Hawk Stalk

Saving the best for last, I headed out to stalk hawks today with Sheri Williamson and Tom Woods of the Southeast Arizona Bird Observatory. I know a lot of knowledgeable birders, but they were absolutely outstanding in this field. That's a literal statement, because we spent the day going from one farmer's field to another to find our hawks. Sheri taught us how to distinguish one hawk from another - Coopers from Sharp Shinned, for example, and all the different color morphs of the Red Tailed hawk. Red Tail - light morph Red Tail - dark morph We found over 50 Red Tails, including a beautiful Dark Morph. Sheri is my kind of birder. She jumps up and down shouting "Ooh, ooh, OOH!" just as I do, when she finds something exciting. I told her my husband gets irritated when I do this, and she says Tom reacts the same way. We decided that all the best birders get speechless when they are passionate about finding a bird! Unfortunately, the best birds were across the field, or up in the tops of a tree surrounded by branches, so I don't have a lot of sharp pictures today. Our first stop was a plowed field, where at least 12 Red Hawks perched in trees or the irrigation pipes. Four Ferruginous hawks stood on the ground listening for gophers. Sheri says they hunt by sound more than sight. A juvenile Bald Eagle joined the crowd with his support group, the Ravens. Anywhere the Eagle went the Ravens went too. (Sounds like football, doesn't it?) Two younger Ferruginous hawks perched on the same phone pole, and tried to stare each other into going someplace else.

Our findings weren't limited to raptors, although that was my favorite part. At a lake before a dairy cattle factory, we found both Snow Geese and Ross' Geese. The Ross' have much smaller bills and a forehead. The lake at the power plant, next to the Sandhill Crane viewing area, hosted four (count 'em) Tundra Swans! This is the real Swan Lake, as they dipped their heads in synchronized swimming from one side of the lake to the other. Ruddy ducks, Buffleheads, American Wigeons and Common Mergansers were added to the total list for the day.

We tracked down a Merlin in her customary area. A single Harris hawk roamed around looking lost, but later we we found two nearby, and hope this single will rejoin the family. Meanwhile a Northern Harrier roused flocks of sparrows from the grass. It finally disappeared into the grass, and we assumed it stopped for lunch just as we had.

Thank you, Sheri and Tom, for the best day of the festival! Tomorrow we are heading to Madera Canyon, then home on Tuesday. We tallied up the birds we've seen this week, not just at the festival, and came up with 38 new birds to add to our Life List. Too Cool! After that comes the really hard part - trying to decide which birding festival to attend next time!

Raptor Free Flight

We just spent the most marvelous day at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and did not get to do everything we wanted. But they have the best raptor program I have ever seen, and I see all I can go to. The program is on the grounds, among the Saguaro Cactus, rather than in a building - important point #1 - so these birds could fly away any time they want to. They fly from perch to perch, buzzing the heads of the viewers. I told Dick they must not like his red hat, he got strafed so often.

I could make about 5 separate posts here with just the pictures from each raptor we saw, let alone the other desert birds and landscape. Let's cut to the chase, and just go for the photos, which became easier after I saw the handler putting little bits of meat on the next branch the bird would go to.

They have a family of Harris Hawks who all came at one time in the afternoon show. It's amazing that no other raptor lives and hunts in a pack, essentially. The female is always in charge of the family.

This Chihuahuan Raven chuckled as he lightly touched someone's head while flying over. "Every time," quoth the Raven. "Ole"

Don't think this American Kestral is just a sweet tiny bird. It is a mighty hunter.

I wouldn't want a Ferruginous Hawk smiling at me from a branch. Looks like she's giving us the eye as her next breakfast! Her mouth is so wide she can swallow her prey whole if necessary. I know, this isn't a raptor, but a Cactus Wren. They are all over the place, and noisy in the wren tradition. I was surprised to see they are about the size of a Robin, not the small eastern wrens I am familiar with.

And there was morning and evening of the second day, and it was good.....not even mentioning the little Costa's Hummingbird and Broad Billed Hummingbirds we saw. I can't spell Phainopepla without looking it up again, but we saw a bunch of them. Wishing has made it so once more - our first Western Tanager was in the aviary! Next on the wish list is a Roadrunner - meep! meep!