Only a little late: Spring Break 2009

I just realized that I NEVER posted anything from spring break this year. This is from my paper-and-pen journal on our way to the airport, with pictures and links along the way. Our life list and pictures are thrown in for fun at the end. This was our second run at the Buena Vista, Texas, area. This is a prime birding location down at the tip of the boot-toe in Texas, because migrants need to decide if they're going to follow the Rio Grande or the East coast. Tons of birds get pushed in/down by disturbances in the Atlantic / Gulf of Mexico, which means that lots of exotics make their only appearance in the US in this 200-mile stretch of border towns. Plus, it's warm in April, while we're usually ducking snow storms on our way out of town on Spring Break.

We got a whole mess of new life birds, which is pretty impressive. In what now totals just over seven days of birding in the region when you combine time from our two trips, we got better than 100 new life birds. Which is even more impressive.

There was a lot of time spent in the car this trip, and that got overwhelming because this wasn't supposed to be a driving vacation. We flew down there and stayed so we'd have more time to bird. Our location was what we thought of as centrally located, but we found ourselves driving 30, 50, 70 miles to get to the next birding spot. It made for what felt like late nights and shorter birding days.

It was sunny and gorgeous most of the week. This was a welcome respite from the stormy weather we'd been having for most of March and April. Seriously, who turned on the blizzards at the EQUINOX!?!?!

We went to a lot of places we'd birded before. We also went to some cool new places that we'd like to visit again at other times of the day or with different weather conditions. There were a few places that we visited before that we didn't get back to, as well. So, in summary, we will probably go back down there again.

The bed and breakfast that we stayed in was really rather nice this time. We both agreed that it was farther from where we did most of our birding. On our last day, we went out to South Padre Island, which, it turns out, was HOPPING for rare species and protected birding spaces. We could have stayed at the KOA Kampground on the Island for the same price as the B&B, so we're thinking next time we'll do that. Camping on the ocean. YES.

We rented a small SUV for this trip, and it worked out fairly well. We really liked the Dodge Nitro that was ours for about ten minutes before we realized it had temp tags that were set to expire the next day. We didn't like the Chevy Equinox we had next because it had all sorts of chrome in the cockpit that reflected into our eyes as were were driving around. Plus the windshield wiper squirter was broken, so even though there was plenty of wiper fluid in the reservoir, we had bugs all over our windshield. Remember that opening scene in Men In Black when there are bugs splattering all over the windshield of the truck? Yeah, the highway was sort of like that. Which made birding from the highway ..... difficult.

A brief stop at the McAllen airport the second day of our trip saw us switching into a Toyota Rav 4 that was pretty acceptable for the rest of the trip. We still wish we would have had that Nitro for the rest of the trip. That was a pretty sweet ride.

We had our customary run-ins with border patrol while we were down there. Lots of the birding places are right along the Rio, and are just dirt access roads that run down to the river. The Rio Grande River is only 100 yards wide at a lot of these pull-out picnic places. A strong arm could huck a baseball straight across the water with little problem. We would often cruise down to the river only to have a BP agent follow us a few minutes later to check on us. I'd guess that they see as many birders as they do coyotes down there, since they didn't seem to be surprised to find us there with our binos. One or two guys even asked us if we'd seen anything good!

The last time we went down a path to the river, it was supposed to have superlative birding. We parked under a tree next to an old picnic table to eat our lunch. We were going to leave the car, and walk back up the road to an old defunct RV park that is still maintained for birding trails. While we were sitting there eating, we spotted the green kingfisher, a bird that's eluded us two years in a row. Brian snuck out of the car with camera in hand to try and get a picture of it. As he was lining up the shot, the bird flew. And Brian realized there were four guys on the Mexico side of the river with sniper rifles. He backed away just as slowly as he could force himself to do. I didn't start to freak out until I got my binos on them and realized that the guns weren't over their shoulders but in their hands. Of course, if they'd really wanted us dead, we wouldn't be here anymore. So that was exciting.

(and also high on the list of stories that we will not be telling my mom) (oops. Mom, don't have a heart attack. It was months ago. REALLY!)

