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Birding Photography

Birds and a Bat

It has been a busy few days, mostly due to a Lapland Longspur that showed up at the sewage ponds. In South Dakota, one can see thousands of Lapland Longspurs during some winters and nearly always some in most winters, but in Arizona one is a big deal. I first saw the bird on Saturday afternoon and got the word out. Sunday was a busy day with birders coming in to find it. Some succeeded, some didn’t. It was not a cooperative bird and stayed too far out for any good photographs.

Lapland Longspur at the Ajo Sewage Ponds. Very tough bird to get any good photos of.
Perhaps the most amazing thing I saw on Sunday was this bat. I first saw something small swimming toward shore very rapidly. Now this is not something one typically sees at the pond. I couldn’t tell what it was till it came to the edge and scurried up the fabric liner. It was a bat! I guess it must have trying to get a drink, got too low and couldn’t escape the water. I know now that bats can swim very well. This is a free-tailed bat of unknown species (see the long tail). It was fairly large so I’m guessing a Big Free-tailed Bat or a Western Mastiff Bat.
Even more surprising was how quickly it was able to fly off. According to my bat book, most if not all free-tailed bats cannot take off with out a considerable drop-off height under them. But this one did, even when wet. Perhaps it was due to the steep slope it was on. I was able to get a couple of very poor photos. The tail and large ears are evident.
I found this Harris’s Hawk feeding on a rodent. There were two more waiting for some of the food. The bird looks normal from this side but….
It is missing its left eye. It looks like the wound is still draining. Apparently it still able to hunt.
Here’s a photo with the other two Harris’s Hawks. They are both smaller the the one-eyed hawk.