Dermot Breen's Blog: Mexican jay

Wednesday, 18 March 2015

Arizona 11th February 2015

Back South again in the morning to a spot between Sierra Vista and the Mexican border where we visited another canyon. When the group was near the top of the canyon we met two Border Patrol Agents who had hiked up after us to have a look at what we were up to. They were both very friendly as it was immediately evident that we weren't exactly smuggling illegal immigrants or weapons of destruction over the mountains into the US! Two cracking species were added here - Arizona Woodpecker and Rufous-capped Warbler. Both were seen distantly and the warblers (max. two at any given time) in particular were rather brief and elusive but were stunning looking birdswhen they did show. The thick extensive thorn bushes at this location made actually seeing birds very challenging.

We had a lunch break on the way back North at Benson where we had stayed the previous two nights. We had been seeing presumed Chihuahuan Ravens now for the last few days. All had been from the bus as we drove quickly by. Given the views I had not ticked them up to this point as I just hadn't got "tickable" views up to now. This is a southerly based species that tends to favour more arid habitats but even in these areas Common Ravens still live up to their name. They are both extremely similar to one another. As we were leaving Benson a few ravens appeared around the truck stop where we just had lunch. I was running around the lorry trailer park like a mad man trying to get views/shots of them but not succeeding at all really given the extremely harsh light and limited time we had. At the time I thought they looked ok for Chihuahuan Ravens however looking at the shots now I'm not so sure. The nasal bristles on all photographed birds doesn't extend as far as I would expect for Chihuahuan. The bills look a bit too long also...

On our way back to Phoenix we had another go at the Mountain Plovers at the Santa Cruz flats. I honestly didn't hold out much hope for them as there had been no recent reports of them from the area for a few weeks now. We had previously put a good bit of effort into searching for them here a few days ago without success. James came good yet again though when he scored with a distant flock of about 18 birds. They always remained distant unfortunately but again were great birds to rescue from the "dip box".

Male Arizona Woodpecker

Female Arizona Woodpecker

Mexican Jay

Rufous-capped Warbler

Spotted Towhee

Phainopepla

Raven sp.

Mountain Plovers

Killdeer

Apache

Thursday, 12 March 2015

Arizona 9th February 2015

We had another go at the Sinaloa Wren in the morning. Thankfully we managed to see the bird as it tends to be much more active and vocal. The bird was always distant and keep low in the understorey vegetation much as one would expect a wren to behave I suppose! It made several visits to a nest bringing in feathers that it presumably constructed in recent weeks.

Having scored on the Sinaloa we made our way to Florida Canyon where we spent several hours. This is another well known spot with a good list of speciality species. Unfortunately we didn't see too many on this occasion however the highlight here was definitely a pair of Black-capped Gnatcatchers. These are very restricted in the US being found only in a small area in SE Arizona. The hike up the canyon was a little tough for some of the group but everyone made it all the way up to where the very rough track seemed to peter out. Along the way up we had a few good birds like Hammond's Flycatcher, Hutton's Vireo and Black-chinned Sparrow.
Afterwards we had Black-throated Sparrow and Mexican Jays nearby.

I forgot to mention that the previous evening we were extremely lucky to get excellent views of Whiskered Screech Owl, another species restricted to SE Arizona. Can be a tough one to see at the best of times. No photos unfortunately.