A tradition Braden and I have formed over the years is to make top birds lists after any big trip or, as this year, for our entire year of birding. This probably stems from the many hours I listened to Casey Kasem counting down the American Top 40 every weekend as a youth. Our own “Top 40” lists have diverged a bit since Braden is now on the East Coast for most of the year—but this year we still managed to have a lot of birding adventures together, and so have a lot of common birds on our list. It’s funny, though, how some birds we might have been super excited about when we first saw them often drift lower on the list. I suppose it’s like being super excited about Barry Manilow when you first heard him—and then realizing you could be listening to the likes of the Rolling Stones, Neil Young, and John Lee Hooker. Anyway, we thought you might enjoy our Top 10 birds of 2022—and hope you might share some of your own!
# 10
Coming in at Number 10 for Braden was the Florida Scrub-Jay, which is remarkably vulnerable in Florida, but Braden got to see with his birding buddy Nick Ramsey on their epic Spring Break Florida adventure. Read about it here. Sneed’s #10 was an unlikely Cape May Warbler—his Lifer—that he spotted in front of the house of his good friends Mollie and Craig Bloomsmith in Atlanta this fall.
Florida Scrub-Jays are the only bird species entirely restricted to Florida.
#9
Braden had excellent adventures with Northern Saw-whet Owls while out in California, running into some adorable juveniles while thrashing through the woods during his job with the Institute for Bird Populations. Elegant Trogon finished #9 on Sneed’s list—an exotic bird if there ever was one! And yet, both Braden and Sneed wondered why this bird didn’t finish higher on either of their lists. Probably just too much on the beaten birding path. (Photo at top of the blog.)
Non-stop birding for his job throughout the summer led Braden to a remarkable encounter with these juvenile Northern Saw-whet Owls.
Zone-tailed Hawks are well-known mimics of Turkey Vultures and often hang out with them—which is where we spotted this one at Madera Canyon, Arizona; only our second ZTHA ever.
#7
Ah, who doesn’t love a Swallow-tailed Kite—especially one that swoops right over your head? Braden obviously DOES, as yet another bird from his Florida trip snagged a Top Ten spot. Sneed, meanwhile, went with the shockingly beautiful Scott’s Oriole for Lucky Number 7. He and Braden both fell in love with these birds, and were lucky enough to see them several times on their Arizona adventures. In fact . . .
Braden never tired of seeing Swallow-tailed Kites on his and Nick’s epic Florida adventure.
#6
Scott’s Oriole grabbed Braden’s Number 6 while Sneed went with Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, also in Arizona, in a case that he couldn’t quite explain. “There was just something mysterious and intriguing about that bird,” he was quoted as telling a New York Times reporter.
Though relatively widespread in the Southwest, Scott’s Oriole is a bird Braden and I wondered if we’d ever really get to see—or even if it really existed. It does!
#5
Unfortunately, the same New York Times reporter caught Sneed cheating for Number 5, as he listed THREE birds tied for #5: Mexican Whip-poor-will, Whiskered Screech-Owl, and Elf Owl. “How can you possibly justify this?” demanded the reporter. “Well, I only ever heard these three birds, but we listened to them on a magical night in Portal, walking down a darkened road. It’s just a night that Braden and I won’t ever forget.” Meanwhile Braden went with his many amazing experiences with Prairie Warblers this year for his #5 spot, seeing them throughout Florida, including the Everglades, in Maine, and during the Collard Family’s epic New York City trip in May.
It blew Braden’s mind to learn that Prairie Warblers breed in the mangroves of Florida.
#4
The night walk in Portal also left a big impression on Braden, giving him his Number 4 in the form of Mexican Whip-poor-will. Sneed, meanwhile, went with Red-faced Warbler, spotted just a few miles and a couple thousand feet away—the first, and still only, RFWA the father-son duo has ever seen.
Another fairly common Southwest bird that had eluded us until this trip, the Red-faced Warbler immediately captured our hearts. This is still the only we have ever seen.
#3
Number 3 is getting into some Serious Birds, and Braden selected Spotted Owl for his. Not only did Sneed and Braden both see them for the first time in the Chiricahuas, Braden got to see the California subspecies several times during his summer job. Sneed went with his recently self-found Long-tailed Duck—the first male he had ever seen—and one he discovered pretty much in his backyard near Missoula.
When you find a bird by yourself, it naturally ranks higher in a Year List. Such was the case with this male Long-tailed Duck Sneed found near Frenchtown last fall.
