On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Happy Monday! Here’s a peek at our schedule for On the Road this week.
If I’m not mistaken, this is the first On the Road submission from Winter Wren. Welcome! (Love the nym!)
Albatrossity
Southeastern Arizona in August sounds like a very bad vacation destination to most folks, but birders know that it is ideal for a lot of reasons. First among those is that it is the peak of hummingbird migration and vagrancy season, when you can see 10-15 species of these flighted jewels pretty easily. It is also monsoon season, and the regular thunderstorms cool things off reasonably well, contrary to most people’s notions about Arizona in August. So I made plans to head down there in mid-August, driving through the states of KS, CO, UT and AZ on the way.
I did get lots of pictures of hummingbirds, but this initial batch will only include one of those (to whet your appetites for more!), along with some of the birds and scenery I saw along the way.
This young Bald Eagle (Haliæetus leucocephalus) was at the Cheyenne Bottoms Wildlife Management Area, a 64 sq. mi. wetland near Great Bend Kansas. Water in that wetland has been sporadic in recent years, but there was enough to make a side trip worthwhile on my way southwest. In wet years, shorebird numbers at Cheyenne Bottoms can be spectacular in both spring and fall migration. Click here for larger image.
My intermediate destination in Colorado was the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in the San Luis Valley of south-central CO. But along the way I found this stunning dark-morph Swainson’s Hawk (Buteo swainsonii) near Lamar CO. Dark morphs of this species are quite common west of the Rockies, particularly in California, but uncommon east f the Rockies (where I found this one), and pretty rare in my part of Flyover Country. So I took quite a few shots of this one! Click here for larger image.
A bit further west, along CO 10 between La Junta and Walsenburg CO (a lovely lonely drive with little or no cell phone reception), I got some shots of a bird that has photographically eluded me for a long time. This is a Chihuahuan Raven (Corvus cryptoleucus), although you can’t tell that from this picture. It closely resembles the Common Raven, but has a different call and a somewhat different tail shape when seen in flight. This is a bird that lots of North American birders have never seen, an iconic species with a limited range, the High Plains short-grass biome of North America. Click here for larger image.
The other attraction of the San Luis Valley is the Great Sand Dunes National Park, tucked between the Rio Grande River and the Sangre de Cristo range of the Rocky Mountains. You may have heard that the Colorado Rockies got a prodigious amount of snow in the winter of 2022-23, and indeed there were still some tiny isolated snowfields on the fourteeners of the Sangre de Cristos in mid August. Click here for larger image.
The Monte Vista NWR the next morning was not exactly a birding paradise, but there were some things to see. This Black-crowned Night Heron (Nycticorax nycticorax) was having a salamander for breakfast as I pulled into the refuge that morning. Click here for larger image.
There were lots of baby birds of the waterfowl variety, including this Ruddy Duck (Oxyura jamaicensis) mama with some of her ducklings. Click here for larger image.
As well as this Pied-billed Grebe (Podilympus podiceps) mama and her stripey-faced offspring. Grebe youngsters have some marvelous looks! Click here for larger image.
But the highlight of the baby bird category that morning was a flock of at least a half-dozen recently-fledged Marsh Wrens (Cistothorus palustris). They were quite curious, probably never having seen a photographer in their midst before, and gave me lots of opportunities to take their portraits! Click here for larger image.
Among the sparrows who were active at the refuge that morning I found Vesper and (surprisingly to me) Song Sparrows. But the only one who posed for a decent portrait was this Brewer’s Sparrow (Spizella breweri). This species has a large range in the western part of the US, and seems to be doing okay overall, but some of the subspecies populations (e.g., Timberline Sparrow) are declining. Click here for larger image.
And finally, a hummingbird picture, as promised. An adult male Broad-billed Hummingbird (Cynanthus latirostris) feeding on some agave or yucca flower that was planted near the B&B where I stayed. I suspect some of the excellent gardeners here can ID the plant. Click here for larger image.
JPL
The sparrow is so cute!
Great pictures and thank you for sharing them with us.
Lapassionara
Thank you! Your photos are always so interesting.
zhena gogolia
Love these.
Betty Cracker
Wonderful photos as always! Looking forward to more hummingbirds!
SiubhanDuinne
As always, these are great pictures! I especially love the Grebes, mère et bebé.
sab
I planted a lot of purple coneflowers very close to the house, and the hummingbirds love them. We watch them from our front window
ETA I had a hummingbird feeder hanging from a small tree in the front yard. The squirrels ruined that. Knocked it down then drank the contents. I like squirrels but they are the tiny bikers of the animal world.
Albatrossity
@Betty Cracker: There will definitely be more hummingbirds! They were abundant and diverse; I picked a good year to so this photo walkabout there.
eclare
Great photos! The sand dunes, wow.
SteveinPHX
Thanks for photos. That’s a nice area of the state to poke around in.
The Moar You Know
Bonus: all the Arizonans in August are in San Diego, snarling the freeways, bringing all traffic near the beaches to a grinding halt, getting into fights with the locals and loudly braying their loyalty to Trump anywhere they can get away with it. They’ve been doing it for decades, all save the Trump part. I’d far rather have the hummingbirds.
The last couple of years, we’ve started getting folks from Nevada as well, who can also fuck right on back to the inferno they came from.
Yutsano
BIRBS!!! I always find the Albatrossity birb Monday morning posts so enjoyable. Especially on a day when I have to scoot to the office early!
StringOnAStick
Lovely!
It’s been a great hummingbird season in our backyard this year, with a nesting pair that give me a close buzz when I pick my veggies. Last summer I planted the entire backyard in pollinator species, and now that most things are full size, our reward has been daily hummers, an amazing range of bees, bumblebees and hoverfly species. Grass is boring; we love the flowered chaos out there.
piratedan
on the off-chance for those birding enthusiasts… The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum has a hummingbird enclosure that is somewhat idyllic (imho) where you can watch/sit and see them flit about.
neldob
Lovely birds and Spectacular photos! I so rarely see them so close-up so it’s especially wonderful.
Cathie from Canada
Great photos!
That first one, the eagle, could be captioned “Who da f*ck are you?”
Albatrossity
@piratedan: Indeed, that hummingbird aviary at the Sonora Desert Museum is worth the price of admission!
Mark von Wisco
I was visiting my Mom yesterday afternoon. She has a hummingbird feeder in front of her picture window. There were two female ruby throated hummingbirds constantly visiting the feeding. One of them had a mottled breast. I’m guessing that it was newly fledged this summer.
hotshoe
I’ll offer a possible identification for Hesperaloe parviflora — “false agave” or “hummingbird yucca” as that last hummingbird plant.
Recently offered variety named Brakelights is vivid red, but the ordinary specimens have pretty pink stems with salmon pink flowers.
The foliage is more slender and graceful than some other agaves. Spineless. And quite obviously, the flowers are hummingbird attractant.
Long lived, deer resistant, drought tolerant to a fault — must have well drained sandy soil — hardy to about 0 degrees F (USDA zone 6). I’d like to see it in more gardens.
BigJimSlade
I like the grebe-ous angels :-)
Albatrossity
@hotshoe: Thanks! That certainly seems to be the right ID. It is a lovely plant, and I’d plant it here ifI could get away with it. Our (infrequent but inevitable) forays into temperature territory in the -10 to -20F range are not gonna let me do that…
OzarkHillbilly
Finally got to this Tuesday AM, always worth the trouble.