The Rare Bird I Just Missed, the Rare Bird I Didn’t, and the (Extremely) Rare Bird I Was About to See
OK, so that has to be the winner of the “Longest Title of a Newsletter Article” in the Photography category. I would like to thank the Academy, my agent (agent?) and blah, blah, blah.
I’ve recently been on an unusual roll for rare bird sightings and although I’m more into bird activity than bird species, I’ll admit to a certain rush to seeing a new bird species for the first time, aka a “lifer”. Add an activity to that sighting and I have the makings of achieving Nirvana.
A recent half day of free time in Tucson, Arizona on the way to California for R&R sent me to Madera canyon, a known birding hotspot. I had been told that my head would be on a swivel there thanks to the variety and plethora of birds, including hummingbirds and the Holy Grail of rare and elusive birds, the Elegant Trogon. Unfortunately, I can’t show you a photograph of what the Elegant Trogon, i.e., “the rare bird I missed”, looks like because I did not see one there although I learned later that I had missed one by about five minutes. And it was in the parking lot where I had parked for one of the trails into the canyon. But the Canyon didn’t fail me otherwise. Located south of Tucson and just north of the U.S.-Mexico border, I encountered a good dozen or so “lifers” there. Here is a sampling of them below. (As always, these photos are best viewed at full screen by clicking on them)
Above - A Beautiful Broad-Billed Hummingbird takes flight
Above - The same Broad-Billed Hummingbird sits at a feeder in all its glorious, full color
Above - A Black-Headed Grosbeak and a White-Winged Dove appear to be wondering who will get to spend their time at this feeder
Below is an array of some of the other birds I aw in the Canyon
That was really the only day I had set outside to do bird photography. Continuing on to San Diego, I had no expectation of encountering rare birds there, maybe just a seagull or two that I hoped to photograph snatching a pizza off of someone’s plate (indeed I saw that happen but couldn’t’ get a shot off quickly enough).
A few days into my stay, I made small talk with two of the hotel’s staff. Avid birders, they somehow surmised that I, too, was a bird enthusiast. It might have had something to do with my camera and 700mm lens hanging around my neck which was pointed up to a tree. After chatting a while and gaining their confidence, they shared that if I got up before sunrise and climbed to the roof of the hotel’s parking garage, I just might catch one or two Wild Amazon Parrots that come up from Mexico and Central America now every Spring and have adopted San Diego as their summer home. I’m not much for starting my day pre-sunrise, but for this, count me in!
So the next morning I climbed the garage stairs, fearing I would have to explain my presence to some suspicious security guard but that never happened. I waited on the roof and looked all around me. The staff people had told me to “look into the palm trees” but I didn’t realize the garage was thickly ringed by dense palm tree growth in every direction, none of which appeared to contain any parrots. After a half hour and the sun fully above the horizon, I gave up and headed back to the staircase. And then I heard it. “Squawk!” It came from right where I had been standing. I rushed back and sure enough, there were two Wild Amazon Parrots, i.e., ”the rare bird I didn’t miss”, two of the most beautiful birds I have ever seen that weren’t in cages. They hung around for about 20 minutes, then flew off. The next day I repeated the routine and I was not disappointed. The parrots preened, hopped around, and flew short trips between trees making for awesome photo opps. I went the next two days expecting more of the same but, alas, that was the end of the show as they were not to be found anywhere. Below are some of my favorite photos of them.
Above - One of my very first shots of the Wild Amazon Parrot with its mate in the background
Above - Wild Amazon Parrot shows why it’s so beautiful with its colorful red and green feathers
Above - Wild Amazon Parrot in one of its short flights between trees
Above - Wild Amazon Parrot pair in the husk of a palm tree
While on the beach, I found Marbled Godwits and Willets which, ironically, I wrote about seeing in Colorado in my last newsletter article. They were fun to watch in this more familiar (to them) environment of being on a saltwater shore, especially when they defended their feeding territory against each other as you can see below.
Above - Flock of Marbled Godwits on the shore with reflections
Above - Brown Pelicans like this guy in flight are everywhere
When I returned home from the trip, I had a moment of moping and self-pity that I had likely expended my quota of lifer birds while on the trip and would now be “forced” to photograph the familiar birds of Colorado (as If that is a bad thing).
But bird discovery is actually not a zero-sum game and in fact, on my first day out and less than a mile from my house little did I realize as I turned my head to an otherwise boring body of water that has never had anything more exciting than geese in it I, I was about to become the first person in Colorado to sight one of the ten rarest bird species in the United States in many years – or was I? Stay tuned for “the (extremely) rare bird I was about to see”…