I was in Nome June 2-4 trying to get a good look at one of my 8 remaining unseen ABA Code 2 birds, the lovely Bluethroat.  Bluethroats are found primarily in Asia and Europe, but western Alaska sees a fair number of breeders there during the brief spring and summer.  I have seen Bluethroats in India, but never in North America.  Two prior visits to Nome late in June had failed to produce a view, although other birds were plentiful.  This trip was a success, producing number 730 for my North American count.

Nome in early June, at least this early June, was crowded with birders and fisheries people, who were having their annual convention there.  I was lucky to find a vehicle to rent and a room to stay in. (Phone calls a few days before my arrival indicated everything was taken).   A local tour guide, Richard Benville, whom I have worked with in the past when I was in Nome, was extremely helpful on both counts, and with his help I was able to rent an F-150 and drive where I wished, and to sleep in nice quarters, one night at the Nugget and one night at the relatively new Dredge 7.

My top priority, of course, was to see Bluethroats.  On the morning of the third I started driving the Kougarok road. The weather was cool and foggy.   At mile 22.8, I spotted a Bluethroat male, perching up on a small bush and was able to scope it for a few seconds before it dove into the underbrush.  Soon it flew up, accompanied by what I believe was a female Bluethroat, and displayed briefly in the air before again disappearing.  Continuing along the road, just before the bridge over the Grand Central River, my luck improved even more when a Bluethroat male made its way along the edge of the road, and was most cooperative in staying visible for quite a long time.  The bird is even more beautiful than the pictures that I have seen would have led me to believe.  I did not take pictures, but anyone wishing to see pictures of Bluethroats can do so by Googling “Bluethroat” and going to Wikipedia, which also contains a nice summary of its ornithological status.

On the evening of May 24 and again on the evening of May 25 I heard and was able to identify by hearing one, and possibly two, Buff-collared Nightjars (ABA Code 3) at the base of the entrance to Madera Canyon near dispersed campsite number 1.  From 7:45 until at least 8:00 p.m. the bird(s) called repeatedly from the hillside just south of Proctor Road.  I was not able to see the bird, or at least if I did see it briefly in low-flight, I was unable to identify it other than by song.  The song, however, is unique and distinctive and I will add it to my North American Life List as number 728.  It joins the Black Rail as one of my two “heard only” birds.  Close enough.

Early in the morning of May 25 I was on the Anza Trail near Tubac  in a second effort to locate the Sinaloa Wren (currently an ABA Code 5, but I am betting it moves to Code 4 based on the frequency with which it is being seen in the past two years) that had been seen there throughout much of the spring, but had not been reported in recent days.  My patience sitting for about 2 hours on a fallen tree trunk near the power line cut on the trail was ultimately rewarded by a fabulous view of the wren as it fluttered up from the underbrush within a few feet of me in pursuit of a small moth or butterfly.  Although there is a possibility that the bird I saw was a Bewick’s wren, I am satisfied that it was the Sinaloa Wren because of the brightness of the brown coloration and the eye-stripe, both of which appeared to me to be more extensive than what I have seen on Bewick’s Wrens (of the southwest eremophilus race, or subspecies), and finally, of course, the location.  There was no “tail-wagging” behavior.  The bird was silent so I did not have the advantage of that in making my identification.  I am certain enough to include it as 729 on my Life List.

Later that week I went to Washington State for several purposes, one of which was to try to find a Sooty Grouse.  If seen, this would reduce my unseen ABA Code 4s to 7, but in spite of hours spent on and near Hurricane Ridge in the Olympics, I neither heard nor saw a Sooty Grouse.  This bird is becoming my number 1 nemesis bird.  If anyone reading this blog knows where I can find them, let me know.

If it seems from this report that I must get bored spending so much time not finding the birds I am looking for, that would be far from the truth.  It is pure pleasure to spend hours in pristine areas enjoying the sights, sounds and feelings of the natural world.  That alone is sufficient reward for the effort involved.  A welcome bonus is the occasional exchange of greetings and thoughts with folks, such as Carol on the Anza trail, who share my love of nature.

