This is the last day before we enter the “critical period”. This is the time when we start tracking against the haunted trail project plan – set tasks that have to be completed for each day or we run the risk of not being ready for the extravaganza. So many things to do, but if not done in the right order at the right time, we start to stumble over ourselves and we end up clipping a root and face-planting on the trail. Those familiar with Intrigued know all too well how that turns out ha. The good news is, we are finishing up all the new props for this year and for the most part all the scares that broke during the event last year have been fixed – all that early year work pays off. In the midst of the trail prep, I happened to notice we were a post down from our self-imposed monthly quota. Although busy, we definitely can’t let a decade plus streak go down without a fight, so jumped on the computer and figured I would end the month with some one-offs from our Arizona trip back in January of 2024. There will be limited commentary due to time constraints, so simply sit back and enjoy the shots.
Hit the jump to see some miscellaneous shots that didn’t have enough companion images to make their own post or not an interesting enough back story to keep you entertained.
Welcome to 2025 everybody!! Admittedly, I am now officially 0 for 2 in actually getting the date right, but don’t worry, the year is still young…there will be plenty more mistakes ha. The Intrigued holiday break is officially past and those not already assigned to the field are back in the office, stoking the fireplaces, cleaning up after the raucous year end party and based on the last weather report, shoveling the parking lot and salting the walkways. Fortunately, Linda and I are getting ready to enjoy the sun-soaked days of South Padre Island. Birding has been excellent so far including some very successful chases to pad the 2024 Average Year (not updated, link here) and getting the 2025 version off to a great start. Best of all, we have met some extremely kind and helpful birders on our trip down here! A big thank you and shoutout to Tim, Q, Tom, Tonya and Arthur – best of luck on your 2025 birding goals. While I dig out the sunscreen and finish up all the 2024 paperwork (hope I didn’t leave all those staff expense reports in the fireplace, wink), Brad is going to bring you a few finds from Sin City.
Take it away Brad…
As Brian has stated many times over the years, he has quite a backlog of photos to process and write stories about. I’m nowhere near his backlog levels. Even if I am, it’s only because of the grueling travel schedule Intrigued HQ has Jan and I on this year. Looking back through the queue of stories, I found this one that I had started, but had “misplaced” and not taken the time to finish. This story is from our trip to Las Vegas during September 2023.
In the afterglow of seeing a Desert Tortoise (see here) in Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, Jan and I decided to drive to the Willow Springs Picnic area to see the Petroglyph Wall.
We arrived at the park late in the day, after 4:30pm. Shadows were long in the canyon. We weren’t hopeful of seeing many desert birds. The shadows also helped reduce the desert temperature to a comfortable range while standing outside of the air-conditioned rental car. Early Fall can be quite warm in the desert. Forget about that “dry heat” nonsense, hot is hot. While we did see a few musings carved in the stone at the Petroglyph Wall, that wasn’t the really interesting part.
As Jan and I walked further up the trails and into the shadows in the canyon, we were cranking up the ISO as we went. Our cameras (replaced with the next model since writing this story, they did each have over 200K clicks on them) were most effective up to about ISO 3200, but past that it’s really an iffy proposition to get publishable photos. As it was, I thought I was stretching the cameras to the max with high ISO, aperture as wide as the lens would allow and a slower shutter speed than I would like to be using. Nikon’s Vibration Reduction (VR) helped a bit, but not nearly enough to keep the other settings low enough to catch spastic little birds in the scrub brush.
Sure enough, there were two little birds teasing us mercilessly. These LBJ’s lived there and probably knew our cameras were being taxed. Both of them were within feet of the ever-darkening trail. Each would flit to the outside of their respective bush/shrub, pause for about 1/250th of a second, and then bury themselves in the dark interiors again.
Hit the jump to read more about these very active finds.
I has been a very long time since I was “birded out”. After three solid weeks of birding through the southeast, I have to admit I’m probably there. I’ve walked nearly a third of the miles I usually run in a month and that is saying A LOT. Was it worth it…well, I was sitting at 240 for the Average Year when we embarked on the migration trek and thanks to some unexpected good fortune before we even made it to Dauphin Island, the count now sits at 292. For those that have been following along, yes, that is a mere 8 little birdies away from the initial goal – and only 4 months in. Unfortunately, The Beast developed a glitch and my rotator on my previously repaired shoulder feels like a knife stab on every training run stride.
Gear can be fixed and pain eventually subsides, you’re really here to see the incredible feathered feature of the day!
Eh, to be honest, this one is not that incredible and thanks to an unexpected surprise, it isn’t even a new bird to the blog. At least it has a cute crest. Could be worse, there were a few little brown jobbers in the queue ha.
The intent was to focus on the background for this rather drab looking birdy per the norm with new checks on the life list. Processed all the pics, added them to the new post, went to add the tags and “what is this..the Juniper Titmouse tag is already in my history” Sure enough, Juni made its appearance back in August 2014 (from a trip back in Nov 2012) – link here.
Hit the jump to see more of this bird that will NEVER make it into Linda’s tin. She has a strict policy of only tinning the colorful ones.
So, based on the hate mail that has been showing up in my mailbox lately, the teeming millions want their bird posts and they want it now. Fred B. from Michigan wrote “If I don’t get a bird post in the next 48 hours I’m going to stab this little voodoo doll I just made of you.” Harry R. from Nevada just called me a bunch of names and likened me to a terrorist – honestly I’m just assuming it was due to lack of birds but he may just be delusional and simply suffering from a bad case of the bumbles. Oh, and Rick P. from Texas simply asked me if I’d consider featuring a jailbird in the upcoming months. Although I don’t like to give into peer pressure, it is obvious that the people are getting restless – next thing you’ll know Homeland Security will put out a report stating there is a serious trend of the commoners not trusting their government. I’d hate to contribute to such unhealthy thoughts so to remedy that I’ll shall pull out a BIRD POST (trumpets, cheers, clowns losing their heads). Today I bring you a new bird on the list taken at our favorite home away from home – Vegas! To be specific it was actually taken at Red Rocks Canyon while we were out there in Nov 2012 – I know I know, beat me, whip me, make be write bad checks.
Oh, and did I mention it was kind of a surprise find?
Before we go any further, I need to state for the record, that these shots are for the most part pretty crappy. They were taken in very bad lighting and it took everything I had in the digital darkroom just to make them somewhat presentable. At first viewing I was disappointed and had my finger moving to the delete key when something made me take a second look. When I was taking this shot I took the profile to be just a common Tufted Titmouse. We have them all over the place where I live and that species alone probably consumes about a quarter of my bird food. I’ve learned to at least snap a few shots in the field even if first impressions are less than exciting – even in bad lighting since these first two had to be pulled out of underbrush darkness. Guessing that green thing is some form of trash and the twig in the first one is UBER annoying. Regardless, something made me hesitate to toss them.
There is one common element in our local Titmouses .. maybe that is Titmice now that I think about it… and that is a sometimes faint but always present orange coloring on the sides. The lack of that on this particular bird was likely the reason for the hesitation. The crest was a perfect match but in all the shots, the orange element was missing. It was off to the reference bookshelf to see if this was indeed a new entry on the bird list. To my pleasant surprise there was an all grey Titmouse – in fact, there were two, the Juniper Titmouse and the other being the Oak Titmouse. The Juniper range fit the location I was at perfectly and the Oak was isolated along the Western side of California. If only Sparrows could be this easy!
Hit the jump to see a few more crappy shots of this new bird to the list and read a few interesting related facts.
Wildlife Intrigued 