A Couple of Tough Ones

I love showing people birds, and I really like it when my clients come with a “wish list.” But there are a couple of species that make me cringe: rare birds, reclusive birds, tough ones. Luddy has had great luck with his targets the last three days. But there were still two to clean up on today: Gray Vireo and Flammulated Owl.

I was confident that we would hear the vireo, and sure enough, when we got out of the car at the first site, a Gray Vireo was singing way down in the bottom of the inaccessible canyon. We diverted ourselves with Black-chinned Sparrows and Scott’s Orioles, but no amount of fervent wishing could bring the vireo up to the road. So relucantly we moved on to the next site, which has always been less reliable for me. Not so today! We waited for just a few minutes as the song got louder and louder, and soon we had a fine Gray Vireo feeding and singing in the brush just a few feet away from us. Whew. And early enough in the day that we could take a few hours’ break in the afternoon.

We needed it, too, since the remaining species on Luddy’s list was Flammulated Owl. I dislike ‘taping’ birds, but there’s really no other way, especially this time of year, when most of our owls have gone silent. So we stood in the dusk, enjoying the sounds of Acorn Woodpeckers and Yellow-eyed Juncos mixing with the buzzy chant of the Mexican Whip-poor-wills, and then I played the tape. Within 15 minutes, a Flammulated Owl had answered, and it sang, a bit half-heartedly, for several minutes, never coming very close, but identifiable. At point, we saw (a word rarely used when talking about flammy) a tiny owl flash across the sky, but of course we couldn’t find it in the trees, and there is no way to know whether it was really the author of the hoots that came down the slope at us a bit later. Still, better than nothing, and Luddy could go home after a truly enjoyable few days with the magic 700 in sight!