I did some homework on my ABA list of North American Birds soon after I tallied number 725.  I found that I have seen all of the approximately 490 Code 1 birds, and all but 10 of the approximately 165 ABA Code 2 birds. The next challenge was not long in forming in my brain:  top priority for me in 2014 is to see the remaining Code 2 birds, namely, Mottled Petrel, Sooty Grouse, Purple Swamphen, Scripps’s Murrelet, Whiskered Auklet, Mangrove Cuckoo, Black Swift, Bluethroat, McKay’s Bunting and Nutmeg Mannakin.

The only place to find Purple Swamphens and Mangrove Cuckoos is Florida, and the best time for the Cuckoo, is springtime.  I decided to make them my first targets.  I contacted Chris Newton, an accomplished Florida birder and photographer, to see if he would like to join me to help me find them.  He readily agreed, and with his invaluable help, we located both of my target birds.  The photos included in this blog were taken by Chris and are used with his permission.

I flew into Orlando and picked Chris up at his home in Kissimee and we drove to Green Cay Wetlands and Nature Center near Palm Beach.  What a fine place this is.  The wetlands are quite extensive and are unusually accessible by virtue of the impressively long board walk that has been constructed throughout.  We searched a long time before finally locating a Purple Swamphen hiding in the tall grass.

A few looks at its head were quite unsatisfactory, but after a while, though at a distance, the bird decided to fly to another area, Chris was able to photograph it, and I was able to follow its flight in my bins as it flew over the open water.  The legs were not as red as I expected, so it was probably a youngster.  The next day we saw an adult Purple Swamphen flying across some water.

Among the interesting sights along the boardwalk was that of a Black-necked Stilt guarding its clearly exposed nest with 4 brownish eggs, vigorously harassing an approaching and hugely larger Great Egret.  She (or he) was joined by several other Stilts as they successfully diverted the Egret from the nest.  Life is perilous in the swamp.  A few Alligators glided through the open water.  Common Gallinules were common, and many of them had chicks.

A young Least Bittern clung to the reeds and seemed oblivious of our presence on the nearby boardwalk.

Target number 1 was in the bag so we decided to get a jump on tomorrow’s effort to find a Mangrove Cuckoo.  We drove on south toward and past Miami and explored 2 or 3 likely sites, with no success.  As darkness descended, we decided to call it a day, seek shelter and sustenance, and get an early start in the morning.  That we did, and by 7:00 a.m. the next morning we were searching the area around Black Point Marina near Miami.  We did not have to wait long before a very vocal Mangrove Cuckoo made its appearance and was most cooperative in selecting resting sites that allowed for decent photography.

Having notched numbers 726 and 727 in my North American Life List, we began the long trek back to Kissimee and Orlando, stopping at a few bird-friendly locations on the way.  First stop was at Pine-tree Park in Miami-Dade where a rare Bahama Mockingbird had been seen regularly in recent days.  As predicted, it was easily located and quite oblivious of the activity around it.  This bird, my second Bahama Mockingbird in the last month, is quite drab compared to the one I saw at Key West, and has a malformed upper mandible.

We drove on north to see if we could get a better look at some more Purple Swamphens.  We stopped at the City Furniture Pond near Tamarac in Broward County and were soon rewarded with not one, but two Purple Gallinules, including this one foraging in the reeds.

Mission accomplished, I returned home to plan my next foray.  I will divert a bit from my primary objective of finding Code 2 birds, in order to try to see the Buff-collared Nightjars (Code 3) recently seen in Arizona [with another attempt at Sinaloa Wren (a Code 5), this time in Huachuca Canyon rather than the one seen earlier this year in Tubac], from whence I will go up to Washington to try again for a Sooty Grouse, (one of my now remaining 8  Code 2 birds) this time looking in the Hurricane Ridge area.

