Southwestern US Driving Trip

My apologies for not posting more regularly during the past few weeks. 

I’ve just returned from a 3+ week photographic/driving trip to the southwestern US. The short version of the trip: Malheur NWR (OR), Ruby Lake NWR (NV), Saguaro National Parks East and West (AZ), Portal and Cave Creek area (AZ), Bosque del Apache NWR (NM), Zion NP (UT), a magical drive through the Cedar Breaks National Monument area (UT), Bryce Canyon NP (UT) and Bear River National Migratory Bird Refuge (UT). I drove through snow on several occasions… not just along the road but falling from the sky. In addition to birds, I encountered coyotes, some magnificent wild horses, antelope, prairie dogs, moles, chipmunks, lizards, a snake and a skunk. My computer now holds some 2,000 new images that I’ll have to process and I’ll try to post some of the best ones on my blog.

Among the birding highlights:

• A Wilson’s snipe sitting on a fence post vocalizing;
• Both Red-winged and Yellow-headed blackbirds displaying;
• Lazuli buntings perched on grass stalks eating seeds;
• Scores of Yellow-rumped warblers, Wilson’s warblers, Yellow warblers, Hermit’s warblers, a Painted redstart, possibly a Lucy’s warbler and one or two others I’m not remembering or didn’t identify at the time;
• Scores of flycatchers, many Empidonax, which sadly, for the most part will be unidentifiable;
• Hummingbirds;
• A Western bluebird which was so close my camera and lens wouldn’t focus on it;
• Coots with young; and
• Many, many species that we never see here in the Pacific Northwest.

I mostly relaxed in cool (in some cases, almost cold) temperatures in the morning but in some areas of Arizona and New Mexico I had to give up birding during the middle of the day due to heat. Upon arriving back home I was greeted by cool weather… it rained much of the night and at 6am on Sunday it’s 50-degrees.

My plan is to first start posting some of the birding photos I took in Central Texas and Big Bend National Park back in February, but for some unknown reason the Blogspot software has quit letting me post photos.  I'll try to get to the bottom of the problem in the next several days.  I then plan to post photos of this recent driving trip through the Southwest US.  After that will be photos from a CA trip from a couple of years ago (which include a California Condor) that I need to process and post.  There's a lot of material at hand but it seems that there's precious little time to process it all!