#2
Braden paid for his Number 2 bird, Long-tailed Jaeger (a second cousin to former lead singer for the Rolling Stones) with repeated upchucking over the side of the boat during his summer pelagic boat trip out of Half Moon Bay. After cavorting with a bunch of Sabine’s Gulls, however, this bird took flight and then passed only ten feet above Braden’s head. He celebrated by once again barfing into the sea. Sneed opted for White-tailed Ptarmigan, just one of the coolest birds on the planet, seen during his and Braden’s stunning hike up to Piegan Pass in Glacier National Park in August.
Blurry photo notwithstanding (or puking as was the case), this Long-tailed Jaeger flew into Braden’s #2 spot for the year.
Drum Roll . . . And their Number 1s are . . .
#1
The adventure and thrill of seeking out and finally finding a LeConte’s Thrasher on the east side of the Sierras stayed with Braden strongly enough to make it his Number 1 Bird of 2022! Remarkably, Spotted Owl, which had been only #4 on Sneed’s Arizona Trip list mounted an epic comeback to grab his Number 1 spot!
Braden’s #1 for 2022: LeConte’s Thrasher!Sneed’s #1 for 2022: Spotted Owl
Thanks for tuning in as we’ve relived our top birds. Be sure to click on the links to get the full accounts, and may 2023 generate a memorable list for you, too!
When he first learned about his job in the Sierras, Braden never expected that it would provide him with a great opportunity to observe hard-to-find sagebrush species—including some of our top Nemesis Birds!It also helped move him closer to his revised Big Year goal of 500 species and the coveted 1,000 species mark on his Life List!
A concept my dad and I have perfected over the years is that of putting in a certain number of hours to locate every bird species. Unfortunately (or perhaps, fortunately), not every bird will just be sitting there in the parking lot when you arrive in a place to look for it, and it is not uncommon to completely miss a highly sought-after species. After a certain number of misses, in fact, that species becomes a nemesis bird. Every birder has or has had a nemesis bird, and that led me to think about the fact that for every single person, the number of hours “required” to see each species is unique. To get a Blue Jay, for example, a birder in the Western United States may have to search for more than ten hours, performing multiple searches at multiple locations to add this bird to his life list, while a beginning birder in Massachusetts may only have to put in five minutes or thirty seconds. Even in less extreme geographical situations, the number of hours people put in for a bird varies. My dad and I invested double-digit hours into finding an American Bittern, whereas other Montana birders just seemed to stumble onto them.
On June 25th, as my co-worker Sam Darmstadt and I crossed Sonora Pass, heading for the dry lands of the eastern side of the Sierras, we had many target birds in mind that I had already logged many hours trying to see. The first was one my dad and I had looked for at least four times, designating it as a nemesis bird, and apparently, I had finally put in enough hours for it, because as soon as we hopped out of the car on a dirt road near Mono Lake, there it was: a Sagebrush Sparrow, posing in perfect view for us on top of its namesake plant.
One of our most handsome sparrows, Sagebrush Sparrow was a nemesis bird my dad and I had searched for multiple times in recent years.
“Was it too easy?” asked Sam, as I snapped photos of this lifer. The open sagebrush plains we stood in appeared to be perfect habitat for the species, and we spotted several more as we continued down the road. In fact, it was one of the only birds in this habitat, along with Sage Thrasher and Brewer’s Sparrow, which also gave us great looks. I glanced at the strange tufa columns (calcium precipitations) rising up from Mono Lake in the distance before getting back in the car on the way to our next target for the day. This was another sage bird, one I’d only seen once and Sam had never seen: Greater Sage-Grouse.
Again, my dad and I (sometimes with Nick in tow) had looked for this species multiple times across the various Eastern Montana locales it frequented, but with very limited success. It had been five years since we’d seen our lifers, a mother with two chicks on Bentonite Road, the same road where everyone in Montana goes to get their Mountain Plovers for the year. Where Sam and I were now, at Lake Crowley, was about as different a place from Bentonite Road as possible while still supporting expansive sagebrush habitat. Ponderosa (or Jeffrey’s) Pines rose in the distance, a symbol of our high elevation despite having left the Sierras. And speaking of the Sierras, there they towered in front of us, their craggy slopes rising towards sharpened peaks sprinkled with lingering snow patches.
The Sierras aren’t just stunning to behold, they have profoundly shaped Western ecosystems and bird species—including some of our top targets to search for.
We slowly drove the dusty road through the sagebrush towards the lake, flushing Horned Larks, Brewer’s Sparrows and yet more Sagebrush Sparrows off the road in front of us. Despite squinting as we scanned for grouse heads, we did not find any. Upon reaching the lake, we added a few water birds to our list, including American Avocet, Long-billed Curlew, Eared Grebe and Ruddy Duck. Then we slowly began making our way back.
