Western Screech-Owl
Our goal at Southwest Birders is to increase your enjoyment of birds and nature. We offer custom birding tours that cover California, Arizona, and Texas. Our web site offers bird-finding tips, detailed site guides, hundreds of illustrated trip reports, dragonfly pages, and quality bird & nature photos. We are always looking for interesting bird news and your trip reports--please send them our way! We hope you enjoy our web site, and welcome your feedback.
GOOD BIRDING!
Black-billed Cuckoo
For a week in mid-July we (Suzanne, Adriana, Gaby, and I) visited family in northwestern Minnesota. We started off in the Moorhead area where we explored the beautiful, flowering prairies where Bobolinks displayed and Clay-colored Sparrows buzzed. A few days later we drove north of Bemidji to the conifer & bog belt that provides such a rich environment for insects and birds alike. Here we found warblers like Ovenbird, Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Nashville, Palm, and American Redstart. The wet, open fields were good for LeConte's Sparrow and Sedge Wren. Another treat were the interesting plants in the bogs: several varieties of orchids and both carnivorous sundews and pitcher plants.
Read more about our visit to this beautiful area, and take a look at some of the photos here.
Golden-crowned Kinglet
A long weekend in the southern Sierra Nevada Mountains with the family gave us a chance to escape the Yuma heat, marvel at the magnificent giant sequoias, chase the elusive Sooty Grouse, listen to Pileated Woodpeckers hammering, enjoy the songs of Winter Wrens, and watch a host of beautiful birds in the meadows and forests.
Read about our weekend in the forest, and look at some of the photos here.
White-eared Hummingbird
Two weeks of fabulous non-stop birding with fourteen excellent Swedish birders from April 27 to May 10, 2008! Who could ask for anything more? Among the 269 birds heard and seen, we bagged some pretty fancy ones: Gull-billed Tern, Black Rail, Montezuma Quail, Gray Hawk, Common Black Hawk, Bald & Golden Eagles, Crested Caracara,Whiskered Screech-owl, Berylline & White-Eared Hummingbirds, Elegant Trogon, Arizona Woodpecker, Tufted & Buff-breasted Flycatchers, Tropical & Thick-billed Kingbirds, Gray Vireo, Black-capped Gnatcatcher, LeConte's & Bendire's Thrashers, Flame-colored Tanager, and Botteri's & Five-striped Sparrows. Other interesting critters included Sonoran Mountain Kingsnake, Gopher Snake, Yarrow's Spiny Lizard, and Javelinas.
Read about our adventures and look at some of the many photos we snapped by clicking here.
Want to see a LeConte's Thrasher?
Hear a Black Rail?
Watch dozens of wintering Ferruginous Hawks feeding on gophers?
Now you can order a copy of Finding Birds in Yuma County, Arizona. This 75-page book provides detailed accounts of the fifteen best sites in southwestern Arizona. Each chapter contains the following information: habitat, target birds, description, birding suggestions, and driving directions.
The price is only $15.00. Click here to preview a sample chapter and for ordering instructions.
Mountain Plover
Winter in Southern California is a wonderful time to look for birds. The Imperial Valley plays host to innumerable waterfowl, raptors, shorebirds, and sparrows. It is justifiably famous for its flocks of Mountain Plovers, Snow & Ross's Geese, and Sandhill Cranes. In one field we found many of the Mountain Plovers exhibiting unusual behavior; they ran around fanning and pumping their tails. I still haven't found an explanation for it. Up in the Laguna Mts. we regularly found Tricolored Blackbird and California Thrasher in Jacumba, and a good array of woodpeckers in Live Oak Springs--both sites less than an hour's drive from the Imperial Valley. Look at some of the birds that we saw here and here.
Twice a year Bob Miller does bird counts for the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). On Dec 12 he reported "
Found a pair of Burrowing
Owls at an active den which was a first for the counts I think. The entire front
of the den was covered with little black slivers looking like black ash from a fire.
Flipped my bins for a close up to discover it was all bug legs from the darkling
beetles!! No other body parts just the legs but they were all regurgitated as pellets
that were mostly broken up. LeConte’s Thrasher are in the usual places and have
seen them frequently. Today was a walk of 7.5 miles. Was amazed to have seven individual
Crissal Thrasher and two LeConte’s Thrasher for the day! Actually had four Crissals
singing at the same time just after sunrise! Also had two Gray Flycatchers in this
pocket today that were the first that I have seen out there this season."
Read more of Bob's treks here.
White-tailed Kite
During the Arizona Field Ornithologists November expedition to Yuma County, twelve of us found an excellent selection of raptors during the weekend of 17-18 November. The rarest of them was a handsome dark morph Rough-legged Hawk flying next to Mittry Lake on Sunday. The most beautiful was this White-tailed Kite pictured here, seen at Quigley Wildlife Management Area. South of town a large concentration of Ferruginous and Red-tailed Hawks worked the alfalfa fields for gophers, joined by a Golden Eagle. The entire list for the weekend was: Northern Harrier, White-tailed Kite, Cooper's Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Ferruginous Hawk, Rough-legged Hawk, Golden Eagle, Osprey, American Kestrel, Prairie Falcon, and Peregrine Falcon. On 20 Nov we went back south of town and in the course of an hour counted 29 Ferruginous and 28 Red-tailed Hawks in just two large circular alfalfa fields. And on Dec 4, Al and I re-located the immature Golden Eagle west of Ave B, just south County 19th Street. The bird-finding guide is here.
Jim Rorabaugh and I made a four-day trip to the Chiricahua and Huachuca Mts of southeast Arizona late in September. In addition to many great birds, we found lots of snakes, lizards, damselflies, and butterflies. A Mohave rattlesnake with a belly full of white-throated wood rat and a crab spider devouring a leaf-cutter bee were just two of our interesting finds. Read the story and look at the many photos here. Early in September Suzanne, the girls, and I spent a long birthday weekend at Cave Creek Ranch. We had a great time watching long-nosed bats, javalinas, and of course birds. Photos and this story are here.
Richard Lasky, Bob Miller, Jeff Coker, and I set off at 0430 to see as many birds in Yuma County as we could in a day. We started with the huge Great Horned Owl and ended with the tiny Rufous Hummingbird. In between we got many fine birds and some great mammals, too. Read about the trip and see some here.
At one time Wood Storks were common to abundant in the Lower Colorado River Valley. In 1910, a dozen were reported from Laguna Dam by J. Grinnel. But since moving here in 1991, I haven't heard of one report. Then, when taking some South African friends birding, we found these! More...
Boa & Turquoise-browed Motmot
Suzanne, the girls, and I just recently returned from a five-day adventure to the Yucatan Peninsula. In addition to awe-inspiring Mayan Ruins, scenic and refreshing cenotes (water-filled sinkholes), and fine cuisine, we saw quite a few birds. The most memorable birding experience was watching a Turquoise-browed Motmot being suffocated by a boa constrictor. More...
Black-throated Sparrow
North of Yuma is the wild and scenic Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. An inhospitable place much of the year, it comes alive with bird song and color in the springtime--and especially after a wet winter. Here is the best spot in Yuma County to find Elf Owl, Curve-billed Thrasher, Rufous-crowned & Black-chinned Sparrows, and Canyon Towhee. You'll find a bird-finding guide here, and find a host of bird, flower, and scenic photos
here.
My on-line article in Birder's World is here.
