[Birdtalk] San Juan county birds - June 2007

[Lu Giddings]

I've had a really hard time getting down to San Juan county this year. I
managed a blitz trip over the weekend for just my third trip in 2007 but
it was still reasonably productive.

Saturday was pretty warm in Bluff. When I arrived at about 3 p.m. it was
around 103 F so I spent a few hours birding near the pool with a cold
drink in hand. No waterfowl were seen but heat exhaustion was avoided.

I birded along the San Juan river Saturday evening and Sunday morning,
from Aneth to Bluff to Sand Island. Nothing extra-ordinary was seen. Tim
Avery has done such an excellent job down there this year finding rare
and exciting birds that I'm almost embarrassed to post this report. But
what the heck, I'll do it anyway. Birds of note include:

- a mating pair of summer tanagers was seen in Bluff. This is the second
consecutive year a mating pair of the species has been seen in town.
This is interesting when one considers that this is not thought to be a
part of their normal range.
- three Lucy's warblers were seen in the cottonwood trees around the
Recapture Lodge.
- black phoebes were seen in Aneth and in Bluff. Including the black
phoebe seen in Montezuma canyon in March, this suggests the possibility
of at least three nesting pairs of birds in the county. Again, as with
the tanagers, this is not thought to be a part of their normal range.
- I suppose all of the blue grosbeaks that are not around in northern
Utah are spending their summers in San Juan county along the river. Last
year I had to work like a dog to find one in San Juan county; on Sunday
morning I saw a total of about 20-25 individuals at various stops along
the river. They were everywhere. Yellow-breasted chats, common
yellowthroats, Cassin's kingbirds, western kingbirds, ash-throated
flycatchers, and black-throated and lark sparrows were also fairly
common.
- after nearly two years of searching for the species, a trio of
burrowing owls was spotted about 100 yards east of and 0.25 miles north
of MM 29 on Highway 191 as one drives north out of Bluff.

Finally, a request. Do any of you know of an online source that provides
photos of juvenile common ravens and/or Chihuahuan ravens? I ran into a
family group of two adult ravens and three juvenile birds. I was
unsuccessful in my attempts to photograph them. The young birds had a
fair amount of white in their neck and breast feathers. Any help would
be appreciated. The calls of the adults sounded rather croaky, like that
of the Chihuahuan birds, but I would not dream of trying to ID this
species based on call alone.

Lu Giddings