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A little less than a mile away, there is a spot where a nice population of Burrowing Owls, have been relocated in hopes of starting a new breeding population. Sneaking down the slimy bank carefully… Umm cool water on a pretty hot Arizona day! The post Owls, Owls, and more Owls in SE Arizona appeared first on 10,000 Birds.
Breeding only above treeline on windswept and desolate rock faces (or equally austere habitats on the Aleutians), the three American rosy-finches (Gray-crowned, Black, and Brown-capped) are extreme environment specialists that are endemic to North America. In the summer, they are the highest altitude breeding songbird in North America.
As many of you might know, I have been concentrating my bird efforts primarily to just one county, Pima Country which surrounds the Tucson, Arizona area. There is believed to be a very small breeding population of Mississippi Kites that occupy a small area that borders Pima and Cochise Counties. It was a youngster, but still a first!
Clapper Rails , as currently defined by the AOU, occur along the coasts of North and South America and Caribbean islands, and inland in southern California and Arizona. In California and Arizona, however, Clapper Rails are brightly colored and occur in both salt and freshwater environments.
There are two Painted Bunting populations, one that breeds along the Atlantic Coast from North Carolina to Florida and one that breeds in the interior United States and northern Mexico from southeastern New Mexico to western Mississippi. The Atlantic Coast population lingers on the breeding grounds after nesting to molt.
The population in Arizona, Utah, and Nevada was designated as such in 1996 , before the first release from Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona. It is a collaboration of Rogue and the Oregon Zoo , one of a handful of condor breeding facilities in the United States ( review here ). appeared first on 10,000 Birds.
The Osprey is one of the true cosmopolitans of the avian world, found on six continents and breeding on five. Ogren Park Allegiance Field is the home of the Missoula Osprey*, a farm team for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Most notable of all, though, is the nest at the baseball field. Because the stadium is by the river.
This strange little Empidonax flycatcher is a short distance migrant, breeding in hedges and areas of shrubby growth in the highlands and descending to reedy or scrubby wet edges in winter. Along the highway journey, the habitat shifted radically from wet evergreen forest to dry pinelands reminiscent of parts of Arizona.
Think Arizona meets Costa Rica with a Mexican twist. This poorly documented swallow is a breeding endemic to these high mountains. Otherwise, the birding here was strikingly similar to southeast Arizona: Mexican Chickadee , Brown Creeper , Painted Redstart , Yellow-eyed Junco , etc. Photo by Andrew Spencer.
These lands support countless birds, either year-round, as migratory stopovers, or as breeding grounds. In fact, the overwhelming majority of federal land is in just 11 western states (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming). But what else should birders know?
“Out West” to most Floridians might mean California or Arizona or might even refer to the Gulf Coast of Florida. Nearly every species of heron and egret in North America forage only feet away, some of them in their dazzling breeding displays. And this is where magic happens from time to time.
A Little Blue Heron/Tri-colored Heron hybrid was reported from Arizona in 1964 and a Little Blue Heron/Cattle Egret suspect was reported from California in 1989. Since then, there have been a handful of records of this rare breeding occurrence. .
After nearly a week of traveling through Arizona’s very dry southeastern corner, I decided to make a detour to Flagstaff for a change of pace, a change of scenery, and a chance at seeing an assortment of birds more typical of the Great Basin than the Sierra Madre of Mexico. Birding Trips Flagstaff woodpecker'
Avocets, Black-necked Stilts , and Spotted Sandpipers breed at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. Upon my arrival, at shortly before the 6 AM summer opening time, I ran into a fellow birder, a biology professor from Arizona name Robert Borker. Get out of the casinos and into nature!
Now free flying in California, Arizona, Utah, and Baja, condors are slowly making a comeback thanks to those, like the Center, who’ve committed to captive breeding and releasing these amazing birds. When they finally lift off, I’ve heard it said to hear the rush of wind through their wings is something you never forget.
He has visited more than 40 National Wildlife Refuges in 20 states and frequently visits NWRs in his travels, most recently Buenos Aires NWR in southern Arizona. Farallon NWR , a group of islands near San Francisco, hosts the largest colonies of breeding seabirds south of Alaska.
Although Henslow’s had been reliably found in nearby Sharon Springs for many years, the last documented sighting was in 2008, and the sighting startled longtime birders, waking them up to the fact that breeding sites in the state were rapidly being lost. birder, as in ‘who needs art?
Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in the 1980s to be part of a captive breeding program. Audubon thought there should be some wild condors to serve as “guide birds” for condors that would eventually be released from the captive breeding program. It sought an injunction preventing FWS from capturing the last five wild condors.
Instead, they are summer visitors, moving up to Colorado in the warm months to breed before returning to wintering grounds in Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico. During the summer breeding months, Lark Bunting males – a sparrow species – are jet black, their white wings contrasting beautifully with the dark bodies.
The birds living on the Baja are fulltime, breeding residents, while many of the birds will range as far north as central California, and Utah. They frequent the dry, hot desert areas, which includes Arizona, Nevada and central mainland Mexico. It would appear that this is the only bird with this capability.
If left unchecked, free-roaming cats will breed and their populations increase at locations where they find suitable shelter and food, resulting in environmental/property damage, and public nuisance. In Yuma, Arizona, they don’t take no prisoners. Trap-Neuter-Return is the only effective way to stabilize feral cat populations.
In the 70s, with the survival of the species in jeopardy, the entire wild population was captured and brought into a captive breeding program in southern California. California Condor , photo by Sheridan Woodley.