There was a lot of aruging with the GPS unit, which made our lives mostly better. There were a lot of places that provided lousy maps or directions for how to get there, and since those places were off the beaten track, a few times our GPS didn't think we were even on the road. After a bunch of by-the-seat-of-our-pants navigations, though, we've got a big list of places saved in our address book for next time.

We didn't run into local birding friends on this trip. We did, however, run into a few folks more than once. It worked out really well, because the first set of ladies directed us to a feeding station we'd missed, where we found the buff-bellied hummingbird that we'd been hunting. At another place, a gentleman pointed out a bird that turned out to be a blue grosbeak (even though he'd thought it was something else--he was an enthusiastic German birder in a touring RV that we played hop-scotch with a few times at one of the parks. A few other guys helped confirm some shorebird IDs that Brian and I were mostly convinced about, which built our confidence in being able to ID shorebirds (we both share a weakness there). Birders on SPI were very friendly and happy to give tips of where to go to see different things on the island. We passed a few of them viewing something through scopes and pulled over along the side of the road. There we got a good look at the Aplomado Falcon. We'd gotten a good glimpse of a pair of them earlier in the day, but they'd spooked when Brian got out to warn the birders behind us of them.

One of the birders we ran into mis-identified the Tamaulipas Crow at the Brownsville Dump. Still, last time we'd wanted to go to the dump and not had time. So this time we did. We spent an hour or better there, marveling at the profusion of birds swarming around the active work zones.

We were both totally entertained. There were all of these "unofficial" birding hot-spots that have rarities. Those places are accustomed to birders showing up for birds instead of the normal business, and many of them have maps that they'll give out with advice on where to go. There are all of these funny birding codes: "pull through the first fence to the caretakers cabin. Honk twice. If nobody comes, proceed through the second fence, park and start your walk." Things like that. The Brownsville Dump is one of those places. The guide book said, "pull up to the left of the office and show your binoculars, they'll wave you inside."

In reality, when we arrived, the guy said, "Oh, good! Let me give you a map!" and slid one out through the cashier-night-drawer. He explained all about where we should go and where the best viewing was. He was incredibly friendly for a sanitation worker dealing with what was probably his eightieth car of birders for the day! We went away empty on the crow, but got some really good looks at Chiuahuan Ravens. We also got a big kick out of the fact that we're probably the only two people we know who would stop and have lunch on vacation in a landfill. Heee!

The guy who though he'd seen the crow at the dump also told us that the Tropical Parulas were still at the highway rest-stop. Brian and I altered our route on our way back to the airport to go through the rest-stop, and realized that we'd done some good birding there when we'd driven down two years ago. We crossed the highway and beat through the bushes a little bit and found our Parulas, the last bird for the trip.

We got to the San Antonio Airport in time for a massive line of thunderstorms to cut straight across all of Texas. We're talking replete with tornadoes and golf-ball sized hail. FUN! We stood in line for a dog's age at the airline counter to try and see if there was another flight line that would help us avoid Dallas-Fort Worth airport. We found out that it didn't matter that our flight was delayed out of San Antonio, because our flight from DFW to Philly was straight up cancelled!!!! The lady punched about a zillion keys on her workstation and finally hooked us up with a completely different route home to my folks' house. We ended up going to Chicago, then hopping airlines and coming in to Harrisburg.

The net result was a 11:30 pm rescue from my dad at Harrisburg Friday night, and my folks taking us down to Philly on Saturday afternoon to retrieve our car.

And thus ends the mis-mash account of our spring break trip 2009 to Mission, Texas, to see all the awesome migrating birdies.

