Solitaire Townsend's Solitaire

birdfotos.com

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TID-BITS

On 03-06-06

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Wanting to get out of the extremely dry and polluted air of the Phoenix area
I headed north toward the Grand Canyon's South Rim and the COCONINO PLATEAU.

I don't know which is worse, the polluted Phoenix air; or all of the tourist at the South Rim of the Canyon :-)).

Therefore on this trip I decided to spend time driving the dirt roads in the forest just south of the
Canyon's South Rim and just South of Tusayan a few miles off State route 64 and then West on road 306.

I was told to check out the TANKS. HUMM, tanks,
I started looking for metal tanks with water in them. I didn't know if they
meant big tall round metal tanks or low open top tanks with water in them.

Much to my surprise neither of the above tanks were correct.
I soon found out that a tank up here is no more than a big scraped out hole in the ground
to hold run-off water from the rains and snow melt.
I guess a tank could be anything that held something, thus qualifying a large
depression in the ground no matter how it got there as a TANK.

Many of the tanks were dry, parched, cracked dirt, and no water.
This also meant no wild life would be coming to drink so I kept on driving.
Some of the tanks were numbered and some named as you will see.

After several hours of being driven around with by my friend Don we came across this tank
with a smidgen of damp mud in the bottom of the hole, well, maybe just a bit more than a smidgen.

Inasmuch as there was no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.
Get out those cameras and let's start taking photos I said as I jumped out of Don's vehicle almost before it had stopped.

Inasmuch as there no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.

And this is what it called

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HAIRY WOODPECKER

Not until the very last moment of the last day did this woodpecker show up.

As I was about to pack it in and head for home this Hairy Woodpecker flew in, needless to say, I stopped packing and started to take photos.

Inasmuch as birds do not announce them shelves when they fly into an area, if your not looking you can miss them, especoally if your not watching as I was not.

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I like this image because it shows the woodpecker's feet.

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This image shows the top of the head.
It's good to get images of as many angels as poosible when photographing the birds.

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I really like this image because I took the time to make sure it was in good focus
because I wanted to show the white feathered ring around the eye.

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Hairy Woodpecker and a Towsend's Solitaire

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What's on the site page. Bird Index page.


I have listed the pages separately in case you don't want to have
to go through the whole article one page at a time just to see what's on the site.


Page. 1a. Elk - Page 1b Grand Canyon Deer - Page 1. Townsend's Solitaire - Page 2. Butterfly, Mountain Chickadee, Unknown Hawk -

Page 3. Plain Titmouse & Pygmy Nuthatch - Page 4. Tiger Salamander - Page 5. Grand Canyon Big Horns - Page 6. Red Crossbills -

Page 7. Red-shafted Northern Flickers - Page 8. Aberts Squirrels - Page 9. Pinyon Jays - Page 10. Stellers Jays -

Page 11. Dark-eyed Juncos Oregon race.


TID-BITS Index Page - WHAT'S ON THE SITE PAGE - BIRD INDEX PAGE

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