A Change of Scenery: Moving my Birding to Arizona

I stopped for one last picture at a locally well-known spot on my last drive out of Cache Valley.

My wife and I have been looking to relocate for a while now, and I'm pleased to announce that we have now officially and completely moved to Arizona!  The southwestern states have always been high on our list of target destinations, so we're both pretty pleased with our new home.  Stephanie moved down about a month ago, and I joined her earlier this week.  

The Grand Canyon State welcomed me!

It feels odd to put a period at the end of my Utah, and especially Cache County, birding.  I've always been interested in birds, but Utah was where my birding activity really took off.  I've left Utah now with 3343 eBird checklists, reporting on 344 species.  I really focussed my birding in Cache County, and 2958 of those checklists and 281 species were from within my home county.  I'm particularly proud of my yard list: my 805 checklists have created a very thorough overview of the seasonal occurrence of the 98 species I've seen or heard from my yard.

This is just a sample of the comprehensive eBird data I've collected from my Logan, Utah yard.

It's not just about the numbers, of course.  I'm going to really miss the birding community in Cache County.  As a college town, it seemed good birders were always coming and going, but I made a lot of close friends along the way.  Thankfully, since I moved to a birding hotspot, I'm sure it will be easy to convince them to come visit me!

Whenever a rare bird was spotted in Cache Valley, I knew I'd soon see a lot of friendly faces there!

When one door closes, another opens, and so this week I've started birding Arizona as a resident, rather than just a visitor.  I've visited here many times, either on vacation, doing field work for my PhD, or helping colleagues with their field work.  I already know many of the hotspots in the area, at least by reputation if not by first-hand experience.  I'm living in Tempe, which isn't quite as famous for birding as the Tucson area, but it's within striking distance, and there are plenty of exciting birds here, too.  I've got 19 species on the yard list so far, and of those, 9 are species I've never had on a yard list before.  Last night, I birded the Gilbert Water Ranch for the first time, a famous birding spot that is perhaps best known for hosting a Baikal Teal a couple of winters ago.  It was great to start to get familiar with the locally common species that still feel exotic to me, like White-winged Dove, Lucy's Warbler, and Verdin, for example.  A move to a new state is almost a fresh start in birding, and I'm excited for all that I have yet to learn!

This cool duck is an apparent hybrid between a Wood Duck and a domestic form of Mallard.  It has been at the Gilbert Water Ranch for a while now.  Although it's not a "countable" bird, it looked beautiful and interesting, and seemed like a good symbol of all the new species and places I will soon be exploring in central and southern Arizona.

A Hybrid Dusky Grouse x Sharp-tailed Grouse

A Dusky Grouse x Sharp-tailed Grouse hybrid, photographed by the author in northern Utah on 7 Apr 2013.

I love hybrids.  Some birders can be disappointed by hybrids, especially when a locally rare species turns out to not be "pure" (and thus can't go on a list).  But for me, they have everything you could look for in a bird: They are generally very rare: even the more common hybrids are rarer than their parent species.  They are often a challenge to identify.  And they give us a peak into the process of evolution: why don't we see more hybrids, and if two species can produce hybrids, why are they considered species?

I was hiking around a local birding spot (Hardware Ranch W.M.A.) a couple weeks ago, and I saw what I thought at first was a Sharp-tailed Grouse.  This bird was running through the sagebrush, with its tail held high, showing bright white undertail coverts, like Sharp-tailed Grouse do.  It had a slightly crested head, and an overall yellowish tone, also fitting Sharp-tailed Grouse.  But when I got my binoculars on it, I could see the black tail feathers with broad charcoal tips, a clear mark of a Dusky Grouse.  I was able to grab a couple photos before the bird flushed, and flew off through the sagebrush.

Later, I became suspicious that I had photographed a hybrid.  Hybridization between these species had been documented once before, by Allan Brooks in 1907 (illustration below).  I sent the photos around to a few grouse experts I knew, and a few people who knew grouse experts, and all the replies came back that this was indeed a hybrid Dusky Grouse x Sharp-tailed Grouse.  Interestingly, although I haven't been able to find any other photographs of this hybrid, one biologist indicated that this is the most frequently observed hybrid combination between wild grouse.  Local biologists have told me that they have seen a male Dusky Grouse displaying among a lek of Sharp-tailed Grouse about 25 miles (40 km) north of where I photographed this bird.  That same male Dusky, in fact, even tried to mate with a Sharp-tailed Grouse while the biologists had it caught in a trap!

A Dusky Grouse x Sharp-tailed Grouse hybrid, illustrated by Allan Brooks and published in the Auk in 1907.

The same Dusky Grouse x Sharp-tailed Grouse hybrid shown above.  This is the second of the only two photos I was able to take before the grouse flushed.