Here's our list (in slightly chronological order):

Hermit Thrush (me only)
Golden Cheeked Warbler (hellooo, endangered species!)
Long Billed Dowitcher
Mottled Duck (me only)
Least Grebe
Laughing Gull
Buff-Bellied Hummingbird
Gull Billed Tern
Least Tern
Greater Yellowlegs
Green Kingfisher
Painted Bunting (me only)
Audubon's Oriole (I called this one and was VERY proud of myself!)
Swainson's Warbler
Louisiana Waterthrush
Red Crowned Parrot
Mexican Magpie Jay
Royal Tern
Bonaparte's Gull
Black Crested Titmouse
Wilson's Plover
Sandwich Tern
Ruddy Turnstone
Willett
Tennessee Warbler
Aplomado Falcon
Chiuahuan Raven
Caspian Tern
Common Paracque
Olive Sparrow
Black Throated Green Warbler
Blue Capped Viero
Blue Winged Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Swainson's Thrush
Baird's Sparrow
Black Skimmer
Glossy Ibis
Neotropic Cormorant
Tropical Parula

Here's some of our best shots. Also: CAUTION!! There be snakes below!

Black necked stilts: not new this trip, but one of my favorite birds....





Common moorhen hiding in the reeds:




Diamond-backed black water snake:





Red-crowned Parrots:





Least Tern (the little one!) next to a Laughing Gull:





Tri-color Heron:





Blue Grosbeak:





Painted Bunting:





White Ibis:





Ruddy Turnstone:






A Brown Pelican on South Padre Island:






What we think is a Man 'O War Jellyfish:





And a shot we took for my dad:

Tackling the Kitchen Part II, Plus CSI Final

Yesterday after Brian left for Indiana, I got to work on the tiles in the second half of the kitchen. These tiles were only slightly less hideous than the ones in the first half of the kitchen.

Unfortunately, they were actually installed correctly, which means that they were actually stuck down to the floor.

It didn't take me long to empty out the chairs and table and wine cooler. I took up the threshold that used to divide the two areas of the kitchen/eating area. Then I stopped to take a picture:





Some tiles were more stubbornly stuck than others. Some cracked away when I was trying to peel them up. I was battling the Revenge of the Lung Funk, so I gave up last night with the floor looking like this:





The only good part was that there were juuuuuust enough tiles left that I could hop-scotch across the floor without having to peel my own feet off the floor with each step. Pulu and Sara's dog, Mea, found out the hard way that they should stay out of the kitchen.

This morning I saw the maintenance guy weed-whacking, and he told me where to look in the shop for the paint scrapers I used last time. I scampered up there, retrieved a few tools, and was able to make some headway on the stubbornly-stuck tiles. (yes, that is black mold you see on the floor. I washed it down with bleach before re-flooring)






And what was Pulu up to while I was wrestling with those tiles? Lounging and defending the yard from marauding bands of squirrels.





Finally I got the last of the tiles peeled up and could vacuum up the worst of the debris.






The new flooring went down fairly quickly and started to look FANTASTIC almost right away.






Time to check on the big dog. Yup, still lounging.






Rats. Ran out of tiles. Time for a break to run to town. Took Sara with me, who also needed a break. We accidentally stopped for ice cream after we hit Lowe's. Much needed girl time!






"I guarded the yard while you were gone, mom."





Re-supplied with tiles, I prepared for the final push (I hoped).





The one thing about cheapy-peel-n-stick tile is that it's easy to custom-fit edge pieces with just a pair of stout kitchen shears.






Aaaand, a short time later, I'm done (sort of!)






Pay no attention to the final edge of the room, where I'm short 5 tiles. I'll pick those up tomorrow and then be able to put the threshold back down lickety-split!





I'm pooped!

Later this evening I'll load the kitchen back in. Tomorrow I'll pick up those last five tiles and call this project a wrap!

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While I'm all posting pictures, I thought I'd share some of the shots from the crime scene final that my kids did in Forensics. I don't want to share pictures of their faces, but here's a few highlights!

(there is real blood in these photos, but it's all dried. It was bovine blood that we got from a supply house. But, skip this if you're sensitive!)






Oh dear, it seems someone has been shot.






I actually set up two separate but identical murder scenes--one for each team. The crime scene tape divides the two scenes so they didn't accidentally cross-contaminate their scenes.






Team 1 at work:







Silly perp, left footprints in the blood.














The victim fought back. He's got defensive wounds with blood and fibers under his fingernails!






