Slaughter Ranch July 8 2012 Day 2

Early to bed means early to rise.  We were up at 4:30am and out the door a short time later headed out to Slaughter Ranch.  We were up before the sun and it greeted us with a glorious splendor.









It started over the mountains slowly.











I had the hubby stop a few times so I could catch it's greeting.











*Sigh*

It peaked over the mountains caught behind a cloud teasing us with a light show.

It greeted us in a heavenly display, 

which is a great way to start the day! 

Bell's Vireo was hanging out hopping in a tree along-side the dirt road to slaughter ranch. We ventured off the road after securing the car.





























Just down the empty stream a Black-Throated Sparrow was happily tweeting.

He balanced himself on a delicate twig.

He was just watching the world around him

















and we were watching him.

We left him to his perch and looked for more of his feather friends.

Not far we found a Canyon Towhee.

He made sure to take us all in.

We snapped away!

He gave an annoyed call and bid us goodbye.

We went further down the road and pulled over again to look for some more birds.  I didn't see any birds on this exploration, but I did see a furry mite which caught my eye!

A little frog was holding steady in the pond.












The squirrel stared us down from his perch high on the rocks above as we went back to the car and left.

We drove on and stopped when we spotted a Gambel's Quail scurrying across the road.  We drove on and hopped out of the car when we saw something different flying in the sky.

We hopped out and did our best to get a shot of the Common Night Hawk on his early morning hunt!

I am very proud of these in flight shots I was able to capture.

He gave us some great identifying shots while on his hunt.

He just flew around in the currents.

He caught sight of us and decided to hunt elsewhere.  Hot and excited at our photographic catch we drove on, until the hubby suddenly hit the brakes.

You birders know why he hit the brakes!  There in the middle of the Arizona Desert not far off the Mexican Boarder.

Ah, The Loggerheaded Shrike.

I love this bird because of how unassuming it is.  I mimics the sounds of other birds.

Then it pushes them onto rocks, reeds, or anything else below and kills them.  See, you never would have expected that would you?

This bird is hard to catch on film so I made sure to get a lot of photo's!

I took this last shot and took a second to try and get closer when he flew away.

We drove on and pulled over after spotting something red.  We secured the car and found the Cardinals.

We spotted the loving couple flitting about in the tree.













We got back to the car and drove on finding a Red-Tailed Hawk on a fine early morning.

We passed a Turkey Vulture on the way to Slaughter Ranch.

Then, we were delighted to spot not one but many Varied Buntings.

Unlike a previously sighted bunting who had more blue on it, these appeared to have a great amount of red on him.

A close up shows the red!

















The light gave us even a better look at this red sheen.

Slaughter House Ranch does at times have painted buntings so while early in the year we hoped to have a sighting of our own.  

We spotted some Gila Woodpeckers just inside looking for bugs.

  A Say's Phoebe was perched on a sprinkler head in one of the horse pastures.  

A female Vermilion Flycatcher was in one of the trees flying to and fro between the trees in front of the pond.















The Ladder-Backed Woodpecker was actually on the road in to the right on what looked like an old pasture opening that is no longer in use.

We walked further down the path to the preserve ponds and caught sight of a Western Kingbird.
















Here is a better shot of him.

A Yellow Warbler was hoping around the first pond we came upon.

He looked on after us with curiosity 

He seemed to be trying to figure out what we were or why we were there.

That's when we saw that he had a lady friend.

We said goodbye to our friend and went back to the car without the Painted Bunting.  We headed out on our next adventure of the day.