Blue Goose ~ Day 186

November 29, 2014 ~ Ehrenberg, AZ

I got to figuring and this should actually be Day 182 so I messed up somewhere. WhateVer.... I'll fix it  eventually.

It was a perfect Saturday morning. The first thing I did was watch Great-tailed Grackles forage in garbage, and then I went to Cibola NWR.

Great-tailed Grackles - Ehrenberg, AZ

I really do need new superlatives for these refuges. Without fail, they delight and surprise me, and fill me with peace, so I hope they do that for the fauna also (although, I have to say, I am not a target for people with guns.)

Cibola NWR is partly in California and partly in Arizona, about 25 miles south of Ehrenberg, consisting of riparian habitat along the Colorado River but also fields, desert, woods and wetlands. (I went back and forth between these states several times over the following days.) The VC was closed but I noticed a woman and her dog sitting quietly on a bench nearby. She and her husband were short-term volunteers and full time RVers since retirement. She definitely had joie de vivre, full of wonder at the beauty of this refuge and at life in general. She told me about the trails and found a map in the hunting pamphlet (the usual general information refuge brochure slot was empty). Her delight in being in a perfect place on a perfect morning was infectious and refreshing. She had grown up in Wisconsin and then lived in Florida but now was living in an RV. People always ask, "Are you traveling alone?"

Phainopepla - Cibola NWR - AZ

A car with North Carolina license plates with a young couple came in also (I so seldom see east-of-the Mississippi cars). And then I talked with Mike, a birder from Montana, full of information about the whole western birding scene. He travels with a couple of kayaks on his truck and gets out in habitat I never would.

The first small trail ("Watch for rattlesnakes") was in the back of the VC and I immediately saw a Phainopepla, a sleek black crested bird, and a field of Snow Geese in the distance. There are Yellow-rumped Warblers wherever I go, Audubon's I presume (are Myrtle's ever seen in the west?) including an occasional male in breeding plumage with bright yellow throat.

I walked a mile-long Nature Trail through the loveliest young Fremont Cottonwoods which have whitish trunks (in their early years) and yellow and green leaves in the fall.

Nature Trail at Cibola NWR - AZ

The sky was blue. The path was slightly elevated and wide and clear of hiding places for things that bite and sting, although the trailhead sign warned of bees in addition to snakes. There were very few flies which have been present here and there lately in other places. I ambled for a long time trying to see well the flitting canopy birds, like gnatcatchers and warblers (many Orange-crowned). I saw my first Ladder-backed Woodpecker of this trip. The sunshine and the trees and the trail were wonderful. At one turn-out, there was an observation deck overlooking a partially flooded field full of waterfowl, but I was concentrating on the trees and small birds. While walking back, I met Mike again and we talked some more. He told me interesting stuff about the Sage Sparrow split and how he participated in banding Bell's / Sage Sparrows and being surprised at how many Bell's they caught, and he told me about checking the undertail of gnatcatchers for help in identification. He was well equipped for birding on the move with one of those vests with generous pockets, a GPS unit, binocs, etc. And I loved his field guide which was intact but held together with tape and as worn as a beloved book can be without falling into its separate pages. He had neatly written notes on each bird. It's so much fun to be able to talk with another person who travels mostly for the birds. He told me about the location of woodpeckers he has in Montana, including Red-headed and Lewis's. But he has never been (yet) to Magee Marsh in May.

And he told me exactly where he has been seeing a Vermilion Flycatcher down by the river, so I headed there. I didn't see it but did find four White-faced Ibises splashing and cavorting in the wetlands and at least four Wilson's Snipe in a group and a couple dozen peeps (small shorebirds).

Wilson's Snipe on Cibola NWR - AZ

A funny thing happened on the way....I was driving along an irrigation ditch where Gambel's Quail were running about. I spooked them and they dove for cover, one flying right in front of my car heading for the dense brush on my right, but miscalculated or something and ending up sliding (just like in baseball) in the dirt into the brush, raising dust but successfully disappearing.

And a roadrunner also ran at high speed across the road, also disappearing for a minute but I then saw it walk into a small open area. Mike had told me that Black-tailed Gnatcatchers are usually seen in pairs, and I saw two gnatcatchers moving in tree right by the road but I just could not determine for sure which species they were. I am learning, however, more of what to look for other than the underside of the tail. Fascinating, right?....

I felt I was definitely out in habitat here, very still and quiet on this sunny afternoon in November...

Back across the Colorado where two kids were playing ball in the dusty road, on through the dusty, rock-strewn, sun-baked town of Cibola (not a tourist destination but these tiny towns in the American outback pique my interest. I always think of the social matrix of these places and of the night skies and sunrises and sunsets and the weather and where the kids go to school....)

The route back to Ehrenberg also had huge baled hay stacks which I see all over. There were cotton fields with white fluff in the roadsides and cylindrical bales ready for shipment somewhere.

Baled cotton - south of Blythe - CA

I saw a giant mechanical harvester moving through one of these fields, stripping some but not all of the balls. Did you know there is a condition called sidonglobophobia or bambakophobia which means fear of cotton balls? Neither did I. Or that a current teenage diet fad involves eating cotton balls soaked in lemon juice? Probably not field cotton but still......

I stopped at a convenient Starbucks in Blythe, on the California side of the Colorado River before returning to the Best Western and  working. I ended up with a 1000-calorie intake for the day.

Colorado River - AZ to the right; CA to the left