From age 65 on to my present age of 80 I have taken up the hobby of birding on a serious basis, although birds have always been of interest to me.  When I became serious I went back and checked off about 400 species that I had identified in my “youth”.  I then decided to strive for a life list of 500 birds.  Well, that has long been surpassed during my birding efforts over the last 15 or so years, and a few years ago I said to myself, if I ever get to 725 I will be satisfied.  Today I did (see # 725), but of course, I am not (satisfied).

The North American Rare Bird Alert system (NARBA) has reported on two different Garganeys being seen in widely separated parts of the country:  Vermont and Wisconsin.   National Geographic’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America (Third Edition) describes this duck as “an Old World species;  a regular migrant on the western Aleutians; very rare on the Pribilofs and in Pacific states, and “casual” elsewhere in North America”.

My dog-eared, tattered and heavily annotated companion in the field is the National Geographic Third Edition Guide, referenced above, now outdated.  I also maintain a cross-check at home, The National Audubon Society sponsored Sibley Guide to Birds.  National Geographic purports to include (1) all species known to breed in North America-defined as the land extending northward from the northern border of Mexico, plus adjacent islands and seas within about two hundred miles of the coast; (2) species that breed elsewhere but are seen here when they spend the winter here or pass through on regular migration routes; and (3), accidental visitors seen here only when they wander off course or are blown in by storms if they have been seen at least 3 times in the past two decades or five times in the century (plus a very few that are expected to meet that standard). Sibley’s Guide, published in 2000, is more selective, including, generally, species that occur regularly within the area including most rare but regular visitors, i.e., loosely defined as those species recorded 10 or more times in the last 25 years.

That is probably more information than most readers want, but it is prefatory to my identification today of my 40^th North American duck: the Wisconsin based Garganey, hanging out with some Blue-winged Teal two miles north of the Crex Meadows Wildlife Visitors’ Center, along Wisconsin  County Road F.

Sibley shows only 39 duck species in his work; National Geographic shows 45.  Both contain the Garganey, an ABA Code 3 bird.  So, I hereby claim a sweep of the Sibley ducks, and number 40 on National Geographic’s list of 45.  My missing 5 include two species that I have never seen anywhere:  Smew and Baikal Teal (neither of which Sibley mentions); and 3 that I have seen in far away countries but never in North America: Common Pochard, Spot-billed Duck and White-winged Pintail, (none of which Sibley mentions).  The 6^th duck omitted by Sibley but which I have seen in North America is the Falcated Duck that I saw in California and reported on in one of my prior blogs.

Barbara had to stay home and mow the lawn today, taking advantage of our one dry day in weeks, so I don’t have any photos of my Garganey to grace this blog.  Anyone interested can Google “Garganey” and see what a distinctive bird the male of the species is.

A few weeks ago I saw a Mexican Whip-poor-will in Arizona and reported it as my 720^th North American Life Bird.  Later, I found out that late in 2013 there was a split of one of my prior sightings, Sage Sparrows, into two species, Bell’s Sparrow and Sagebrush Sparrow.  I checked my records and found out that I had seen both of them, Bell’s near Hollister, California in 2004 and Sagebrush in western Arizona a few years later.  Consequently I am assigning number 721 to Sagebrush Sparrow, and thus accounting for the jump from 720 to 722.

Number 722 was the lone Bahama Mockingbird, (ABA Code 4) which has been seen for a week or two around Fort Zachary Taylor State Park at the south end of Key West, Florida. We spent a very hot afternoon searching for it, following up on all the distracting Northern Mockingbird songs.

We finally found the Bahama Mockingbird to the northwest of the Fort, feeding from a berry tree that it refused to leave, but in which it was difficult to photograph.

He (or she) was very cooperative in every other respect, allowing us to approach very near for as long as we wished.

