Common Loon at Red Mountain Park, Nov 13, 2020

My friend Tom texted me about a Common Loon at Red Mountain Lake. I decided to check it out. Common Loons are not common here. When one shows up, word gets out, and people go to see it. I get a Maricopa County rare bird alert email from ebird.org every day (which I forward to a folder, and don’t always look at), and the loon was on the list.

I had never been to Red Mountain Lake before, but it’s a nice spot, and not too far away (about a 25 minute drive). It’s close to Red Mountain, which I have posted many pictures of on this website. It’s in Red Mountain Park, and is a 13 acre, man made lake, about 1/4 mi from end to end, and about 3/4 mi to hike around. There are two islands in it, and it’s fairly easy to access the water, which is great for photographs. They stock the lake, so there were fishermen there, but that also provides food for water birds. I was focused on the loon this trip, but there is more to see there. It’s definitely a place I will be returning to.

I got there at about 2:15, and wound up spending a couple of hours. The light would have been better for photographs in the morning, I think.

The loon would only come to the surface for short periods, and then dive, and stay underwater for quite a while – maybe a minute or more. It could travel quite a distance underwater, and you could never tell where it might surface. By the time he surfaced, and I found him, he would dive again before I could get my camera on him, focus, and take the picture. I missed a lot of shots! I followed it from one end of the lake to the other, and finally decided to hang out at the west side, which it seemed to prefer, and always returned to. I found a spot where the light was good for photographs if the bird surfaced in the right spot. Otherwise, I used my flash and did the best I could with the light. The loon was in its bland winter plumage, as compared to its more distinctive summer breeding plumage.

There were other birders there to see the loon. Dylan Cooper reports a lot on ebird.org, and told me about some rare birds that are in town now (Eurasian Wigeon and Surf Scoter in Paradise Valley Lake, and a Varied Thrush in Buckeye). Jeff Martineau told me about a good spot to see raptors (Elliot Road between Sossaman and the 202). Prime time is a little later in the year. I met Fiona and Vivian, who are active members of the Audubon Society.

The other highlight was the American Kestrel, which caught and consumed a Verdin. Jeff pointed out the Kestrel in a dead tree, and I took a break from the loon to photograph it. It took off, and returned with its catch – a Verdin. It proceeded to consume the entire Verdin over a 10 minute period. It was, for me, a unique opportunity to observe and photograph. The light was good, it was fairly close, and it was unobstructed, which makes for good photographs. For the casual amateur photographer like me, this doesn’t happen often. I took a zillion pictures. My camera takes 10 pictures per second, and I took many bursts of photos. In this post, I included 11 pictures in the sequence, from the catch, to complete consumption of the bird. You may not share my interest in capturing ‘nature in the raw’ at our urban lake. I didn’t include the ‘gory’ photos (except maybe one).

It was a nice trip. Thanks for the tip, Tom!