December 30, 2005
Friday CBC Scouting and Arizona Photos
I spent this morning - now having recovered from jet (and airport) lag - socuting for tomorrow's Brunswick-Freeport Christmas Bird Count. Jeannette and I (and Rich will be joining us tomorrow) cover the western edge of the circle, the area inland of I-295 basically from a curving line drawn from the Freeport Visitor Center on Rte 1 through the Desert of Maine through Verrill Road in Pownal, and up to Florida Lake (very roughly anyway). While most of the other count parties will be enjoying the diversity of birds on the extensive shorelines of the peninsulas and islands of upper Casco Bay, Jeannette and I will be lucky to get one or two ducks species (usually American Black Duck and maybe Mallard) on the one little corner of tidal creek that passes under I-295 at the Yarmouth/Freeport line.
But, what we do get to enjoy is the peace and quiet of walking mostly backroads, tallying common yard and feeder birds. The mixed forest and amount of bird feeders in this area are ripe to produce a great tally of winter finches. And, since this is a "winter finch year" we should have some fun! In fact, while scouting the northern half of the circle this morning, I ran into 3 or 4 flocks of Common Redpolls - a very good sign. One flock of 20 were in our Pownal yard, that JUST makes it into the circle! I spent more time driving than birding this morning, checking for new feeders and new plantings, and crossing off shrubby fields that are now new houses. Lots of notes on the map were made this morning, in order to be most efficient and productive tomorrow.
After finishing my scouting for the morning, I took a quick trip down to Portland's Dragon Field, hoping that a Northern Shrike that was reported there two days ago decided to stikc around long enough to be added to my Dragon Field list. It did not. But, the local Red-tailed Hawk pair put on an excellent show, making the trip more than worthwhile.
So, as I prepare to bird the area around the Desert of Maine tomorrow, I thought I share some photos from my trip to the REAL desert! Happy New Year's everyone!
The Desert Botanical Gardens, Phoenix, AZ:
First life bird, Abert's Towhee:
Brewer's Sparrow:
Harris's Hawk (OK, this is really a horrible shot):
Ladder-backed Woodpecker:
Verdin:
Other fun birds:
Black-throated Sparrow:
Cactus Wren:
A familiar friend, an Ovenbird:
Papago Park:
There's a few artificial fishing ponds at the park, and the ducks there were quite cooperative, including this American Wigeon . . .
. . .and my favorite waterfowl species, the Ring-necked Duck:
A view from the park:
Now, are you ready for some football?
We are (me and some of my college buds here):
The sea of red at the pregame party:
Opening kickoff:
Rutgers about to take the early lead:
Although no one is ever happy about losing, this was a huge step forward for the program!
Hi from Scottsdale!
I happened upon your blog because I've got a Google alert for "Papago Park" (there are some changes in the works for Papago Park, and Google provides a good way to catch news items of interest).
I live within walking distance of the Desert Botanical Garden (I guess two miles is walking distance) right across the street from the military reservation adjoining Papago Park. I have hundreds of bird friends who wait for me to toss them some seed when I leave for work and then when I come home. These include quail, dove, pigeons (of course!), and now from looking at your pictures I learn that the ones right outside my window are Black Throated and Brewer's sparrows (the latter build nests and raise chicks under the eaves of our front porch every year). I've never seen an ovenbird, though.
Last year we had three Harris Hawks (mom, dad and chick, apparently) nesting high up in a large pine tree next door on my neighbor's lot. Unfortunately, they've moved on. Amazing birds. Pigeons stayed away while the Harris Hawks nested here, which was kind of nice, too, for some reason.
We frequently hear a pack of coyotes singing in the buttes across the street, and sometimes we actually see them walking around the neighborhood. One morning as I rode my bike to work, a coyote crossed the street maybe 50 yards from me, sailing over someone's fence pretty as you please.
I never got to see the javalina that was upsetting some of my neighbors by eating their expensive plants (except once or twice from quite a distance), but one neighbor reported seeing the sow walking up the street with her babies trotting along behind her.
Of course, we also see the occasional snake. I ran over a gopher snake on my bike in the alley behind my house one day, having not seen it in time to avoid it. A couple of months ago, what I think was a coachwhip snake was sunning itself in the middle of our kitchen floor. We managed to capture it and take it outside. Beautiful creature.
OK, I guess that's enough. I'm glad you enjoyed our little corner of the world. I sure do.
Happy New Year! Steve
ps: Heads up that the two pictures you posted of ducks are in a very large format. This is causing your text to scroll off to the right quite a ways, at least in the Firefox browser on Linux.
pps: Also, your blogging software's comment security feature isn't working properly. I did not type the numbers before previewing my comment. When I hit the Post button I expected to be prompted for the security code, and I was, but the form I was directed to did not appear. There's a line of code at the bottom of the page that says:
MT::App::Comments=HASH(0x810af50) Use of uninitialized value in sprintf at /www/httpd/cgi-bin/mt/lib/MT/Template/Context.pm line 1187.
I've learned to always back up my comments to a text editor just in case of something like this happening. Ah, technology... Cheers!
Posted by
December 31, 2005 08:38 AM
Hello!
(Munching on a piece of souvenier prickly pear cactus from the garden's guft shop as I write this . . .)
Hope all is well over in the park - glad to know someone's keeping an eye on things.
It was a great place . . . and a great half-day of birding for me, especially considering this was not a birding-oriented, per se, trip. I will certainly have to get back out there and spend some more time with your desert denizens.
That Ovenbird is a great local rarity for you . . . only a couple are seen every year in Arizona, and few if any spend the winter. This bird should be in Central or South America right now. They breed here in Eastern North America - I had 5 males on territory in my backyard this summer!
Happy New Year everyone!
-Derek
P.S. Duck photos are fixed, but I don't have an answer to that second issue - I have had the same problem myself.
Posted by Derek
January 2, 2006 01:16 PM
I especially enjoyed your picture of the Harris's Hawk perched on an amateur radio antenna - another hobby of mine! It's not easy to bgring my two passions together in any way so many thanks for the great photo!
Posted by
George/W8WHGJanuary 3, 2006 05:01 PM
Isn't that Prickly Pear Cactus Candy GREAT?!??!!?!? I LOVE IT!!! I ate sooo much of it when I lived in AZ. Just thought I'd let you know.
Luke
Posted by
Luke SeitzApril 8, 2006 08:01 AM
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