The Sierras are an incredibly diverse ecosystem and help make California a biodiversity hotspot, and we experienced that for ourselves on our drive through the sagebrush. Over the mountains above us, dark gray clouds loomed, dumping rain on the rocky peaks. Sam and I both flinched as lightning bolts struck the highest points, the thunder echoing across the valley. However, while many of the clouds drifted over our heads, the rain barely reached us. The Western Sierra had a day full of rain, while over here, we got a few drops at most. This rain shadow, created by the tallest mountains in the Lower 48, allowed sagebrush to flourish here while oak savannah covered the western foothills only twenty miles away. And the mountains didn’t just block storms. They blocked birds, too. Many of California’s famous specialty birds, including Wrentit, California Thrasher and Yellow-billed Magpie, simply could not make it over these mountains. Without the Sierras blocking their paths, these endemic or near-endemic birds probably wouldn’t have evolved into their own species in the first place.
Meanwhile, here on the east side of the mountains, a familiar Black-billed Magpie flew over the car as we turned down one last road in an effort to find grouse. After about a mile, I turned to look over my shoulder just as three giant ground birds erupted from right next to the car, landing a short distance away.
“Grouse!” I shouted, “Get out! Get out!”
This was only the second time I’d ever seen a Greater Sage-Grouse—and was a lifer for Sam!
We soon spotted one of them: a female Greater Sage-Grouse wandering through brush rising up to its shoulders. We high-fived, relishing the moment as we watched the rare bird move away from us.
Farther south, we stopped briefly at a canyon for an unsuccessful try at Black Swift, and filled up at the least expensive gas station we could find in Bishop, California. Continuing down Hwy 395, the mountains grew yet higher, and we soon found ourselves almost under the shadow of Mt. Whitney, the tallest mountain in the Lower 48. We couldn’t see Whitney, but could see many of the other 14,000-footers looming above us, their sides even more devoid of vegetation than the mountains we’d seen farther north. The sage quickly evaporated around us, giving way to desert brush as we left the Great Basin and entered the Mojave. Why had we come so far?
One reason: LeConte’s Thrasher.
This enigmatic thrasher makes its home in some of the most desolate habitats in North America, inspiring Sam’s non-honorific name for it, the Desolation Thrasher. It’s a species my dad and I had already put in several hours searching for, as we explored a barren salt desert on our way from Southeast Arizona to San Diego. This gorgeous, understated bird matches its habitat, its sandy feathers accented by a slightly peach-colored vent. It’s dark eye, a feature it does not share with the rest of the desert thrashers, matches the black color of its extremely curved bill. Almost nothing else lives in the sparse habitats this bird occupies, and needless to say, I had been obsessed with the species since missing it in Arizona a month before.
Our previous plan had been to camp in some nearby hills that night, then look for the thrasher in the morning. However, with time to spare, we decided to head towards a spot that had produced a few reports in previous years.
“Let’s start putting in the hours,” I said as we made the decision, trying to maximize our chances of seeing my number one target for the trip.
While the road wasn’t as desolate as the salt desert my dad and I had searched in Arizona, it certainly was barren. Dry, orange brush rose from the sandy ground, and as we piled out of the car to begin playing for the thrasher, it became clear that birds here were few and far between.
At every stop we made, I played the songs of both LeConte’s Thrasher and Black-chinned Sparrow, the latter another bird we hoped to find. I also pished vigorously at the brush, hoping that these enigmatic birds would respond. After one round of doing this, the situation looked bleak. The only birds we saw were distant ravens on a telephone pole, and temperatures pushed ninety degrees at 5 pm, a radical change from the seventies weather we’d been experiencing only an hour north in sagebrush country. It would have been hotter if not for the storm clouds dumping rain that would never reach us. Another point against us was that the thrashers, and all the desert birds, were significantly less active now that it was almost July. In the desert, spring starts early, and most of the reports on this road had been from March and April.
At the second spot, we added Turkey Vulture to the list, though still couldn’t find any birds actively using the desert habitat. I switched up my playback strategy at the third spot, pishing first then playing the thrasher and sparrow songs. Just as the Black-chinned Sparrow recording stopped, I spotted a bird hop up on a fence to our right. Turning my head, I saw the sandy feathers and curved bill—and freaked out.
“Sam!” I whisper-shouted, “It’s there! It’s there! Do you see it??”
“Oh my god!” was the reply.
I slowly reached for my camera, never taking my eyes off the thrasher. The bird’s tail raised and lowered, and the bird looked around, trying to spot the enemy thrasher that had invaded its territory. After I snapped some surprisingly good photographs, it flew over to another bush. The smiles on our faces could not have been erased by anything, and they remained plastered to our faces for another half an hour. We’d just seen one of North America’s rarest breeding birds—after completely expecting to miss it!
