Sunday, January 29

Dear Birders,

Yesterday Jake Mohlmann, Dylan Holstein-Radin, John Yerger and I completed an incredibly fun Big Day Count. We followed American Birding Association rules and limited ourselves to the state of Arizona. We saw/heard 150 species within the 24-hour period, starting with Mallards at Reid Park at about 12:20 a.m. (we were hoping for the Common Goldeneye) and ending with Western Screech-Owl in NE Tucson at 8:15 p.m. (We decided against using up the last 3 hours and 45 minutes of our allotted time to add another couple species that we missed.)

Highlights in the Phoenix area included the FULVOUS WHISTLING-DUCK at Red Mountain Park and WESTERN SANDPIPER, PRAIRIE WARBLER, STREAK-BACKED ORIOLE, BELL'S VIREO and RING-BILLED GULL at the Gilbert Water Ranch.

Our pass through the Santa Cruz Flats was very successful and included an AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN at the Arizona City Lake, a FERRUGINOUS HAWK just south of Harmon Rd. flying east over Sunland Gin Road, MOUNTAIN PLOVERS right along Pretzer Road west of Tweedy Road (didn't even need to stop the car), and GRAY FLYCATCHER along Baumgartner Road about 1/2 mile west of Picacho Highway. We quickly got RUDDY GROUND-DOVE at the Red Rock feedlot.

Our stop at the Pinal Airpark Pecan Grove didn't yield the hoped-for Northern Parula and Chestnut-sided Warbler that Jake and I had seen there last month, but we did get our only ASH-THROATED FLYCATCHER there. We also saw a hawk that was almost certainly a juv. HARLAN'S RED-TAILED HAWK. It was quite black and had a lot of white in the lores and above the bill. I didn't note the amount of barring in the primaries.

At Sweetwater Wetlands around 1:00 we missed a lot of the continuing rarities but still came away with the LEAST GREBE, WILSON'S WARB LER, CASSIN'S VIREO and a BARN SWALLOW (or maybe two) among the many WHITE-THROATED SWIFTS and NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOWS.

As we headed towards Mount Lemmon we got lucky with BROAD-BILLED HUMMINGBIRD (in a wash about a mile before the road begins to climb) and MAGNIFICENT HUMMINGBIRD at Barbara Bickell's feeders. Our final species before sunset was a SPOTTED TOWHEE on top of the mountain.

One highlight we thought was getting a GREATER ROADRUNNER, one of those Big Day birds that can be so easy to miss. We ended seeing about 8 during the day.

I count an additional 70 species that we missed that I know were on or very close to our route, but missed due to chance, a lack of scouting effort, or not having enough time to make even a short detour. We missed the Least Bittern at Gilbert, and spotlighting for certain waterfowl was less successful than expected. Owling after dusk was also particularly dull (a new moon couldn't have helped). Time concerns had us give up on our staked-out Rufous-winged Sparrow, which could have resulted in a Broad-tailed Hummingbird that sometimes comes to the feeders. These sorts of comments can go on and on.

So even though 150 places Arizona in 4th place among U.S. states for January Big Day (CA, TX, and FL have higher big day totals for this month), it's clear that a much higher total is possible with more scouting and a little better luck.

Good Birding,

Rich