We left immediately to drive north on the Keys to the Marathon Airport, the best spot in Florida, reportedly, to find Antillean Nighthawks (ABA Code 2).  We looked at the south end of the airport with no luck.  As dusk approached, we drove around to the north side.  Antillean Nighthawks were just taking to the air over the airport with their distinctive “pitty-pit-pit-pit” calls.  They cavorted aerially within yards of us as we stood in the parking lot at the north end of the airport, near the Air Museum and the helicopter ride concession.  One pair showed us their distinctive, elongated white wing-bands as they flew low and directly over us.  We couldn’t manage to photograph them because of darkness and their constant and rapid aerial motion.  This capped a most successful day as I chalked up Lifer number 723.  We stayed overnight at the Marathon Holiday Inn Express, a very pricey lodging, and enjoyed a delicious dinner of Yellowtail and chips and a local beer at the Tarpon Creek Bar and Grill just a few steps from the Motel.

The next morning we returned to Key West to catch a plane to Tampa, where I would concentrate on finding Budgerigars (ABA Code 3) and Nanday Parakeets (ABA Code 2).  From Tampa, we drove north to the area near Hernando Beach where the quickly disappearing Budgerigars had been reported seen a year or so ago.  In spite of our best efforts driving through the neighborhood, we did not locate any of these lovely little exotics.  As the day grew short we decided to abandon the effort and drive to Walter Fuller Park in St. Petersburg to try for Nanday Parakeets.  The drive was dreadful; traffic was heavy, and red-lit traffic lights refused to turn green.  We finally arrived at Fuller Park and walked all the way around and through the park, which is very nice, with no luck.  We decided this was not our day, so we would find a room and a restaurant in preparation for our long drive the next day to try to find our fifth target bird, the recently added ABA bird, the introduced Purple Swamphen (ABA Code 2).  As we left the Park, we made a wrong turn and when we discovered we were going the wrong way, I pulled into a little driveway to turn around.  Directly above the car perched on a wire was a Nanday Parakeet in full view, displaying its beautiful green, blue, red and black colors from all angles as it turned around and around.  The day was not lost, as the Nanday Parakeet became my 724^th Lifer.

I do not expect to have the pleasure of making many more 3-lifer trips.  Elated I was.

We decided to get a head start on our three hour drive to a wetland area near Clewiston, Florida, where Purple Swamphens had been seen.  An hour or so later we stopped at a motel and were told that they were full, and we better go back to Tampa if we expected to find any vacancies that night.  It seems that the Indian Bollywood awards were a great attraction in south and central Florida, and all the motel rooms in the area had been taken up for that event.  Tired and frustrated, we turned around and went back to Tampa, where the clerk at the local Hampton Inn had kindly called ahead and made reservations for us.  We arrived, of course, late and hungry.  A dinner at Red Lobster restored our spirits.

We got a late start Monday morning and arrived at the wetland (Hendry County Stormwater Treatment Area 5) early afternoon.  It was closed, except to foot traffic.  We loaded up our water and started walking the levees, I lugging my scope and tripod, sweating all the way.  The wetland held lots of birds, including many easily confused (with Purple Swamphen) Common Gallinules.  Among the more interesting creatures were the Alligators alongside us as we walked the levee,

and nearly motionless little Swamp Rabbit.

We struck out on the Purple Swamphen, however, and returned to our car several hours later, thirsty and exhausted, and made the long trip back to Tampa to catch a plane for home the next morning.

The driver at the motel near the airport in Tampa suggested that the Cheesecake Factory would be open late on Sunday night and that it was very close by.  We went there, sat outside on a beautiful Florida spring night, and watched the interesting people arriving and departing from the nightspot next door. Our server, Patrick, did a great job and the food was outstanding, so we lingered until midnight, knowing that we did not need to have an early start on the morrow because all the early Delta flights were overbooked. After a long and stressful day at the airport we felt lucky to finally find a flight on Southwest, directly from Tampa to Chicago and Des Moines, where we arrived at nearly the same time as if our original plan to return by Delta through Atlanta had materialized.

