PHOENIX SUN

The NMFWA workshop was a success! It was busy (sessions, meetings, socials, etc.), but I managed to find a few spare hours to go birding. I only added a few extra species to my total for the trip, but one was new: Brewer's Sparrow. They are about the plainest brown bird ever, but hey, it's new to me, so it's exciting! I went out to Pagago Park Thursday morning with Michael, Rick, and Chester:
Red-tailed hawk nesting in a saguaro cactus:
Here are Mike, Rick, and Chester at the banquet (a BBQ at Rawhide, a staged Western Town):
The new National Military Fish and Wildlife Association Board of Directors:
And finally, my poster for the Legacy Project we got funded this year (more desert work!):

ANOTHER HOLIDAY ALONE = MORE BIRDING FOR DENISE

Happy Easter everyone! Since I'm still in Arizona, I'm spending the holiday alone. And since I have very few friends and family members that enjoy birding as much as I do anyway, I figure I should spend some time doing what I love, and then writing about it, of course. So, here is a recap of my birding adventures from the past week in southeastern AZ!

I'll start with Fort Huachuca, since that is where I started my trip. First, let's get back to that backpack insect vacuum... Here I am out in the field, trying it out in one of our newly developed sample plots. The verdict? It works, but not as well as our hand-held modified dust busters (yeah, you read that right, never thought I'd be walking the desert with a dust buster...) We're working on a way to modify the backpack vac to increase suction, by decreasing the diameter of the white collection jar. This should also make collection inside some of the smaller flowers easier as well. In between field work, planning, proposal writing, and working on my presentation for next week, I found a few hours here and there to do some birding. I saw lots of the local specialties, many of which I had seen on previous trips to the area (or trips to west Texas), but there were seven new species for my list! There was a pair of Bendire's Thrashers outside the on-base lodging, an Abert's Towhee and Violet-crowned Hummingbird near the office in a Riparian area, a flock of Gambel's Quail up the hill from the office (one is pictured below), a Gila Woodpecker at one of our plots, a Painted Redstart, and a Broad-billed Hummingbird at the banding station. Whew! On Saturday morning, after dropping my coworker at the Tucson airport, I stopped by Saguaro National Park for a few hours. It was a gorgeous day and I managed to find two more new birds: Phainopepla (pictured below) and Gilded Flicker. I also saw a fox limping through the desert (poor guy/gal): It was interesting and sad to see the change that has occurred in the park over the past few decades: This morning I got up extra early and stopped by Coronado National Memorial on my way to Phoenix and the National Military Fish and Wildlife Association annual workshop. Well, it wasn't exactly on the way, but it's only 20 miles south of Fort Huachuca, so I thought it was worth checking out. The memorial is set in the foothills of the Huachuca Mountains and there are lots of oak trees, so I knew I would see some different local specialties. What I didn't expect was how spoiled I was the day before at Saguaro, where I was able to see everything for miles due to the low vegetation, effecting my patience. I only gave myself two hours to bird (due to the 3 hour drive and my need to finish my talk for Tuesday), and I had a really hard time identifying the canopy-dwellers that wouldn't come down (not a single bird cared about my "pishing"). I only saw 13 species, but two of them were new! After chasing around a Dark-eyed Junco (hoping it would join up with some other juncos, since I'm dying to see the Yellow-eyed), getting startled by an agressive Spotted Towhee that was tearing up the ground, and watching a Cooper's Hawk feast on something furry, I started to hear a familiar song... Oh yes, that's right, I saw another "cousin" of my beloved Golden-cheeked Warbler, the Black-throated Gray Warbler!!! Once I located it in my binoculars, I started hearing them all over. I must have heard at least half a dozen while walking around. To be a bird with so few colors, they are awfully fancy. The other new bird I saw threw me for a loop. I spotted it before I heard it: a Bridled Titmouse! It was gorgeous (they look like they're wearing bow-ties)!! When it started singing, I thought I was losing my birding ear though, because it sounded nothing like the titmice we have on the east coast. So, I got back in the car and popped in my brand new "Bird Songs of Southeastern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico" CD and forwarded to the Bridled Titmouse song. Sure enough, that's what I heard. The birds around here are just sooo different! Anyway, to wrap up this long blog, I've seen a total of 55 species on this trip so far, 11 of which were life birds for me! Hopefully I'll find a few spare hours to do some birding in Phoenix this week. My Life List is at 392 now... maybe I can push it over 400 before I return to Vicksburg?

FT HUACHUCA (AGAIN)

Well, here I am, back at Ft. Huachuca for 1.5 weeks devising a sampling protocol, setting up sample plots/transects, and learning to use our new insect collection equipment. It's been extremely windy, but also sunny. It's hard to be so far from home, but at least I'm in a beautiful location, and I have the excitement of the chase (for new birds, of course).