The wound, shell casing, blood flow, and a little bit of the purple-magic-marker "lividity" that the kids used for time of death:






Looks like a .22 shell.






And they finally remembered to measure the footprints!






Whoooo! Team 2 found a suspicious white powder in the victim's pocket. Wonder what it is??





Their crime scene reports are due on Monday. I can't wait to see what they came up with!

Tackling the Kitchen

There I was this morning, standing in our kitchen, doing the dishes, and grumbling to myself about the agony my foot was in, again from the cracked and peeling vinyl tile in our kitchen.

The tile has been an eye- and foot-sore since Brian first moved in more than five years ago now. Since I moved in after our wedding, I've managed to gash my feet several times on the flooring. (goodness, will it really be five years since we were married this September?!?!?)

So today, once more hurting, I decided I was going to Fix. It.

It's important to note here that this is Brian's busy season. He left for work before 8 this morning, and likely wont' get back tonight until well after 7. If I was very, very good, this remodel job could be completed and a lovely surprise for him when he gets home tonight.

I was already planning a jaunt into town, so I just decided to add Lowe's to my stops. There I spent some time meditating in the vinyl tile aisle.

I picked out something that I think is rather nice. It's reminiscent of what I put into the entry way, but it has a pattern that could be laid out in an interesting way. It's also cheap, which means that we're not pouring more money into our pit-of-a-house-that-we-don't-own, and that I could afford what I needed to do the entire kitchen and still have money left over for a latte.

I got it home, and got started.

First, I recorded how shitty our old floor was for posterity.

At first glance, it doesn't look so bad. A bit dated and cheesy, maybe, but not bad:





Except then you notice that there's some rogue tiles over by the cabinets that really, really don't match. They actually match the eating-area part of our kitchen, which is divided from the food-prep part of the kitchen by the counter/pantry shelves that you can't see in this picture.

A slightly closer look reveals that we're also camoflauging some tiles that are missing completely with a kitchen rug, just in front of our sink:






And if you take a closer look, you'll noticed that the tile is loose around the edges, and cracking away. It sticks up sometimes when it is really humid. I scrape the soles of my feet on it all the time, and I have actually drawn blood from some serious gashes on more than one occasion.






It only took me about twenty minutes to tear up the old tiles. I'd swiped a paint scraper from the maintenance yard, which was just the ticket to loosen the few still-stuck places on the old tile:





Once I got a look at the subfloor, I didn't feel badly about slapping down some crummy flooring that won't last for more than a few years. Truly, our house is held together with bubblegum and toothpicks. Even though I've rationally known this for the entire time I've lived here, it still astonishes me. It took me a LONG time to scrape the floor and vacuum up all the detritus.

Then, I got ready to start laying the tile. The first course looked fantastic:





Yes, I know you're supposed to measure from the center of the floor and work outwards, but please believe me when I tell you that it would not matter in the slightest in our house. The floor is in no way to be confused with flat. None of the walls are square with each other, or even perfectly straight up and down. The best case scenario was to match up as best I could to the existing seam and work from there.

I did wind up accidentally ripping the toe kick off of one of the bottom of the cabinets, but it wasn't actually being held in place by anything! I found a fork under the stove when I tipped it up to slide the tiles under the edge.

What?!?! There was absolutely no way that the stove or fridge were coming out of where they are. I honestly think that the counter was laid after the fridge was put in place, because there are mere millimeters between the fridge and the counter and the fridge and the wall. I can't even open the door up wide enough to take out one of the crisper drawers!!

By lunch time, I had the bulk of the tiling done. All that was left was fitting the non-standard tiles around the edges:





I went up to lunch, where Brian sat unsuspectingly next to me, having no clue what I was up to. Muahahahahaha.

After lunch, it took me less than an hour to finish custom-cutting the tiles around the edges. I screwed the threshhold back down between the kitchen and eating area and cleaned off the kitchen table, which I'd been using as a staging area. Ten more minutes of cleaning and our house looks like nothing happened. Brian won't have the first idea what I've been up to until he gets into the kitchen proper. HEEEE!

