Early or Late, Urban or Rural... Take the Camera!

It's Sunday. This morning I was awake with no plans to get out of bed. It was early, but I didn't have to be anywhere for a while. Unfortunately my alarm makes a distinct click at the set time, even if the alarm is turned off. I heard the click. That always sends a pulse of adrenalin through me, as if I were one of Pavlov's dogs. I stayed in bed for a while on principle and then got up. The click meant it was 5:30 a.m., the time I got up the day before.

There was no photo of the roadrunner in this story, but this
one was seen on 3/21/2014 at Atturbury Wash. I also saw
my first black-chinned hummingbird of the year that morning.

On Saturday mornings I usually either work or I go birding--at least a little. But Sunday mornings are almost always kept free. It's a half-day when neither my wife nor I work or leave the house alone. But this morning I had to open up the Audubon library for a class given by the Sonoran Permaculture Guild, and see that it got off to a good start.

I decided to get there 15 minutes early and walk around the small, one block-square park that's just north of the office. It would be a brief stop at a postage stamp-sized park, just to say I had done some urban birding that day. And it would be pretty late in the morning; almost three hours after sunrise. I didn't take the camera, since there would be only house finches, grackles, pigeons and starlings.

From a half-block away I could see pigeons and starlings. But one of the fist birds I saw as I stepped into the park was a northern flicker (red-shafted variety). It was on the ground along the edge of the park, using its bill to flick up the dirt along the edge of the sidewalk; looking for insects like a thrasher. It was very close to me.

Then I saw a greater roadrunner on the sidewalk across the street. It was facing away from the sun with the feathers on its back parted to let sunlight warm its skin. Now I really wished I had the camera. You don't see a lot of roadrunners in midtown.

Continuing around the park I saw a hummingbird fly over and a male vermilion flycatcher in a tree (there really is one in every park!). Two Eurasian collared-doves chased each other around the park. A northern mockingbird sang and then a cardinal sang. Or was it just a northern mockingbird?

To top it off a coyote trotted along the sidewalk across the street. Surprisingly it wasn't chasing the roadrunner!

Early Spring Brings Early Spring Birds

In conservation change is usually bad. Habitats change, climates change, bird populations change. Usually they go down.

In birding, change is good. Like when the seasons change. New birds show up.

It's mid March and the Sonoran Desert winter is giving way to Sonoran Desert spring. Gardeners know there is generally no frost after March 15. With this change come the early spring birds. A good two months before the big rush of migrants through the Midwest and East, we start our migrant excitement.

This morning I heard and saw my first Lucy's warbler of the season. It was right in my own neighborhood. No photos--it moved fast and was out of sight before I could squeeze the trigger.

Sonoran Desert spring is a pleasant season bird-wise. Wintering birds linger, many stay all the way into May. You see them side by side with the incoming nesters and the migrants that are just passing through. Many are signing their hearts out. It is a noisy time.

I visited the Rillito Weed Patch last Monday and there were northern rough-winged swallows feeding. Flying in no particular direction, this way and that, a little higher a little lower, they were catching bugs on the wing. Underneath them on the ground were wintering vesper sparrows and a couple of rufous-winged sparrows.

The Rillito Weed Patch demonstrates another difference between conservation and birding, and another instance of "change is good." If you drive north on North Columbus Blvd it dead ends at the Rillito (the "Little River"--now a large dry wash). Walking north from the end of the road you look to the left and see a weedy area, full of invasive species. This is the "Weed Patch." To your right is an area that is beautifully restored with diverse native plants, sinuous re-engineered drainages and lots of habitat for native bird species. Birders have no name for that area. Nothin'. On the eBird map it's just a blank. (Pima County calls it the Rillito River Ecosystem Restoration Area.)

The restoration area has lots of birds but they are the typical Sonoran Desert species, black-tailed gnatcatchers, verdins, curve-billed thrashers. In contrast, some rare species have shown up at the Weed Patch, constituting a change from the ordinary. Dickcissel, sage thrasher, gray vireo, indigo bunting, Cassin's sparrow, yellow-breasted chat and others have appeared. The normal background desert birds are wonderful--they deserve to be counted too!

If birders ever got into landscaping on a large scale who knows what might happen! Weeds, weeds everywhere!

Rillito Weed Patch and Rillito River Ecosystem Restoration Area

Unpredictable Results, Good Finds

There was an article in the paper this morning about scientists planning unmanned missions to Europa, a moon of Jupiter. Some suspect that oceans exist under a thick layer of ice, and a recent study suggests that layer might be about 7 kilometers thick. There could be life in those oceans. There are real unknowns up there that a mission could answer.

Vermilion flycatcher at Wright Elementary in the Garden District

That's how I feel every time I go birding. I have an idea what I might find, but it's impossible to be sure and there might be surprises. Nobody can know.

I suppose this is behind a lot of hobbies. What's the next unusual stamp a stamp collector will find? What's the next rare coin? What novel chess move will your opponent make? Will you find a nugget while panning for gold? What heirloom garden plant will you try next?

This morning I took a brief spin through the Garden District Neighborhood, where I will speak to the neighborhood association on March 18. Not any surprises but 14 species was not bad for a residential area with just homes and a schoolyard.

Variant American wigeon at Ft. Lowell Park

It was interesting to see both vermilion flycatcher and Say's phoebe at the school, the same as at the schoolyard in my neighborhood. I have come to expect a vermilion flycatcher at such places but I am a little more surprised at the regularity of Say's phoebe. I guess I need to visit other schoolyards and test whether vermilion flycatcher is really more reliably found than Say's phoebe.

Then I headed to Fort Lowell Park. This proved to be a visit with 25 well-known bird friends and Sheila, overseer of the Friends of Fort Lowell Park. She was setting up for a gathering of volunteers. They were to do some maintenance at the pond where they have worked with the parks department to fence an area by the pond for ducks and other birds, and plant native plants.

Ring-necked duck at Ft. Lowell Park

Sheila pointed out the unusual American wigeon that's been there all winter--one of about 40 wigeons on the pond. A while back when I passed on Sheila's report of this bird to Mark Stevenson (the real king of Tucson urban birding!). He said he'd seen this "all-creamy-white-except-for-the-green-swirl" bird. A normal variant, he said. American wigeons usually have gray on the side of the head below the "green swirl," with bright white only on the forehead and the top of the head.

There was an impressive male ring-necked duck as well. There were no big hints of spring--I'd hoped to pick up one of the early migrants that birders are starting to report via the birding listserv (choose "Arizona and New Mexico" and hit go), but no luck there. Still it was pleasing to find a red-tailed hawk building a nest in the same tree as last year, and two Cooper's hawks cruising around together looking like fighter jets looking for a dogfight.

Inca dove along Tanque Verde Loop Road

I went on to Tanque Verde Loop Road, where it crosses the Tanque Verde Wash. I don't get why they call it "loop," since it just goes in a straight line, but this is a great birding spot. A bit dangerous walking on the shoulder of the road with cars whizzing by. But who would have predicted I would see two male and two female vermilion flycatchers chasing after each other almost continuously through the trees, or 16 common ravens soaring in big circles joined by a red-tailed hawk (which, for once, they didn't chase off).

Who would have predicted I would find that this is still one of the last strongholds in Tucson of the Inca dove. Once common around town it has almost disappeared, but I heard one behind a thick hedge and then another one came out and perched nicely for me.

Perhaps the only best harbinger of spring the whole day wasn't a bird, but a