(Thanks to Mike Wolfe, Timothy Taylor, Scott Gardner, Mike Schroeder, and Jack Connelly for sharing their thoughts on this bird.)

Mexican Duck in Utah

Mexican Duck, Anas (platyrhynchos) diazi, at First Dam, Logan, Utah.  Copyright Ryan P. O'Donnell.  

If you follow Utah Birdtalk/Birdnet, you already know that on February 5th, about two weeks ago, my friend Craig Fosdick found a very interesting duck at First Dam in Logan, Utah.  It was a Mexican Duck; probably the northernmost record of the species, and only the third from Utah.  Mexican Ducks are easy to overlook, and many readers of this blog might have never heard of one before.  Even the experienced birders Craig was with at the time hardly gave this unique vagrant a second look.

First, what is a Mexican Duck?  That question is not easy to answer.  According to the American Birding Association and the American Ornithologists Union, it is a subspecies of Mallard.  But that view is considered by some to be antiquated and inaccurate.  Recent genetic work has shown that the Mexican Duck may actually be its own species, and it is at least as unique as several other species such as the Laysan Duck and the Mottled Duck.  The picture is complicated, however, because Mallards contain several genetic lineages, and thus to have species boundaries that reflect mitochondrial gene phylogenies, one would either have to split Mallards based on strictly genetics, or else consider "Mallards" to include Laysan Ducks, American Black Ducks, Mottled Ducks, and many others, which obviously does not reflect biology well.  This is an area that is in need of additional research, particularly in generating phylogenies and assessing hybridization with nuclear molecular markers.

Phylogeny of Mallard-group ducks, modified from Johnson and Sorenson 1999, based on mitochondrial DNA sequences.  Note that Mallards appear twice here, having (at least) two different mitochondrial sequences.  Also note that Mexican Ducks are as distinct from Mallards as many other groups that we know of as species.

The definition of species within the Mallard group is confusing, but perhaps even more so in the case of Mexican Ducks, because our understanding of this species is clouded by hybridization with Mallards in Arizona and New Mexico.  A classic study of morphology in Mexican Ducks found that there are virtually no pure Mexican Ducks anywhere in the species range, according to a numerical scale of morphology that ranges from pure Mexican Duck to pure Mallard.  However, an alternative interpretation of the same dataset is that our definition of what identifies a pure Mexican Duck is too narrow, and that pure Mexican Ducks can show traits that have once been taken to be indicative of Mallards.

With respect to the duck seen as recently as yesterday in Logan, this appears about as close to a pure Mexican Duck as one can expect at the northern part of the range of the (sub)species.  There is very little green on the head.  The bill is bright yellow.  The tail shows no patches of white.  The speculum has green iridescence, and is bordered only thinly by white.  The rump and undertail coverts match the flanks well in color, showing no obvious indication of the black that a male Mallard has in these areas.  The belly is dark, matching the color of the rest of the bird well.  The only part that seems to show some obvious Mallard ancestry is that the central retrices (tail feathers) curl up slightly off the plane of the tail, hinting at the curled central tail feathers of an adult male Mallard.  But, with how little we know of "pure" Mexican Ducks, perhaps this is not outside the range of variation shown by them?  Only an extensive study of morphological variation and nuclear DNA across the range of the Mexican Duck and Mallard can really address this question well.

The Mexican Duck looks a lot like a female Mallard, but darker and (in a male, such as this one) with a bright yellow bill.  Copyright Ryan P. O'Donnell.

The Mexican Duck's speculum has more of a green iridiscence, compared to the purple of a Mallard's, although the color varies somewhat with the angle of view.  Also note here how, unlike a male Mallard, the rump is about the same color as the flanks and the tail is dark, without white.  Copyright Ryan P. O'Donnell.

Unlike a Mallard, the lower belly is not noticeably paler than the flanks or breast.  The bright white underwing coverts are a trait shared by male Mexican Ducks and male Mallards.  Copyright Ryan P. O'Donnell.

This angle can be tough to see in the field, but it shows how the back of the Mexican Duck is generally dark, and the speculum is only thinly bordered by white, not boldly bordered by white like a Mallard's speculum.  Note that at this angle the speculum looks more purple than green, like a Mallard's.  Copyright Ryan P. O'Donnell.

As rare birds go, this individual might be pretty easy to find.  It has been seen over the last two weeks at First Dam in Logan.  Watch for a duck that looks a bit like a female Mallard, but is darker and has a bright yellow bill.  While I don't advocate feeding park ducks, it is a common practice at this park, and if you happen to time your visit when a local is feeding them, this duck might come right out in the open and fight with the other local domestic breeds for bread.  Otherwise, you might get lucky and see it swimming around on the water, or it might be sleeping on the far shore of the lake.  If it's not out in the open when you get there, try patiently scanning the sleeping ducks along the shoreline.

