Olive-sided Flycatcher at Ahakhav Tribal Preserve on 4/23/2012
The past two days I spent surveying for birds at Ahakhav Tribal Preserve near Parker, Arizona. After surveying, my field partner, Mike Nicosia, and I birded the park area of the preserve to check for migrants. Yesterday didn’t pan out so well, but today was definitely hoppin’ and the radar showed the possibility of good migration last night. The park area is full of flowering mesquite and tall cottonwoods. The migrants absolutely love mesquite. Ninety percent of the birds that I saw today were foraging in the mesquite.
Mike and I spent an hour and a half birding and tallied 41 species. Highlights from the morning include three Swainson’s Hawks, one Olive-sided Flycatcher, two Cassin’s Vireos, two Nashville Warblers, one Macgillivray’s Warbler, one Black-throated Gray Warbler, 30! Wilson’s Warblers, and three Lazuli Buntings. The Olive-sided Flycatcher and Cassin’s Vireos were year birds for me and the Lazuli Bunting was a Arizona state lifer!
One of my favorite birds to see at the preserve is the Vermillion Flycatcher. Vermillions are covered under the Lower Colorado River Multi-Species Conservation Program. Most Vermillion Flycatchers are inhabiting parks, cemeteries, and gold courses and have steered away from their natural habitat of mesquite bottomlands.
Vermillion Flycatcher at Ahakhav Tribal Preserve on 4/23/2012
Migration is really starting to heat up along the LCRV and the birds should be piling up at any moment. The next arrival should be Brown-crested Flycatcher, which has an average arrival date of April 25. Even eBird gave us some credit in their last BirdCast Migration Report for putting in the extra effort for finding migrants and new arrivals each day.