She also joyfully relates seeing through her scope “the first wild-hatched condor nestling in recorded Arizona history” (p. I ended up looking for photographs of Peregrine hack sites, captive breeding aviaries, Hawaii tropical forest, and the California Condors of the Grand Canyon on the Internet.
The birds are now breeding in the area, but are quite happy to keep coming to the daily feeding station in groups of over 100 birds. This year, I was able to photograph the ultra rare Rufous-capped Warbler , high in the snowy mountains of southern Arizona.
The warm, sunny climate beckons a wide variety of passerines, raptors, and shorebirds to spend the winter, inflating the species diversity to the extent that Miami-Dade can go toe-to-toe with counties in Texas and Arizona during this season.
However, as regular readers will remember, I finally defeated my nemesis bird over Thanksgiving break at Veterans Oasis Park Chandler, Arizona. This past June I was invited along by the Edmonton Nature Club on a field trip to a Piping Plover breeding site. A plover that is well worth being anyone’s Best Bird of the Year.
In 1987, only 27 were left in the wild and drastic action was taken to save the species: all remaining birds were captured, the California Condor was declared extinct in the wild, and a captive breeding program was begun, initially carried out by the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo.
I think it’s because it brings me back to my first big birding trip, to southeast Arizona, where we had tantalizing views of leaves rustling where the becards had nested but nested no more. There’s something about a Rose-throated Becard that makes my heart go pit-a-pat. I never saw the bird. Well, maybe a bit of a wing.
Local guides that I have spoken to all say that is the highest number they have ever seen as well, with the thought being that one is a breeding pair and the single, usually found farther down the canyon, is last year’s fledged bird. This is a pretty good look at the elusive Rufous-capped Warbler.
A breeding bird atlas is a special kind of book. For the nature lovers and birders who participate in breeding bird surveys, the atlas represents hours, often hundreds of hours, of volunteer time spent within a community of citizen scientists doing what they love, observing birds. So, what exactly does a breeding bird atlas contain?
Consider some of the victories: On November 5th, 2002, more than two and a half million Floridians voted "Yes" on Amendment 10 to amend the state constitution and prohibit the use of gestation crates , narrow metal cages where breeding pigs are kept for most of their lives. The full text of the amendment is available here.
Of all the hotspots in Arizona, I would have thought that numerous places other than the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum would have been more likely. The Kirtland’s Warbler is an endangered bird species that breeds primarily in the jack pine forests of northern Michigan.
Even the American Southwest is benefitting from our newly-abundant monsoon rains, with Arizona and New Mexico now mostly out of the “exceptional drought” category. While numbers were low, our first migratory Baird’s Sandpipers and Wilson’s Phalaropes had arrived from their breeding grounds up north, right on time.
we learn) that are home to coveted boreal species, breeding wood-warblers, and two species of Grouse. I have friends who talk nostalgically of birding trips with the Lane’s Guides to Southeast Arizona, or Southern California (there were eight guides in all, some co-written or updated by other birders, notably Henry Holt).
Also, the distributions of subspecies breeding in the region are clearly mapped. Also, the distributions of subspecies breeding in the region are clearly mapped. Over 2000 full-colour distribution maps for all regularly occurring species are seamlessly blended next to bird illustrations.
The photo above is a breeding-plumaged Myrtle Warbler by Kelly Colgan Azar. Write the authors: Near the border of Utah and Arizona there is a transition to a second, deeply divergent mitochondrial DNA clade (Brelsford et al. 2011), which was previously assumed to be geographically restricted to Mexico in the black-fronted warbler.
American White Pelicans spend their winter months along the Gulf states, California, parts of Arizona, and Mexico down into Central America. They migrate north through the Western United States, breeding in pockets all the way up through Canada.
6), which I can confirm is true, having seen it in Carr Canyon, Arizona. The maps are fairly complex, showing breeding range, winter range, year-round range, migration routes, times, and directions. This is followed by a page or four of Andy Birch’s lovely, detailed illustrations.
2 Responses to “Thrashing XXX&# thainamu Mar 8th, 2011 at 1:27 pm I heard and saw one of these recently when I went on a bird-watching vacation in southeast Arizona. I saw it while visiting a small botanic garden somewhere in Tucson. I had no idea I should have been embarrassed. Jochen Mar 8th, 2011 at 6:53 pm Haaaaa!
The Mexican Duck, as its name suggests, is native to Mexico and parts of the southwestern United States, and unlike the Mallard, the Mexican Duck does not have a showy male breeding plumage; both sexes are brown throughout the year. Do you prefer stability and certainty, or would you rather make changes to our lists early and often?
the same few states always come to mind first…Alaska, Arizona, Texas, and Florida. Gull-billed Terns breed in south San Diego Bay, along with Black Skimmers and several other tern species. When one thinks of taking a birdcation somewhere in the U.S., That’s where everyone goes, and for good reason. Fall through spring.
Or a birder trying to figure out if a medium-sized Myiarchus in Arizona is a Nuttings’s, Ash-throated, or Dusky-capped Flycatcher. Lee and Birch strongly believe that even look-alike flycatcher species can be identified using a holistic approach. (In The spectrograms are much easier to read in this volume, larger and darker.
Peterson Reference Guide to Sparrows of North America covers 61 species of the New World sparrow family Passerellidae that breed in Canada, the United States, and northern Mexico. Rick has also written the ABA Field Guide to Birds of Arizona and the ABA Field Guide to Birds of New Jersey and is a past beat writer for 10,000 Birds.
The Bald Eagle is one of the true American conservation success stories: the iconic national bird was listed in 1967 when there were less than 500 breeding pairs in the lower 48. Due in part to the banning of DDT, the eagle population recovered and was delisted in 2007, when there were more than 10,000 breeding pairs. (The
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