Dermot Breen's Blog: american coot

Saturday, 14 March 2015

Arizona 10th February 2015

Our first stop today was on the outskirts of Willcox town in an area of shrubby desert. James picked up a Harris Hawk which perched up on a telephone pole. We also had a bird carrying in nest material into a small copse beside a house. It was great to see this species in the wild as opposed to in captivity. They're very popular falconry birds. This was quite a fortunate stop as it was an incredible "birdy" spot with lots of birds in the mesquite brush on both sides of the road. Today was quite a good day for sparrows. Between this and other spots during the day we had Brewer's, Black-throated, Chipping, Vespers, Savannah, Song, Lincoln's, White-crowned, Lark Bunting, Green-tailed and Canyon Towhee. Also by this roadside stop we had our only Vermilion Flycatchers of the trip(amazing looking things), Cactus Wren, Curve-billed Thrasher, Crissal Thrasher and Pryyhuloxia.

We tried the Twin Lakes on the other side of town. This can be a good spot for Chestnut-collared Longspurs with the very occasional McCown's Longspur. Our luck had been a little poor while trying for some target species on this trip and unfortunately that bad luck seemed to hold out yet again. There was a good selection of duck on the lake and we were fortunate to come across a large covey of Scaled Quail as we were leaving the site. They kept very close to cover and the best views of them were to be had as they ran rapidly from cover to cover.

Our next spot was back further South again, this time at Whitewater Draw. This wetland must have been named in a somewhat ironic manner as I've never seen such muddy water before! As we arrived into the car park we could see a large open sided barn right by the car park. Amazingly there was a roosting Great Horned Owl sat inside in the gable end completely unperturbed by the many birders watching from below. This was beginning to become a bit of a bogey bird for me. I've previously missed them on my two previous US trips so it was great to get such good views of a species that is relatively common in the States.
The other big attraction of this site is the huge roost of Sandhill Cranes. Estimates vary from 20,000 to 30,000 birds and there was certainly a good proportion of these here during our time at the site. They really are quality birds and it really was a spectacle to see and hear so many birds together. A few of the younger birds were busy displaying trying to attract a mate which consisted of jumping quite a height straight up off the ground while giving its "bugling" call. I went a bit OTT on shots of the cranes but they were very hard to resist. I've uploaded a video of part of the flock of cranes below.

Whitewater Draw Sandhill Cranes from Dermot Breen on Vimeo.

An American lady who was photographing the cranes with what appeared to be a 800mm lens, had brought along a child's buggy to carry the large lens, not a bad idea. On the way back North to our motel in Benson we passed through the famous town of Tombstone, scene of the O.K. Corral gunfight.

Brewer's Sparrow

Cactus Wren

Harris Hawk

Lark Bunting

Pryyhuloxia

Vermilion Flycatcher

Wilcox house

Outskirts of Wilcox

American Coot

Black-necked Grebe

Killdeer

Ruddy Duck

Shoveler

Great Horned Owl

Sandhill Cranes

Sandhill Crane

Sandhill Cranes

Sunday, 22 February 2015

Arizona 29th January 2015

So I've just spent the last three weeks in the States, whence the reason for no blog postings during that time. I had zero time to do any blogging as I was generally birding from dawn to dusk with the remaining few hours of the day taken up with deleting photos, getting grub, etc. I wanted to do the Arizona and California trip with Birdfinders for a while. When I contacted them (typically late for me) there was already a full bus load booked. I was then asked by James Smith who would be leading, if I would be interested in co-leading/driving a second vehicle if there was enough take-up. Thankfully we ended up with thirteen in all so it was a go. James ended being delayed by the recent heavy snow storm that hit the NE of the States but it all worked out in the end and we all arrived safely in Pheonix on the night of the 28th and we were all ready to get started the following morning.

This was my first trip to west coast of the States so I was hoping for a productive trip, I wasn't to be disappointed. The two week tour was to visit a range of sites between southern Arizona and southern California. However we would only have about two and a half days on the Pacific Ocean which would mean we would have a limited time to target coastal waders and gulls. For this reason I decided that I would hang on for an extra week after the tour finished and travel up to San Francisco to spend a bit more time with wildfowl, waders, gulls and to possibly clean up on any species (especially more northerly based) that might be missed on the tour.
More than anything I wanted to get out of Ireland for a while to get away from the cold rain and wind which has been particularly bad this winter and to actually get to do some great birding. Winter birding in Connemara can be very frustrating as the quantity and quality of bird species can be dismal when compared to even other Irish coastal areas. James did a great job of leading the tour and it all ran like clockwork. I even managed not to get lost once which was a relief!

We visited two great sites on the first full day - Gilbert Water Ranch and Boyce Thomson Arboretum. These were good sites to familiarise ourselves with the common species of this area as they had a good selection of species, most of which gave fantastic views. This was to be the only day during the three weeks that we experienced any rain but it was generally just light showers. I'll be uploading daily posting from the trip so prepare for an overload of psotings over the next month or two.