As plain as it first appears, LeConte’s Thrasher was a bird I’d put many hours into finding, and it immediately rocketed into contention for Bird of the Year honors!
The thrasher, the grouse and the sparrow had all been birds I’d looked for before, and June 25th, 2022 had been the day to cash in my hours searching for all three species. Even as I write this now, I am still in shock at the looks this desert shadow provided us with, after only looking for it twice! I’d expected to return home without the thrasher and even more determination to see one, and instead, I’d been given an experience I’d never forget. Within a few minutes, LeConte’s Thrasher was already a contender for my Bird of the Year.
The rest of the trip, driving north the next day, went well and included birding an Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest! Ironically, we found none of our other target species. They were all birds I’d never looked for before: Virginia’s Warbler, Black-chinned Sparrow and Gray Vireo. I guess that means I haven’t yet put in the hours!
It’s been a while since we posted, and that’s no accident. When Braden landed a field job monitoring Northern Goshawks in California’s Sierras for the summer, I impulsively offered to drive him there—via Arizona and Southern California. We had wanted to return to Arizona since falling in love with the state during our Big Year in 2016. The fact that Braden was out to smash his own Big Year record with a goal of 400 species made the argument even stronger, especially after he and Nick Ramsey had ransacked the state of Florida only weeks before, followed by our amazing time birding New York City. So on May 22, rashly ignoring the price of gasoline, Braden and I made a beeline down Interstate 15, pulling over to pick up Thick-billed Longspurs near Dillon, Sage Thrashers and Rock Wrens in southern Idaho, and Burrowing Owls and phalaropes at Antelope Island near Salt Lake City. After a short, peaceful night in Kanab and a stop to ogle the rapidly disappearing Lake Powell, we rolled into Phoenix for our first major Arizona stop of the trip: Prospector Park, east of Phoenix.
We found Rock Wrens at a delightful I-15 rest area of lava called Hell’s Half Acre in southern Idaho. Don’t pass it up!
As usual, Braden ferreted out our hotspots for the trip and Prospector Park blew away all expectations. An unlikely-looking suburban park with playing fields and lots of lawn, we tumbled out of the car and began racking up Life Birds before we could utter “Holy Bird, Batman!” As soon as he raised his binoculars to his eyes, Braden called out “Abert’s Towhee!” Five minutes later, “Gilded Flicker”—the last ABA woodpecker I needed for my Life List. This was not to mention the gobs of Year Birds Braden needed to advance toward his magic 400 number. In fact, one of the great things about Arizona is that for Montanans, almost every bird we see is likely to be a Year Bird. Verdin, Ladder-backed and Gila Woodpeckers, Vermillion Flycatcher, Lucy’s Warbler, Gambel’s Quail, Curved-billed Thrasher—and another Lifer, Bendire’s Thrasher. For a birder, Arizona truly is a pot ‘o gold.
Gilded Flicker was a species I had needed for several years to complete my ABA woodpecker list. Okay, I admit it—not the most exciting critter, but we both enjoyed seeing it nonetheless.
Not for the first time, one of our most fun finds turned out not to be a native species, but an exotic. We were completing our circuit around the park when we noticed a group of (I think) Mennonite birders staring at something in the grass. We couldn’t tell what they were until green shapes flew over to another patch of grass. “Rosy-faced Lovebirds!” Braden called with delight. It was a species he had especially hoped to see—and another Lifer for both of us. We spent a satisfying fifteen minutes just watching these little guys as they gathered grass seed heads—presumably to eat, but perhaps also for nesting material.
Introduced parrots such as these Rosy-faced Lovebirds always stir conflicting emotions in Braden and me. I mean, they definitely don’t belong here, but dang it, why do they have to be so darned cute?
But we had miles to go before we slept, so we reluctantly climbed back in the car for that night’s destination, Safford, where we checked into a cheap motel—only to find bed bugs hiding under the mattress. After quickly getting a refund, we headed to a pricier, bed-bug free place down the street (and yes, we checked the mattresses there, too!) for a welcome, but short night’s sleep. Our two-day, 1270-mile drive had already netted us five Life Birds and raised Braden’s Big Year total from 322 to 345 species—and we hadn’t even reached our first real destination. Would we be able to get Braden to 400? Things were looking good, but in birding as in life, nothing is certain . . .
While not nearly as showy as her mate (right), female Vermillion Flycatchers have a subtle beauty we’ve come to appreciate—especially when they pose so nicely!
