couple of birders, including two photographers at the far shore, crouching over mammoth lenses. We circled around to them and one asked, “Are you looking for the kingfisher?” “You bet,” I replied. “It’s just on the shore here. You should be able to see it over this rise.”

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Watch out. The next report may be hell freezing over. It’s been raining for two solid days here in Sedona and the Verde Valley, snowing like crazy up in Flagstaff, provoking rumors that the Arizona Snowbowl will open for skiing this weekend (confirmed! they got 28″ of snow out of this storm) in the San Francisco Peaks. We’ve had more than 4″ of rain this month alone, a miracle.

So, since it was intermittently pouring yesterday, the only logical move was to go birding. Actually, the first plan to head up to the Grand Canyon area to take advantage of the Pine Grosbeak irruption was aborted by mental images of us slowly succumbing to hypothermia in a battered Nissan, an ignoble end. But try as I might to ignore a report of Lawrence’s Goldfinches within striking distance, greater forces compelled me to strap on my galoshes and go.
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Here’s the list of 99 species seen during Tom Linda’s and my weekend exploring the Sulphur Springs Valley, Chiricahua Mountains, San Pedro River and Avra Valley Wastewater Treatment Ponds. Lifers are in bold and state birds are in italics:

1. Eared Grebe
2. Pied-billed Grebe
3. Great Blue Heron
4. Black-crowned Night Heron
5. White-faced Ibis
6. Canada Goose
7. Snow Goose
8. Ross’ Goose
9. Mallard
10. Northern Pintail
11. American Wigeon
12. Northern Shoveler
13. Green-winged Teal
14. Canvasback
15. Redhead
16. Ring-necked Duck
17. Greater Scaup
18. Bufflehead
19. Ruddy Duck
20. Hooded Merganser

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Just back from a three-day jaunt to far SE Arizona with my birding buddy Tom Linda, mind reeling from new habitats, life and state birds, and sketchy lodging and vittles.

Got off a little later than planned Friday, the first stop being the Rousseau Sod Farms east of Phoenix, chasing reported Lapland and McCown’s Longspurs. Neither of us thought we had been there, but when we approached, we realized we had just blocked it out as a coping mechanism. Some time last year, we had spent more time than grown men ought sorting through American Pipits, looking for a reported Sprague’s. Now you have to understand, “sorting through” means scanning what seems like about 5000 acres of flat grass and irrigation pipes. Put in scientific terms, there were >1 zillion pipits, sprinkled with Killdeer, Least and Western Sandpipers, Horned Larks, Great-tailed Grackles and Brewer’s Blackbirds. But no longspurs, despite about 2 hours’ search. We grumped out of there and on to Willcox. Checked in at a Motel 8. For those of you overseas, this is funny because all over America is a chain called “Motel 6″. So we reveled in being situated in a room that was 2 better. Sampled the local BBQ, the result of which was 36 hours of Krakatoan flatulence. In certain situations, that might be horrifying. For two guys on a birding trip, it was endlessly funny.
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