Gray Catbird, Clay-colored Sparrow at Furnace Creek Ranch on Nov 18

[Justin Hite]

Yesterday I did a brief stopover at Furnace Creek Ranch at 4pm on my way back from a rafting trip down the Grand Canyon (an immature male Rose-breasted Grosbeak spent a morning with us at one of our camps in the inner gorge; the next morning we saw Condors) but was only able to bird for an hour before it was too dark to see anymore.   One of the first birds I found was a Clay-colored Sparrow near the two mesquite trees among the date palms at the east end of the solar panel array. Pure gray nape, white malar strip, very contrasty face with warm colors.  Then I spotted a largish unpatterned dark-colored bird with cocked tail in the same mesquite which made me think Green-tailed Towhee.  When it hopped down onto the grass, however, I saw it was a Gray Catbird!  It seems pretty late for Catbirds, so I was surprised.  Other birds included a Snow Goose with 4 Canada’s on the driving range, two White-throated Sparrows by the pool, several Myrtle Warblers among the Audubon’s (butter butts were the only parulids present), a Lewis’ Woodpecker, several Red-naped Sapsuckers, a Yellow-shafted Flicker, and what I think was the female/immature red x yellow intergrade Flicker (face like a female Red-shafted with gray throat and face mixed with buff eyeline and malar, and with orangish wings).  I didn't get photos of the bird in flight, but it was basically pure orange and not at all the reddish orange of a red-shafted.  There was probably more there (like those Ruddy Ground-Doves), and I was a little bummed I had so little time at the end of a beautiful day to bird there.