Birders are always running across migrants in the field; but how often do we truly witness migration? With southbound shorebirds appearing in ever greater numbers, this time of year (“fall,” in birderspeak) provides great chances to watch birds actually moving out of their summer range and heading for the wintering grounds.

Darlene and I spent a couple of hours at Avra Valley this morning, using the “water clock” to let us know when we were done: tip the bottle, no more water comes out, better leave! It was so hot that Great-tailed Grackles were flying around with their bills open, a Greater Roadrunner actually came down to drink, and each time we moved our scopes we risked a minor burn from black-finished metal legs.

But though the heat felt like summer, the presence of sandpipers made it unmistakably fall. The edges of the north pond played host to small nervous flocks of adult Least and Western Sandpipers, and five flighty Long-billed Dowitchers dropped in for a short visit. A low-pitched churr alerted us to the arrival of two Pectoral Sandpipers, my first of the fall. They circled the pond, didn’t like what they saw, and continued south, inspiring a dozen peep and the dowitchers to join them. We watched this new-formed flock fly southeast until they were out of sight, on their way to the next stopover point in their long migration.

 

A great day out and about in southeast Arizona with Ken; we had a couple of target species, and they behaved surprisingly well.

First off was Sycamore Canyon, where the mosquito biomass has reached awesome proportions. But we were barely out of the car when we heard the funny accelerating trill of our first goal for the day: Rufous-capped Warbler! The bird obligingly flew towards us to perch and sing for a few seconds in open twigs, then vanished into the willow thickets, where we followed its mostly disembodied voice for the next couple of hours. The bird was more vocal than I’d ever heard it, and higher in the canyon than I’d ever seen it (a good thing given how much water is standing even in the upper reaches of Sycamore).

Montezuma Quail were singing from the hillsides, but we eventually gave up on actually seeing the little guys and headed east to Patagonia Lake. A birder going out as we were coming in said he’d had our next target species just down the steps, in the first wash; encouraged, we marched off into the heat, pausing only to enjoy a Western Grebe and two Neotropic Cormorants on the water before entering the bosque. The first wash was empty, but from the mouth of the second we heard the mewling call that can mean only Black-capped Gnatcatcher. A few seconds later we were watching two birds feeding just a few feet away, at one point on the ground with tails flared to show us the short outer rectrices. If only it were always that easy!

Darlene, Beth, and I conducted our regular survey of the Sabino / Bear Creek IBA this morning, the heat, the bugs, and the unrealized potential of snakes making us feel even more virtuous than usual. The feeling was its own reward, as we didn’t really find anything out of the ordinary, though a Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet put on a tremendous show.

We’d stopped for a point count and arranged ourselves carefully in the shade when the familiar piercing pee-pee-peer in the middle distance suddenly grew louder. And then the bird was right next to us, a foot above the ground in a seep willow, nearly landing on Beth where she’d taken a perch on a mesquite stump. For the entire ten minutes of our count, the thumb-sized flycatcher hunted the low brush around us, singing and calling, showing off the dull-pink lower mandible and the unkempt little crest. But we really didn’t have anything to worry about: I doubt that he could have swallowed if he had managed to catch one of us!

As ludicrously varied as the song of Yellow-breasted Chat can be, I sometimes forget about that species’ capacity as a mimic. This morning at Avra Valley, though, one was giving a flight song that included quite creditable imitations of Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Ash-throated Flycatcher, and Cactus Wren, all the while flying exaggerated dipping loops low over the tops of the mesquites.

Also at the sewage beds: a Brown Pelican and a juvenile Wilson’s Phalarope, my first of that age-class here this year.