Birding While Running

Every stride on my six-mile morning run offers a unique opportunity for birdwatching.  Believe me when I say finding my feathered friends is a motivation to hit the trail on these recent chilly mornings, when I've not only needed a pair of gloves but also a neck gaiter and hat.  My last mile yesterday brought this point home when I was rewarded by spotting a female common goldeneye in a flock of mallards on the Arizona Canal.

I wrote last summer about encountering a number of lesser nighthawks at the very beginning of my mostly routine, looped run through my little corner of Phoenix.  Those seasonal migrants were hunting just before daybreak, a time when I could avoid the sun during the hottest period of the year. 

To get an early jump on busy days, I'm still starting my runs before sunrise, which is mercifully later now that winter is approaching.  I like to begin on the nearby Links golf course that leads lazily downhill to the Arizona Canal that acts as a recreational artery in my part of town.  On the fairway of the Links' 18th hole I recently noticed high in an Aleppo pine tree a great horned owl.  His features were hidden in the dark but his unique shape and wide girth were outlined against the slowly lightening sky.

Only in brighter light, at my run's first mile marker between the canal and the Links' first fairway, I frequently see at least one vermilion flycatcher.  Usually it's a male blaring his fire engine red head and torso feathers in the green of a tree's foliage or against the turf.

After jogging in front of the clubhouse and restaurant of my Biltmore neighborhood's second golf course, the Adobe, I like to run along Thunderbird Trail, the Biltmore Resort's main roadway.  Like the canal, it's got a dirt path installed for walkers and joggers.  This time of year white-crowned sparrows and dark-eyed juncos, both migratory birds, live in the adjacent bushes, venturing out to feed off the well-watered lawns of the nearby mansions.  

Milepost two reminds me I'm about to venture up busy 24th Street where my attention is usually more focused on traffic than on birds.  When I do peer into the towering Mexican fan palms or at the top of street lamps I might catch common birds of prey like Cooper's hawks and American kestrels on the look-out for breakfast.  

Veering from the noisy cars, I enter the Sherwood Manor neighborhood just south of the Arizona Canal.  Half-acre lots seem to have been the historic norm for developers, originally constructing 1960's ranch-style houses that are being encroached upon by newer McMansions.  Meanwhile lots of rabbits inhabit the area along with city birds like house finches, mourning doves, and roaming flocks of rosy-faced lovebirds.

Past the third mile marker, and well into my run's fourth mile, I'm back on the canal where a few weeks ago I saw a bobcat.  He was ambling along the south bank, mostly hidden in bushes, trees, and cacti that border nearby homes.  The feline was an exciting distraction from the noisy woodpeckers, dabbling mallards, and black phoebes that usually draw my attention.

The fifth mile of my run begins in the heart of Granada Park, a grassy, lake-filled urban retreat in the shadow of nearby Piestewa Peak.  My course around and through the complex varies but usually I'm able to see Gambel's quails in the desert terrain on the park's northern and eastern borders and a number of migratory waterfowl in the bodies of waters.  Just recently I've noticed that American wigeons, ring-necked ducks and even northern shovelers have joined the perennial domestic ducks and mallards for the winter season.

Finally it was close to the start of the sixth and final mile of my run, back on the canal, where I saw my newest migrant find, a lone female common goldeneye in a gaggle of water birds.   She caught my eye because she was quite a bit smaller and lower in the water than the many mallards that were flocking in the group.  I don't think I've seen one of these bright-eyed, brown-headed migratory birds in the area in almost five years.  But what was especially striking to me was this recent encounter was close to the exact spot where I remembered seeing one all those years ago.

Of course I wanted to quickly run home and research this find in my vast collection of photos and stories.  So along the canal trail via the 24th Street underpass, I sprinted past the Wrigley Mansion to the Biltmore Resort and to my community behind it, trying to ignore any ducks or flycatchers that might distract me.  I was both a runner and a birder, but mostly a man on a mission.

Female common goldeneye on the Arizona Canal near Granada Park in Phoenix, February 2016.

Pair of female common goldeneyes on the Arizona Canal near Granada Park in Phoenix, February 2016.