American Widgeon
This desert city has a love affair with water. Green golf courses and lots of mini lakes and ponds. Lush green and warm sunny weather attracts winter tourists from all around the Northern Hemisphere ("snow birds"). But, the ponds also offer habitat for hundreds of real birds many of which migrate long distances from the northern United States and Canada.
On November 18, 2000 the Maricopa Audubon Society sponsored a field trip led by Tara to some of the hot spots. The first stop was a pond and golf course at the Holiday Inn Sun Spree Resort on Indian Bend Rd. just east of Scottsdale Rd. Obtain permission from the hotel first or else be their guest before walking about the pond and course. Here we spotted many ducks, herons and shorebirds, including the spectacular Black Necked Stilt (tall black and white bird with red legs) as well as flocks of spritely American Pipits. An American Kestrel, a type of bird-eating falcon, kept the many smaller birds wary.
Our next stop took us to the Chart House on McCormick Parkway and Scottsdale Rd. Several ponds straddle the parkway and play host to many semi-domesticated ducks and geese as well as the winter migrants. We saw a Great Blue Heron, lots of American Coots (black ducklike birds with white bill), and Ruddy Ducks (stubby ducks with a short tail that is held straight up).
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Our third stop was Buster's Restaurant. Just north of the restaurant are ponds and a long paved bikeway. There were lots of ducks, especially American Wigeons which have heads marked with gray, green and white. In with the Americans was a lone Eurasian Wigeon (head is mostly rusty brown with white), a stray that might have wandered from as far away as Siberia or Greenland! It will be happy to spend the winter here with the Americans so long as it's sunny and warm and there are plenty of water plants to eat. In addition there were insect-eating Phoebes and Warblers at water's edge taking the flying midges that had emerged from the water. Shore birds poked into the mud at the pond's edge in search of worms and insect larvae.
Wonderful aromas of cooking food from Buster's invited us to linger, but we had one more stop to make: The Pavilions Shopping Center. Besides shopping the area also offers good sized ponds that attract plenty of water birds. Every year these ponds attract many common ducks and such, but also rare birds that bring bird watchers from all around. We found Lesser Scaup, Redhead, Wigeons and Canada Geese among others.
A Green-backed Heron,
with utmost concentration,
takes aim at an underwater target ...
probably a small fish.
Abert's Towhee, American Coot, American Kestrel, American Pipit,
American Wigeon, Anna's Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, Black-necked Stilt, Canada
Goose, Curve-billed Thrasher, Double-crested Cormorant, European Starling,
Eurasian Wigeon, Gila Woodpecker, Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Great-tailed
Grackle, Green-backed Heron, Green-winged Teal, House Finch, House Sparrow,
Inca Dove, Killdeer, Lark Sparrow, Least Sandpiper, Lesser Scaup, Long-billed
Dowitcher, Mallard, Mourning Dove, Northern Flicker, Northern Harrier, Northern
Mockingbird, Northern Rough-winged Swallow, Northern Shoveler, Pied-billed
Grebe, Red-tailed Hawk, Redhead, Ring-necked Duck, Rock Dove, Ruby-crowned
Kinglet, Ruddy Duck, Say's Phoebe, Spotted Sandpiper, Verdin, Violet-green
Swallow, Western Grebe, White-crowned Sparrow, Yellow-rumped Warbler
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48 Species - Not Including exotic (pets) released pond ducks and geese
Killdeer Charadrius vociferus
Sonoran Desert Naturalist Home Page
Last Updated: April 27, 2006
Copyright Michael J. Plagens, 2000