334. Calliope Hummingbird

Date         May 24, 2022

Location    Dornan's Pizza Pasta Company, Grand Teton National Park, WY

After successfully identifying the Broad-tailed, we were watching another hummingbird on the north side of the trail, across and downhill a bit from the Broad-tailed's favorite perch. I was stuck on the idea that this might be a Calliope because the range fit and, well, it did look rather small, even though I know this is an unreliable cue. In any case, we had plenty of opportunity to observe him because he was doing courtship flight displays.

During some iterations, he would fly high up in the air, and then, with his back turned toward us, gradually descend to a favored perch. This gave us a great view of the shiny green back feathers. Other times he would do the U-shaped display.

While on the perch, he would flare out his gorget feathers, giving us a fantastic view of the brilliant iridescent fuchsia (and solidly diagnostic) "color." The sun was behind us now, so we got all the color available. The photo above is very similar to what we were able to witness through our binoculars.

Cornell: Calliope Hummingbird

333. Broad-tailed Hummingbird

Date         May 24, 2022

Location    Dornan's Pizza Pasta Company, Grand Teton National Park, WY

We arrived to eat lunch after our river raft adventure. As we exited the vehicle, Logan and I heard a buzzing sound that we couldn't really identify but sounded intriguing. We went inside the restaurant.

North of the restaurant is a short paved trail to the Snake river and a small historical display of an old river ferry. As we sat at our table waiting for our pizza, we looked out the window in that direction and saw two hummingbirds. After eating, we decided to investigate further. At first, we didn't get our binoculars because it seemed like a long shot, but after seeing a fox and another hummingbird, we ran to get our optics out of the Jeep.

The Broad-tailed was spotted first (another species is described in the next entry). He kept coming back to the same perch over and over just a little ways down the path. The photo above is our actual photo of this bird, taken by Mieka on her iPhone. Unfortunately, the sun was mostly behind the bird from this vantage point, so the throat was mostly black, but we did manage to see a little magenta on the edge of the throat.

Cornell: Broad-tailed Hummingbird

332. Mountain Chickadee

Date         May 23, 2022

Location    Taggart Lake Trail, Grand Teton National Park, WY

I heard this one calling, but I'm very familiar with the Black-capped/Carolina vs. Mountain calls, so the ID is solid. I had an experienced western birder with me as well to confirm. The pine trees prevented me from actually finding him/her.

Edit: a couple of days later I saw one building a nest in Yellowstone NP.

Cornell: Mountain Chickadee

331. Violet-green Swallow

Date         May 22, 2022

Location    Perrine Memorial Bridge, Twin Falls, ID

On the east side of the bridge near the landing zone for the BASE jumpers, I spied several swallows flying about the south cliff face. Viewing through binoculars, I was able to easily see the green, purple, and white in all the right places as seen in the photo above. The sun was shining and I was viewing them from above, so everything was very clear.

Cornell: Violet-green Swallow

330. Clay-colored Sparrow

Date         July 4, 2021

Location    Harrington Beach State Park, Belgium, WI

This one was very satisfying because it totally wasn't on my radar until I did some last-minute intelligence gathering the night before visiting Horicon.

It's often suggested, in a variety of contexts, to talk to the locals to get good information. This was something I had failed to do before the Phoenix trip back in 2007, my first real "offsite" trip. It cost me the opportunity to get to a place that was supposed to have Vermillion Flycatchers. The consolation was that I went to an alternate location and still got two new birds that morning.

In this case, I decided to watch a YouTube video the night before Horicon. It was a presentation of the history and layout of Horicon marsh and what birds could be seen there. He mentioned Clay-colored Sparrows, which I had sort of tucked away in my mind as a western bird. It's really more of a northern/Great Plains bird, but always west of where I lived.

After watching the video, I decided to look up his song, since this was a species not featured in any of the Birding by Ear CD's. I was frankly not too hopeful, as there are so many species of sparrow and they often have songs that are basically a variation of a Song Sparrow. I was glad to hear that his guy has a pretty unique-sounding song -- just a simple, loud, buzz. I figured I could identify that in the field.

After arriving at the state park to camp for the night, we walked to the beach, which was about a mile away through a delightfully diverse set of habitats. I could hear Eastern Meadowlark one minute, a Wood Thrush the next, and a Green Heron the next.

On the way back near Puckett's Pond, I heard the buzzy song. Almost always, when I hear a new song for the first time in the field, I doubt myself a little bit because I want to avoid wishful thinking. So I scrambled to get a look at him. He was on a bare branch nearby, but very backlit. The look was, to say the least, not diagnostic (other than the fact that it looked like a sparrow), but the song was.

I did see and hear one the following day near the same location (perhaps the same one). This time he was fairly distant instead of backlit, so still not diagnostic, but the song again saved the day. Of course, he's about the LBJ-est of LBJ's!

Range maps will show that this state park is located at the extreme southern edge of its range. This adds to the satisfaction; I can't get this guy at home unless I'm lucky enough to find him in migration.

Cornell: Clay-colored Sparrow

329. Virginia Rail

Date         July 3, 2021

Location    Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, Horicon, WI

I was walking on a boardwalk trail, attached to the driving route near the Marsh Haven Nature Center, when I heard a brief iteration of the grunt-squeak "song." I got fairly close to the location of the sound and played it back to him from my Audubon app on my phone. A moment later he answered it, again very briefly (like two grunts worth), and I was able to focus in on where he was.

Of course he was very hidden, but I did manage to get a very small peek of his behind as he skulked through the dense marsh foliage. I waited a few moments to see if I could get a better look, but it never came. I walked along and got some great views of Soras, who were also chirping. As I walked back, I heard the grunting calls again, this time a slightly longer rendition.

I now have all of the "easy" rails -- all the ABA 1's. Black, Yellow, and the recently split Ridgeway's are left, and all are ABA 2. It may be a while . . .

Cornell: Virginia Rail

328. Black Tern

Date         July 3, 2021

Location    Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Area, Horicon, WI

The black tern was a species I expected to get on my trip to Bear River refuge in Utah a few years back, and I thought I might have seen one while I was driving out, but it was flying off before I even had a chance to stop and get a better look. So it was nice to finally check this one off.

These birds are quite abundant at this location. In fact, it might be the most abundant bird in the strictly marshy areas, so I was seeing them and listening to their squeaky cries all day.