Dermot Breen's Blog: cinnamon teal

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Arizona 8th February 2015

We headed into the San Rafael Ranch State Park early in the morning. The main aim here was Baird's Sparrow, a scarce wintering grassland species which is found on a high grassland plateau in the park. Temperature dipped below freezing on the way up to the plateau but quickly warmed up. We saw several Baird's along with numerous Savannah Sparrows. Most were only seen in flight as we walked across the open landscape but one did show rather well but it still wasn't the easiest to photograph. After trying a few other sites in the State Park we headed down into the small town of Patagonia for lunch. A quick look in some pine trees along the main street failed to produce a wintering Yellow-throated Warbler and Red-breasted Nuthatch. We also tried Paton's Hummingbird Haven on the outskirts of the town. While it wasn't exactly coming down with hummingbirds there was an excellent selection of garden birds attracted to the many feeders.
Our last site of the day was Patagonia Lake State Park. This is a well known site for wintering rarities. It's also a good site for Elegant Trogon. A young birding couple that we had met at the last site had seen one here only the previous day. On the lake there was a good selection of duck including our first Mexican Mallards. These are split by the IOC and apparently as genetically distinct as Mottled Duck are from Mallard. There were some quality passerines in the surrounding wooded areas such as Grey Flycatcher, Black-throated Grey Warbler and Cassin's Vireo. We failed in our trogon quest which was a bit of a pity since they look like great birds.

Baird's Sparrow, honest!

Canyon Towhee

"Lilian's" Eastern Meadowlark

Male Shore/Horned Lark

Female Shore/Horned Lark

Savannah Sparrow

Canvasbacks

Canvasback

Canvasbacks

Cinnamon Teal

Blue-winged & Cinnamon Teal

Male & female Mexican Mallard

Male Mexican Mallard

Female Mexican Mallard

Pied-billed Grebe

Audubon's Warbler

Black-throated Grey Warbler

Chipping Sparrow

Cassin's Vireo

Canyon Wren

Grey Flycatcher

Gila Woodpecker

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

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.