Here's our fabulous new floor:





Once the school year has ended and I have more than just one day off, I'll tackle the eating area part of the kitchen. That tile is obviously slightly newer. It's not cracking apart yet and is still stuck down pretty firmly. It'll take a lot more elbow grease to rip it up, but the place is going to look spectacular when I get it done.

Truly, I should have done this ages ago!

Crafty!

So this all started at women's weekend. I signed up to take a beading class, and I simply wasn't satisfied with what I came away with. I've been fiddling with the necklace ever since, and along the way I stumbled across a few more projects that I simply couldn't live without. Or live without trying. Or something.

My sister-in-law and niece are really into beading, and I'm sure I don't have the mad skillz that they do. Still, I'm relatively proud of myself. I don't fancy myself a master craftswoman, but I'm proud of the things that I can create by hand, yaknow?

So, without further ado:

The obsidian necklace. One of our educators had something like this years ago, and I've wanted one ever since. Finally found a place to get the bead, and the rest was cake. Little bit of waxed linen cord, a barrel knot or two later, and shazam!





Next is the necklace from women's weekend. It's serpentine and mossy agate and mossy jade, with some crackled-y pendant stone that I don't know what it is. This is NOT what the necklace started out as! I had some other not-matchy green jade in there and it just looked like a five-year-old's craft project. Which is fine, but didn't go with the things in my wardrobe that I wanted it to match. I have restrung it twice and finally managed to squeak earrings out of it to boot!





Close-up of the center stone and the serpentine:






Next is a hematite necklace. I've got a thing about hematite. I've been wearing it since 9th grade and it's my second favorite stone behind opals, which also happen to be my birth stone. I've got a lanyard that I wear my school ID tag on that is made of hematite, but I wanted a necklace and earrings set that was more grown up than the hematite necklaces commercially available. I stole this design from a friend's necklace and made it my own.





The lady who runs our beading classes at Women's Weekends makes these chunky, multi-strand necklaces and gets in some really cool stuff. I have been looking at a drusy pendant necklace that she created for at least two years now. Problem is I wasn't a fan of the necklace part. So I found a bead shop online that sold drusy pendant stones and made my own! This is my first multi-strand-with-pendant necklace, and I'm proud of how it turned out. The drusy is hard to see, but it's basically little 3-d quartz crystals that come out of the pendant itself.






And finally, while picking up the last few supplies I needed, I found this gorgeous blueberry quartz donut. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I knew that I HAD to use it. So far, this is what I've come up with. Not sure it's really going to work when I wear it, but we'll see! I can always unstring it and re-arrange!









Isn't that mottling on the donut gorgeous? I love it!! It was the proprietor of the bead store that gave me the idea of pearls to put with the blue quartz.

Photo Update

Hi!

So I finally hooked up our camera and downloaded the photos. So you're getting some random photos tonight!

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First, some doings from my garden this year.

My mom brought me some iris last year. She thought she was bringing me yellow ones, since I already had some purple Japanese iris. We were both surprised when this is what bloomed:





My mother-in-law bought me bulbs for Christmas. Some got here in time for Christmas, and some came separately in the spring. The squirrels had a field day eating the bulbs, but I was able to force some inside. These sweet little daffodills were some of the only ones that bloomed this year. Next year they'll be gorgeous.





I really thought my clematis weren't going to survive the winter, but they sprouted and have been going great guns all summer long. Here's two of the colors that I have growing on our fence posts.








Finally, this is the double delight rose that I thought was a goner for sure. Instead, it bloomed three times so far, and has another bud coming! The rest of my roses are legging out, but not blooming a lot. I think it is because of the late transplant and lack of sunshine early in the summer. Next year they'll go crazy in their nice sunny spot.

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This spring, the theme for Women's Weekend was "Wild Wild West." Brian set up a photo-booth, and we had to have our picture taken together.

We're the baddest outlaws in town, pilgrim.

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I went to a week-long geology field camp for Earth Science teachers. I took lots of nerdy photos, including one of S. and I sitting on a stromatolite formation.