The American Birding Association has created 5 Codes (6, if you include extinct birds) to classify the difficulty of finding each species of bird ever found in North America.  Code 1 is the easiest and contains the most birds (approximately 500).  A few years ago I thought I had seen all of the Code 1 birds except the Purple Sandpiper.  A trip to Maine in winter a couple of years ago produced good results, and I was able to check off the Purple Sandpiper. Refer to my Purple Sandpiper blog entry.   But in the meantime, the ABA split the Whip-poor-will into two separate species: the Eastern Whip-poor-will and the Mexican Whip-poor-will.  The two are nearly indistinguishable except that they have distinctive calls and they are located in sharply different areas of the country.  I had long ago and on many occasions seen and heard Whip-poor-wills, but they were all of the Eastern variety.

I communicated with a retired bird guide in Arizona with whom I had birded on one of my first birding trips, in about 2000.  He gave me some suggestions as to when and where Mexican Whip-poor-wills might be seen in Arizona.  He said that late April and the first three weeks of May would probably be best because the birds are calling more frequently at that time.  He also suggested that full moon could be helpful because they tend to vocalize more on bright nights.

Unwilling to wait for the May full moon, Barbara and I took off, flying standby, to Arizona on April 15^th, to arrive the day of the April full moon, coincidentally also the night of the eclipse producing the “Blood Moon”.  We drove first to Patagonia and from there to Pinery Canyon in the Chiricaua Mountains in far southeast Arizona, arriving at the east entrance through the village of Paradise.  The gravel road leading to Paradise from Highway 10 goes through a flat agricultural irrigated area.  We started down that road about 6:30 p.m. and saw not a single vehicle or human being for the next 45 minutes, when we arrived at Paradise.  The road became increasingly narrow, steep and rough as we neared and passed through Paradise.  At about 7:30 p.m. we were elated when a Whip-poor-will fluttered up from the edge of the track and flew about in our headlights for a few seconds before disappearing into the trees.  Success!!!  How could it be so easy?  To top it off, within a few minutes we heard the call of the Mexican Whip-poor-will close by the road, as we crept along at about 5 miles per hour with our windows open.  The elusive Mexican Whip-poor-will became number 720 on my North American Life list. Now I await further splits of species by the Ornithologists to create a new Code 1 bird that will force my hand once again.

Before we started up this mountain canyon we took note of the sign warning that drug dealing and smuggling activities occurred within the Canyon and that caution was advised.  We were slightly nervous about this, and became more so as the night wore on and we drove through even rougher and narrower tracks, still with no sign of human life. Near the top of the canyon we saw the glow of the full moon behind a mountain peak and arranged to stop to take a picture as it emerged over the peak.

Orion, the Dog Stars, Ursa Major, Ursa Minor and many other constellations were by now prominent in the night sky.   At about 9:00 p.m. we emerged from the canyon on the west side of the Chiricauas, and saw our first mammalian life, a big Jack Rabbit, running across the road and a Cottontail soon thereafter.  We were nearly back to Willcox and our motel before we saw our first motor vehicle since leaving Highway 10 at 6:30.  There still are some remote parts of this country.

Before we drove to the Chiricauas, we detoured to Patagonia to see the hummingbirds and other species at the Paton’s place.  Among the Hummers were Broad-billed, Black-chinned and Violet-crowned Hummingbirds.

There were quite a few species other than Hummingbirds on the premises to add to our enjoyment of this byway.

On the next day we drove to Tubac, Arizona to try to see the Sinaloa Wren that has been hanging out on the Anza Trail for several weeks.  This would be a new life bird for me.  This Mexican bird is being seen more frequently in the U.S. in the last few years as it attempts to extend its range northward.  Unfortunately, we along with a dozen or so other hopeful birders were disappointed in not finding it before we had to leave to get back to Tucson for our flight home.  As we were returning on the trail, a male Black-chinned Hummingbird attracted our attention as it engaged in its mating ritual just a few feet from the trail.  I would describe it as flying back and forth at low altitude in the fashion of a pendulum, buzzing loudly.  This would go on for 20 or so seconds, and then he would perch motionless on the same low-hanging branch of a mesquite.