Xmas Vacation in the Southwest Part 2 (24-25 Dec2022)

The next morning was a half day on the south rim so I wanted to start early and look for some birdies.  It was fun watching the shadows in the canyon creep around as the sun rose.

 I decided to explore some of the Kaibab Forest only a hundred or so yards from the rim to look for peckers.

I was super surprised to find this Williamson's Sapsucker tapping away and even more surprised to find out it was a lifer for me.  For some odd reason when I was researching potential lifers in eBird this one completely slipped my search.  Serendipity!

I watched it for a while but never got the close-up I was hoping for.

Here is the range of the Williamson's Sapsucker per the Cornell site.  And now that I look at the eBird distribution it is an expected bird on the south rim.  I guess I need to prep better, but its nice to find something I wasn't expecting.

While watching the sapsucker I started to notice some other birds like this Pymgy Nuthatch.

Hairy Woodpeckers out west look different than our eastern ones.  They have much less white accents in the wings which makes the white back stripe stand out more.

We headed out shortly before lunch and started our migration around to the east rim, stopping along the many vistas on the way.

The Common Ravens here are much more tame than ours.

I saw a shape out in front of this monument and thought maybe it was a Condor perched.  It wasn't.

But we moved on to Navajo Bridge where many reports indicated a good chance of seeing them perched.  I was not disappointed!

California Condors!

All of them are wing tagged and I think you can track them online.

We arrived that evening in Page, AZ and had a nice meal and hit the hay.  Next morning was our long-awaited chance at seeing the infamous Antelope Canyon.  You can't just show up to see these slot canyons, you have to reserve a spot with local Navajo owned tour guides.  Its a little pricy but worth every penny and its nice knowing the money is going to the Native American community.

The entrance to Antelope Canyon is fairly unassuming, but once you step inside you see what all the hype is about.

These slot canyons are carved out of sandstone by flash floods and part of the reason why they are regulated is so that some yahoo doesn't get stuck inside during a flood which can be deadly.

The guide also helps you to look up at the right spots to see some of the well known formations.  This one was shaped into a heart.

My son George actually took this sands of time photo with his iPhone.

Back outside the canyon this Rock Wren was singing its heart out.

What an amazing place!  You can easily see how the local tribes consider it sacred.

We also visited Horsehoe Bend which was nearby in Page.

After lunch we headed to our next destination with a couple small vista stops on the way.

Luke and George

Melissa

Wire Pass is another slot canyon where you don't need a guide and regularly is an example of how people can get stuck and killed.  Some people died in here a couple weeks after we went.  The weather was really nice when we went and we didn't go too far in.  Luke actually was going for a run while the three of us went into the canyon.

In some spots the canyon was really narrow....

But in others it got really big.

It was cool to see some ancient petroglyphs craved into the rock.

All in all this slot canyon in the middle of nowhere was totally worth the drive.  I have to admit I had an anterior motive in that I saw many reports of Pinyon Jays in this area but we never did see any and it remains my nemesis bird.

We had to get going as we had a 2 plus hours drive to our next stop in St George Utah.  It was Christmas Day and although there are some restaurants in the area around Zion where we were staying, I wanted to do something special.  Wood Ash Rye is a restaurant that got 5 stars on Trip Advisor so I had booked it for Xmas Dinner.

The sunset on the way over was epic!

For anyone that goes to Zion National Park, do yourself a favor and drive the 45 minutes to Wood Ash Rye, it was quite possibly the best restaurant I have been to in a long time.  We had a taster's menu with many different courses and every one of them were excellent.  Also big shout out to our awesome waiter Gabe.  

By the time we got to our hotel in Zion, it was super late and we fell into a food coma.  We all agreed it was the best Xmas in a long time.

Xmas Vacation in the Southwest Part 1 (22-23Dec2022)

In the new year I started my county project in NC and quickly forgot about all my pics from our Xmas vacation in the Southwest.  How I forgot about such an amazing trip is beyond me, but here comes the material albeit a little late.

I was browsing google flights for cheap tickets shortly before Xmas, looking at the usual candidates like the Bahamas or Costa Rica, but the ticket prices were out of reach probably due to post COVID travel revenge.  I am not usually very cheap, but with a family of four, expensive tickets can get amplified to an astronomical number.  So when I saw relatively cheap flights to Las Vegas, I figured why not go do the Grand Canyon again, but this time with my boys being old enough to appreciate it.  The last time Melissa and I hiked the Grand Canyon was when Luke was a bun in the oven and George was just a gleam in my eye.  I did some quick research and it looked like we could do a big loop in one week starting in Vegas then driving around the south and east of the Grand Canyon and then coming back around to southern Utah in the Canyonlands.  I knew the birding would be slow and not bagging me any lifers except the one that has previously eluded me, the California Condor!  

We arrived in Vegas very late, too late to enjoy any of the night life, but don't worry we saved that for the grand finale.  In the morning we decided to get on the road early but not before a nice breakfast at a local cafe.  I wolfed down my food and ran across the street to a small postage stamp park to bag a couple local Nevada birds.

Great-tailed Grackle

Eurasian Collared Dove

Black-tailed Gnatcatcher - If one of these showed up in Wilmington, we probably would not take the trouble to take a closer look due to resemblance with our Blue-gray Gnattie.  

There are some minor difference in the tertial edging on the wings and the bill color which are subtle.

But the best ID clincher is under the tail.  The Black-tailed has some white patterning but the Blue-gray is almost all white underneath with the exception of the outer retrices. 

People out west have to learn both as they can overlap in range.  In Southern California they also have the California Gnattie which is most similar to Black-tailed but doesn't overlap in range much if at all.  So the lesson here is make sure you properly scrutinize your Gnatties.

Verdins are super cool little birds and the only member in the USA of the family Remizidae which includes the penduline tits of Europe.  I can see the resemblance.

That was about a 5 minute stop, and the family was ready to go again.

Heading east out of Vegas it doesn't take long before you get to the Hoover Dam on the border of Arizona, so we just had to stop there.

There is a nice bridge that allows you to get above the dam and look down on it.  Impressive in person.  This dam controls the ever decreasing flow of the Colorado River and is the source of much controversy in the perpetual water wars in the southwest.  Everyone wants a piece of this poor river.

Looking from the dam up to the bridge. Incidentally the bridge is dedicated to Pat Tillman, the professional football player that quit to join the military after 9/11 and died in Afghanistan.

Photo credit to Google search.

Way down the bottom I zoomed in on some Common Goldeneyes but otherwise the birds were few and far between.  Sunset was going to be early in the winter so we hightailed it to the south rim of the Grand Canyon so we could catch it in time.

Obviously pictures of the Grand Canyon don't do it justice and you can't get the enormity of it without being there.

The Grand Canyon in winter can be really cold and have bad weather but we got really lucky!

We stayed at the Thunderbird Lodge which was rustic but nice.

Sunrise was exceptional with the sun changing the colors of the cliffs by the minute.

The birding was a little slow but fun and full of quality birds.

Oak Titmouse 

Hairy Woodpecker 

This buck Mule Deer was staring me down big time.

The Grand Canyon is big!

Mountain Chickadees are small.

I believe this is an Utah Juniper Tree.

Western Bluebird - note the blue throat.

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay

The mighty Colorado River at the bottom of the Canyon.

I spotted a large herd of Javelinas rooting through the underbrush.

My favorite bird the Bushtit only made a brief appearance and uncharacteristically was alone.

I don't know where Luke was for this photo, maybe taking a run.

Later in the morning we made the hike down the canyon on the Kaibab Trail which was still full of snow and ice but with Yak Trax was doable.

The good thing about doing the trail in the winter is you don't really have to worry about heat exhaustion, but hypothermia can be a problem if the weather changes unexpectedly.  We were lucky and had perfect weather.

The mule train bringing supplied back and forth to Phantom Ranch.

The view from half way down.  We didn't go all the way which is a pretty punishing day hike, but most people do it in a couple days staying at the ranch.  We didn't sign up for the ranch because we weren't sure about the weather which was iffy right before we left home.

Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay

More posts coming soon.