This is me just before I chimneyed up a narrow little passageway to an incredible view of a high-elevation lake. If you look closely, you can see that this is actually a HUGE thick layer of very coarse conglomerate, sitting atop crystalline limestone. Crazy!

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Last but not least, here are the photos of Brian's office remodeling.

Here's the before views:









And here are the after views (he still needs to sort out and tidy up some stuff, but it's a week before his season, so this is when his office is most chaotic anyways)

Spring Break Part 4 & Final Bird List

Thursday was our last full day of birding, and the pressure was on for us to pick from the smorgasboard of places we hadn't yet been to. We had two different places to check out along the river, plus at least three canyons we hadn't explored yet.

We set the alarm early and packed our lunches the night before. The first stop was a riverwalk that was signed by a local nature conservancy. Turned out that much of the trail was through an open hay field and the trail never took us down by the river itself. We bagged that pretty quickly and swung across the river and down to the San Pedro River Inn, yet another B&B that has viewing open to the public. There were two ponds that we explored while chatting with a woman staying at the inn. She and her husband were RVing full time--one of several couples we met who were doing that.

We didn't get much in the way of any sort of birds, so we decided to head out. We gave the river one more shot and headed slightly farther north on the river to the San Pedro Riparian Nature Conservation Area. We missed the hummingbird banding that they'd held that morning. The trails there did lead us right down to the river. I caught a shot of a scaup, and we finally caught some vermillion flycatchers on film. We chased a flicker, hoping to find that it was a gilded flicker. Unfortunately, we were unable to make the call either way, and the photos didn't come out so well, either.













The day was starting to heat up and we were not in the mood for yet another set of peanut butter & jelly sandwiches. We decided to bag the river walk, catch some lunch and finally go up into the canyon beyond our own B&B.

We stopped at the visitor center at the Ramsey Canyon Nature Preserve. They'd had a scope on a whiskered screech owl who has nested in the bole of a huge sycamore tree right outside the visitor's center.













From there, we hiked a 2-mile trail up to the summit of the canyon in search (again) for red-faced warblers. The hike started out lovely, and slowly became more challenging as we got closer to the top. Sadly we saw neither warblers nor anything else particularly interesting. We DID meet some other hikers on their way down that told us THEY had seen the warblers just a little bit down from the summit into the east-facing Miller Canyon.

At the top, we took a breather with two German tourists we'd been leapfrogging up the trail with. We saw a rock wren and a spotted towhee, but that was the last find of the day. No warblers for us. At least the view was fine!










We hiked back down to our B&B where we polished off the leftovers from Wendesday's splurge--mexican at a restaurant just down the road from our B&B. Since we'd gotten skunked on every bird we were hunting, we decided to try and get in a few hours of birding on Friday before we left. Consequently we packed everything up for our departure the next day and crashed out early--equal parts exhausted disappointment and hopeful anticipation.

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Friday morning we were up and moved out of our B&B by 7 am. We headed north to Tuscon to try out a canyon just north of the city: Bear Canyon. We made good time to Tuscon and found our way up the canyon road fairly easily. The morning rushhour slowed us down a little bit because we were driving through a lot of residential neighborhoods. Finally we got up into the hills and out of suburbia into saguaro cactus land. The road kept climbing up the canyon, and finally we were in high-elevation conifer forest. We stopped at the first picnic area that was mentioned in our birding book. We STILL didn't find the red-faced warbler in our two hours in the woods. However, we did spot both a hermit warbler and an olive warbler, two pretty rare finds that only pass through for two short periods each year. Those two birds brought our total up to 69 life birds for the trip.

Brian was watching the time, and we got back on the road to the airport. We weren't disappointed too much, even though we didn't catch the warbler we most wanted to see. If we have to go back to anywhere in search of new things, this part of Southeastern Arizona is the place to come back to!

A minor tragedy struck when we forgot my nalgene in the rental car at the airport. We got through check-in and security with no problems, though, so I couldn't complain too much. We were just finishing our lunch when a gentleman greeted us. He said, "Hey, you're those birders from New York!" We had run into him at Beatty's Guest House earlier in the week. Awesome.