This is the view south towards Garden Canyon from our on-base lodging:

And here is my co-worker, Pam, demonstrating the 'backpack insect vacuum' (more on this later):

OUR SIGNATURE STRENGTHS

As an exercise in team building at work, we took the Gallup Organization's Strengths Finder test. We thought it would be fun to share our Signature Strengths (our 5 most dominant strengths) with you. If you have taken this test, we'd love to hear what your strengths are. We weren't surprised by our individual results, and it was neat to see how different we are, yet how well our strengths complement eachother.

Denise's Signature Strengths:

Harmony (looks for consensus, doesn't enjoy conflict, seeks areas of agreement)

Achiever (lots of stamina, works hard, satisfied when busy and productive)

Responsibility (committed to values such as honesty and loyalty)

Empathy (senses feelings of others, can imagine self in others' situations)

Positivity (contagious enthusiasm, upbeat, lighthearted)

Jay's Signature Strengths:

Belief (unchanging core values, defined purpose for life)

Relator (enjoys close relationships, enjoys working with friends to achieve a goal)

Adaptability (goes with the flow, takes things as they come)

Connectedness (believes all things are linked, there are few coincidences, events have a reason)

Ideation (fascinated by ideas, able to find connections between seemingly disparate phenomena)

BURNING AND THE BIRDS

Jay found another use for his leaf blower... Good-bye leaf piles!

And the following day, we awoke to this racket in the backyard...

TREE TRIMMING

Well, now that Jay has a ladder to go with his chainsaw and all the leaves have fallen off, we've finally taken care of that tree that fell on Jay's workshop... Jay cut and tossed, and I stacked. Looks like it's time for another bonfire party!

Here are the before and after photos:

About a dozen White-throated Sparrows moved in the very next day... and they're still there as of today, March 10th. Guess we'll have to wait for them to move on before we can move the pile and burn!

MORE BIRDS IN TEXAS!

So, I did a little more birding this morning... I started at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge. Other than having to constantly move to keep from being eaten alive by the mosquitoes (Who knew that south Texas in February was as bad as south Florida in July? Not me!) the place was great! The land is really gorgeous, all hiking trails around thorn-scrub and wetland habitats (which explains the mosquitoes) Since I saw so many new birds yesterday, there weren't as many left for me to find today (Granted, there are LOTS of south Texas specialties that I had yet to see, but most are RARE, OCCASIONAL, or just not around in winter), plus, it was really really windy (which makes birds a bit more scarce). Anyway, I saw a few new ones: White-tipped Dove, Le Conte's Sparrow, and Couch's Kingbird (heard, not seen). I had really been hoping for much more, in particular, the Groove-billed Ani, the orioles (Audubon's and Altamira), a parrot (I didn't care which one), and a better look at the kingfishers (I'd seen them before at Independence Creek in west Texas, but only as fly-overs). After 2 hours, I was sick of the mosquitoes and disappointed in my bird list (don't get me wrong, it was long, but they were all repeats of the last 2 days), so I high-tailed it over to Bentson State Park. It was still windy, very hot and sunny (and I forgot the sunblock), and required lots of hiking to get around. But it was worth it! After a disappointing 2 miles with nothing new (although I did see a Collared Peccary), I stopped into a bird blind with TONS of feeders on the other side. So I sat, because I was tired and it was nice to have some shade. I saw lots more Green Jays and about 4-5 dozen Red-winged Blackbirds (whoo-hoo, right?), but I wasn't ready to get up, so I sat some more. After about 15 minutes a bright orange speck caught the corner of my eye, I turned, and lo-and-behold (sp?), an Altamira Oriole!!! Hooray! After that I hiked along the thorn-scrub trail (and heard some Northern Beardless-Tyrannulets, though I didn't see them), then ran out of the park and back to the conference!

More Green Jays, just for fun. They are quite beautiful (and plentiful here).

Collared Peccary... eating bird seed. Surprisingly unconcerned by my presence...

The gorgeous Altamira Oriole!!

VALENTINE'S DAY IN TEXAS

Well, since I don't get to be a lovebird this Valentine's Day (I'm at a conference in Texas while Jay is home working and holding down the fort), I guess I'll just have to share some photos of new birds I've seen on my first trip here to the Lower Rio Grande Valley.

The 4th International Partner's In Flight Conference is in McAllen, TX this year (it's not an annual event, the 1st was in 1992, the 2nd was in 1995, and the 3rd was in 2002), an excellent place for birding! The conference sessions officially started today, but I showed up a day early to attend a raptor banding field trip and the opening reception. Bill Clark took about a dozen of us out to the sugar cane fields yesterday morning, where they had already burned and were busy harvesting. Raptors LOVE this! (So do vultures, etc.) As the big machines roll by and scare the small mammals out of the cane, the birds swoop in to reep the bounty (it's kind of like watching the fire-line in south Florida, as the egrets walk the line capturing every frog, snake, and grasshopper that tries to outrun the flames). I've NEVER seen so many raptors in one place, and there were lots of different kinds! The new one for me was the White-tailed Hawk, but the Crested Caracaras were pretty amazing too (I've never seen more than one at a time before this). Bill had captured a juvenile female White-tailed Hawk right before we showed up, so he hung on to her to show us.