The Mexican Duck being seen at Logan's First Dam seems to have paired up with a female Mallard.  Note in this view how this Mexican Duck's central retrices lift slightly off the others, perhaps indicating a small amount of Mallard heritage.  Copyright Ryan P. O'Donnell.

Spiders of Utah

A Platycryptus sp. jumping spider on a wall in Logan, Utah. ©Ryan O'Donnell and Stephanie Cobbold, 2011. 

Would you like to learn more about spiders, in Utah and around the world?  Stephanie Cobbold's PhD dissertation is on some of the spiders of Utah. Lately we've been taking lots of spider photos, and she's been sharing some of them at her blog. Check it out!

Vagrant Dickcissel and Birding Slump

Last week, Tony Jones heard a bird singing from the fields behind his house in Farmington; a bird he didn't recognize. It took him three more days to be able to see the bird, and then he was able to identify it as a Dickcissel. Dickcissels are typically an eastern species, so he knew this was a big deal. He sent word to the Utah birding community via the Utah Birders website, and many avid and excited birders soon arrived in his neighborhood to look for the bird. Today, I was one of those birders. I got this photograph, and some audio recordings (which I will share here later).

Only three previous records of Dickcissel have been accepted by the state Bird Records Committee. With the excellent photographs that have already been taken, it is almost certain that this bird will stand as the fourth accepted state record. What a great bird!

The timing of this bird is a bit of a surprise, as most vagrant records of this species, and the majority of vagrant records in general, come during spring or fall migration. This is the time when more birds are moving, and hence more birds are likely to get lost. But the fact that this bird was found in what is ornithologically-speaking the dead of summer supports the old axiom that anything can turn up anywhere. It is always a good time to go birding.

Birders in Utah have submitted fewer records to eBird for the first week of July than for almost any other week of the year (exceeded only by the second week of December). July is typically the start of a mid-summer birding slump. Spring migration is done, and fall migration hasn't picked up yet, so the motivation to go birding, and to enter those records in eBird, declines. But as the recent Dickcissel shows, rare birds can be found in mid-summer, too. And, the distribution and abundance of breeding birds is arguably the most important data that eBird can collect - especially now that the new data input pages allow you to record breeding indicators such as parents carrying food and the presence of fledglings. So don't let July get you down - go birding, and go eBirding. You never know what you might find.

Red-necked Grebe in Utah

On Saturday I got a call from Bob Atwood that he had just found a Red-necked Grebe at Hyrum Reservoir, about 20 minutes from my house in Logan. I was out of town at the time, but as soon as I got back the next day, yesterday, I headed down to see if I could find it. I set up my spotting scope on the dam where he had found the bird, and saw a tiny speck on the water about a quarter mile out. There were probably lots of other specks on the water, but luck was on my side and the first one I noticed was the target bird, my first Red-necked Grebe in Utah and my first anywhere in breeding plumage.

I drove around to the closest point on the shore to the bird, and couldn't find it. I was afraid it might have flown while I was driving, but it was also swimming pretty fast and I thought it might have just swam out of my view from that point, where trees were on either side of me and I could only see straight out from the shore. I drove back around near the dam, and saw the bird closer to me than I expected, and getting closer to shore. I climbed down the shore and scanned again for the bird. Just when I thought I lost it again, it resurfaced right in front of me! I got a few good shots then, and several more by running down the shoreline each time the grebe dove, and lying still on the rocks ahead of it before it resurfaced.

Red-necked Grebes have been seen several times in Utah, but they are very rare here. There are about a dozen previous records for the state, and most are of immatures or non-breeding adults in the winter. This bird was unique not only because it is so rare, but especially because it was in full breeding plumage. What a great bird!

(Photos copyright Ryan O'Donnell 2011)

Lesser Sandhill Crane?

While out this afternoon, I photographed a Sandhill Crane in Benson, Cache County, Utah that was significantly smaller than its 20 or so companions. I've been under the impression that the only subspecies of Sandhill Crane expected in Utah is Greater (Grus canadensis tabida). This one looked to me like a Lesser Sandhill Crane (G. c. canadensis). However, I don't know whether I've ever seen the third migratory subspecies, Canadian Sandhill Cranes (G. c. rowani), which are intermediate in size between Greaters and Lessers. eBird is of little help here because apparently no Sandhill Crane records from Utah in eBird have been identified to subspecies. Does anyone know anything about subspecies of Sandhill Crane in Utah? Does this (left-most bird) look like a Lesser to you?