USA 2023 - Grand Canyon Birds (and more)

Sunday 9 April 2023

Steller's Jay - Grand Canyon AZ

We had arrived at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon on the previous afternoon, after a five and a half hour drive from Las Vegas across the vast, open landscapes of the Arizona uplands. First impressions of were off-putting: there was a 40 minute traffic queue to get through the National Park entrance, and the car parks on the South Rim were jammed. Our fault for arriving during the Easter weekend; we had been lucky to snatch a late room vacancy.

Grand Canyon AZ - view from South Rim

It wasn't any quieter when we had sorted ourselves out, got checked in at the lodge and walked over to the canyon edge. The view is, of course, sensational and it was great to be back after a 30 year absence. But the crowds had scared away most of the wildlife. A few Violet-green Swallows were flying above the canyon rim, and the only bird on the ground was this sharply-marked Spotted Towhee (below) searching for bits and pieces just over the wall at the edge of the viewing area. This is very much a bird of the western USA, its range extending into south-west Canada and down the spine of Mexico.

Spotted Towhee - Grand Canyon AZ

Also here was a Cliff Chipmunk (record photo below), also looking for scraps left by visitors. We only saw a couple of these: they had been a lot more common on my previous visit, although that had been in high summer. Today there was still snow on the shadier north-facing slopes.

Cliff Chipmunk (record photo) - Grand Canyon AZ

Fortunately, things improved considerably the following morning. As ever, it pays to be up early, and we were out of bed before 0600 to watch the sunrise. The first wildlife reward was a group of four or five Mule Deer nosing around the Thunderbird Lodge building, and looking very much at home. It wasn't a surprise: I had seen Mule Deer at sunrise by the Bright Angel trailhead on my last visit.

Mule Deer - Grand Canyon AZ

Mule Deer group - Grand Canyon AZ 

It was time for the obligatory sunrise photo shoot. The morning light was superb: clear and crisp.  It was fabulous to be out. 

Grand Canyon at sunrise

Once the sun had lifted above the canyon rim, we walked east along the Rim Trail, soon leaving our fellow sunrise gazers behind. There was much more bird activity in the forest than the previous afternoon (there could hardly have been less!), but my first sighting had me leafing through my copy of Sibley. Although looking like something new, the mystery bird turned out to be a Dark-eyed Junco (below).

Dark-eyed Junco (Grey-headed) - Grand Canyon AZ

The reason for my confusion was that Dark-eyed Juncos are variable, with 15 subspecies recognised in the HBW/Birdlife International Checklist. This form is known as a Grey-headed Junco (subspecies caniceps), with a more restricted distribution across the south-western states. Its rufous mantle is just visible.  

For comparison, here (below) is a more 'normal' Dark-eyed Junco from California's Monterey Bay coast. This subspecies is known as the Oregon Junco (ssp. oreganus), and is a common and familiar sight on the West coast of the USA. I took this photo a week before in our hotel car park.  

Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon Junco) - Aptos CA

While I was puzzling over the junco a woodpecker swooped in, perched in a pine and then flew onto a nicely exposed branch (below). It was clearly a Northern Flicker, which I had previously seen on a visit to New England. However, the species has now been split, so this is my first Red-shafted Flicker. It had an impressively long tongue (bottom image); although they can eat fruit and seeds, most of their diet comprises insects, especially ants. They often feed on the ground, like the Green Woodpecker in the UK and Europe.

Red-shafted Flicker - Grand Canyon AZ

Red-shafted Flicker showing tongue - Grand Canyon AZ

The eastern form of Northern Flicker now called the Yellow-shafted Flicker. The new names relate to the shafts of the wing and tail feathers, which are not easily seen - except in the hand, I guess. More obvious differences are that Red-shafted Flicker lacks a red nape (which Yellow-shafted has), but has a red moustachial stripe (compared to a black stripe on Yellow-shafted). The red stripe shows up well in this record photo below.

Red-shafted Flicker (detail) - Grand Canyon AZ

Posing no identification problems, but proving photographically difficult as it was constantly on the move, was this Pygmy Nuthatch (below) climbing down the trunk of a pine.

Pygmy Nuthatch (record photo) - Grand Canyon AZ

A bird that I had been particularly keen to see, the Pygmy Nuthatch is a western species, its range extending from southern Canada (just) down into Mexico. Oddly, we saw neither of the more common North American nuthatches (White and Red-breasted) on this trip; both are found on the Grand Canyon South Rim (says eBird) and elsewhere in California, too. Pygmy Nuthatch is a bird of conifer forests, while the other two species are less fussy.

Next up was the arrival of a pointy-crested Steller’s Jay (see image at the start of this post). Another western species, Steller’s Jay ranges from coastal Alaska to Central America. There are 16 subspecies; this Grand Canyon example was subspecies macrolopha (the inland  form). Note the white marks on the head; these are absent in the coastal nominate subspecies. Steller’s Jays prefer coniferous or mixed woods; I haven't seen it on the coast. Which can’t be said for the final bird that appeared: a Western Scrub-Jay (below).

Western (Woodhouse's) Scrub-Jay - Grand Canyon AZ

This looked so different from the coastal form that I had seen the previous week (see image at the end of this blog post), that I wondered at first whether it was a different species. But in fact it's the inland form of Western Scrub-Jay, known as Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay. (Although possibly not for very much longer if the proposed renaming of American common bird names goes ahead.)

And that was it for our morning Grand Canyon bird walk. We had breakfast at the lodge, packed our bags and started the long drive east ... to the considerably more arid surroundings of Death Valley.

To be continued ...

Reference

Sibley, D. (2003) Field Guide to the Birds of Western North America. London: Christopher Helm.