We learned all about how to catch hawks, in a trap that looks like this, with a sparrow and a mouse placed inside for bait (the hawk's legs get caught in the string):

Since hawks have large talons and beaks, the safest way to handle them when trying to apply a band and get other measurements is to place them head-first into a large cardboard tube with mesh at one end. It looks something like this:

Here is an up-close view of her pretty face:

Here is Craig Farquhar holding her for a stock photo:

This is me holding my first raptor (and one of the rarest to be seen in the US at that!):

Here's a shot of some of the hawks, vultures, caracaras, etc. swarming over the fields:

I saw a couple other new birds out in those fields: Sprauge's Pipit and Horned Lark (sorry, no pictures).

After we got back to McAllen, I registered for the conference, then headed down to Anzalduas County Park to hunt for Green Jays and other new birds. I saw the Green Jays, but nothing else new.

This morning I started my day at the Quinta Mazatlan World Birding Center here in McAllen. What an amazing piece of property! It's like a luxury resort for birds... there is food and shelter for just about every type of local bird (hummingbird feeders by the dozens, orange slices hanging from the trees, bird seed scattered on every available surface, bird feeders of every shape and size, misters, fountains, ponds, branch piles, and more plant species than I'll ever know!) I was able to spot 6 new birds: Great Kiskadee, Plain Chachalaca, Long-billed Thrasher, Olive Sparrow, Clay-colored Robin, and Buff-bellied Hummingbird. The first 2 species were all over the place, I didn't even have to hunt. I saw a pair of the thrashers flipping leaf piles under some dense trees, the Olive Sparrow was hopping around on the path, and the Clay-colored Robin was hiding in some bushes. I had to go back in the afternoon to find the Buff-bellied Hummingbird. I have pictures of the Kiskadee and Chachalaca (but they're not very good):

MARDI GRAS '08

Happy Mardi Gras! Vicksburg had their annual Mardi Gras parade today, so the Happy Hour gang gathered at Sandy's apartment downtown and used her balcony to enjoy an upper hand on bead catching (and tossing). There were a TON of great cajun dishes, hurricanes, and of course lots of beads. I had the best time tossing beads down to the kids! Maybe next year we'll get a Krewe together and make a float of our own...

Ready to head out for a day of celebrating!

SNOW IN VICKSBURG!

We woke up this morning to find snow on the ground, and still lightly falling. We rushed into our fleece and slippers and ran outside to take some photos. Within a half hour, the snow had turned to rain and it started melting, but we sure enjoyed it while it lasted!

Jude gets her first snow experience!

CATCHING UP

Jay's dad came to visit this weekend and it was the first time we'd seen him in over four years (since our wedding), so we spent a lot of time just catching up and enjoying eachother's company.

We did a little star gazing while BBQing dinner the first night (thanks David and Taryn!)

Jude is all snuggled in next to Jeremiah

Setting off the mentos-soda geysers

Inside the Illinois Memorial at the Vicksburg National Military Park

To spice up the tour, we decided to do a virtual multi-cache GeoCache.

This was the first stop, where we had to find the total number or casualties for Union and Confederate.

Family photo at the overview of the Yazoo/Mississippi Rivers

BRINGING IN THE NEW YEAR

Jay's mom and brother visited this past weekend and helped us bring in the New Year!





We spent a lot of time playing games: Dominos, Uno, Scrabble, Battle Scrabble, and more Dominos. We did leave the house a bit though... we hit the seafood buffet at Ameristar and the lunch buffet at Diamond Jacks casinos, did a quick tour of the battlefield (since we'd all been there before, some of us MANY times), and went to church. Jay cooked many good meals: fried catfish, tuna steaks, BBQ chicken, and we ate way more than we needed to... we're starting to fit in here in Mississippi! Yikes!

In a belated Christmas celebration, we opened presents, made a fire in the stove, and ate lots of chocolate. Jay got me a great jacket, Jean loved the bottle tree Jay made her (I helped a little) and her new TempurPedic pillow, Jamie got some clothes and a cool take-out menu organizer (folks who live in big cities eat out a lot), and Jay was actually surprised by his pressure washer (he often guesses his gifts correctly before opening them), though I think he liked the Lindsay Clan cufflinks I got him more.

On New Years Eve we built a huge campfire, set off a bunch of fireworks, drank some champagne (and some wine), and ate more chocolate. It was a good start to a great 2008!







Here are a few more photos from along the Mississippi River: