Total of Life Birds for the Trip

We traveled nearly 6,500 miles through 12 states during those 27 days!  It was quite a trip!  We traveled out west through Nebraska, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and back to South Dakota.  We spent most of our time exploring the underlined states.

While on this trip I saw 46 life birds!  The only thing I can compare it to was Christmas as a child!  That mounting excitement I felt as a child while waiting and then finally opening gifts and to see a new toy for the first time!  Okay...maybe I'm being too dramatic here, but it really was so much fun to see all of those life birds in June!  I really can't imagine how other people are not interested in birds!

This was not a birding trip, but I would be able to bird as we go.  If we did not have camping or motel reservations to keep us moving, I'd probably still be in Colorado!  It was very difficult to keep moving when I wanted to bird an area longer or have another look at a mystery bird, but I vowed to use self-control and remember that this was not a birding trip.  I didn't know how to prepare for this trip except to study the western birds, so I'd know them when I saw them.  I know I missed quite a few bird IDs because I had several mystery birds that I could not identify due to lighting or not getting a good enough look at them.  I also heard bird songs or calls that I could not ID.  I know most of the bird songs in my area, but out west its a different group of birds.  One thing I would've done differently when preparing for this trip would be that I wish I had studied bird songs.  Many times I would hear birds and not know what they were.  Trying to find the birds in heavily forested areas proved to be very difficult and frustrating, so if there is a next trip I will be studying bird songs beforehand.

Some months ago, I had been listening to a birding podcast by Bill Thompson III.  He was interviewing Jeff Bouton, who found an Amazon Kingfisher during a birding festival in Texas.  It is episode #45 and you can find the link on this page of "This Birding Life".  Jeff talked about how he tries to take a second look at suspicious birds and not just assume that it is something common.  That was how he discovered the rare Amazon Kingfisher. I decided to do that on this trip and a number of times that second look revealed a life bird!  For example at the Granite Dells in Arizona, I saw a blackbird quickly perch up on top of  a shrub.  I thought it was a Brewer's Blackbird or something common and then I went back to take a second look.  It was a Phainopepla!  Wow!  I was so shocked and excited to see it and get nice photos of this beautiful bird! 

The Phainopepla is such a sleek-looking bird!

Now I have the "travel bug" and I want to go explore other places.  I want to see some other birds too.  Here is a list of the birds that I saw on "The Big Trip" in chronological order.

 1. Mountain Chickadee
 2. Black-throated Sparrow
 3. Bushtit
 4. Curve-billed Thrasher
 5. Ash-throated Flycatcher
 6. Black-chinned Hummingbird
 7. Sage Sparrow
 8. Bewick's Wren
 9. Western Bluebird
10. Lesser Goldfinch
11. Pygmy Nuthatch
12. Black Phoebe
13. Black-throated Warbler
14. Pinyon Jay
15. Juniper Titmouse
16. Bridled Titmouse
17. Gambel's Quail
18. Verdin
19.Phainopepla
20. Sage Thrasher
21. Pine Grosbeak
22. Brewer's Sparrow
23. Acorn Woodpecker
24  Cassin's Vireo
25. Black Swift
26. White-headed Woodpecker
27. Hermit Warbler
28. Mountain Quail {heard only}
29. Common Murre
30. Western Gull
31. Brandt's Cormorant
32. California Towhee
33. Pacific Wren
34. California Quail
35. Chestnut-backed Chickadee
36. Brown Pelican
37. Black Oystercatcher
38. Pelagic Cormorant
39. Heerman's Gull
40. Band-tailed Pigeon
41. Vaux's Swift
42. Pacific Loon
43. Pigeon Guillemot
44. Allen's Humingbird
45. Varied Thrush
46. White-tailed Kite

I was able to get photos of 36 of the 46 birds, so that was nice too!

I really enjoyed watching the Gambel's Quail's behavior.