In no time we were on the flight back to Minneapolis, sitting next to a girl with a small shi tzu in a carrier under the seat. He fussed a little and we gave him some doggie loves. Our layover in Minneapolis was just long enough for us to have dinner at Maui Tacos and get some final souveniers for folk--a moose-shaped chocolate lollipop for my mom and a moose keychain that looks like it's pooping when you squeeze it for Aaron.

At Philly our bags arrived with no delay and the hotel shuttle got us off the curb less than a minute after we exited the airport. The hotel was lovely, even though there was a sorority formal in the drunken stages of winding down. We were both surprised to see one of the members of security walking around with a taser!

We crashed by midnight Eastern time. The next morning we drove up to Oxford Valley Mall & met my folks for lunch & the great doggy swap. Pulu was very confused but excited to see us when she realized that WE were the people getting out of the car parked next to Grandma and Grandpa's car. Hilarious. Our drive north was uneventful and we were home in time to unpack and relax on the couch for a few hours before crashing HARD on Saturday evening.

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Here's our final bird list, in roughly the order in which we saw them:

Phainopepla
Hooded Oriole (New to me only)
Black Tailed Gnat Catcher
Crissal Thrasher
Cassin's Kingbird
Brewer's Sparrow
Sawinson's Hawk
Hammond's Flycatcher
Green Winged Teal
Lazuli Bunting
Savannah Sparrow
Cooper's Hawk (New to me only)
Wilson's Warbler (not new to either of us, but a favorite)
Wilson's Snipe
Acorn Woodpecker
Cassin's Finch
Gray Flycatcher
Vermillion Flycatcher
Ash Throated Flycatcher
Cassin's Vireo
Mexican Jay
Bridled Titmouse
Bewick's Wren (not new)
House Wren (not new)
Ruby Crowned Kinglet
Lucy's Warbler
Black Throated Gray Warbler
Summer Tanager
Treen Tailed Towhee
Canyon Towhee
Abert's Towhee
Black Chinned Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White Crowned Sparrow (not new)
Gray Hawk
Gila Woodpecker
Black chinned Hummingbird
Swainson's Dark Morph Hawk
Black Headed Grosbeak
Magnificent Hummingbird
Rufous Hummingbird
Arizona Woodpecker
Anna's Hummingbird
Lucifer Hummingbird
Scott's Oriole
Elegant Trogon
Scaled Quail
Dusky Flycatcher
Biff Breasted Flycatcher
Say's Phoebe
Hutton's Vireo
Plumbeous Vireo
Townsend's Solitaire
Grace's Warbler
Hepatic Tanager
Yellow Eyed Junco
Painted Redstart
Calliope Hummingbird
Elf Owl
Gray Vireo
Bullock's Oriole
Violet Crowned Hummingbird
Rufous Crowned Sparrow
Montezuma Quail
Black Phoebe
Rock Wren
Bushtit
Spotted Towhee
Western Wood Pewee
Whiskered Screech Owl
Hermit Warbler
Olive Warbler

Spring Break 2008: Part 3: Skunked & Near Death Driving

When last we left our intrepid nerdy-birders, they had finished the afternoon at Mary Jo's Ash Canyon Bed and Breakfast.

Before we crashed out there was actually much more drama: the promised internet connection at Ramsey Canyon Inn was...not so much in actual existence. There followed a very stressful twenty minutes when all of the following events occurred: I had to sweet-talk Bill's aged mother-in-law into letting me try to use their business computer to log on. I failed to be able to log in to EITHER of the two computer systems I needed to access. I tried jacking the ethernet cable straight in to my own laptop, but the firewall wouldn't let my laptop talk to the internet. The ONLY thing I could get in to was my work email, from which I sent a panicked email to my professor. Then I left the smelly main lodge and ran into Brian, who had given up on going out to dinner and started grilling. I burst into tears of anger and frustration, feeling like my stupid class was ruining our day. Brian soothed me, forced me to eat the chicken, and we staggered in to town. Finally found a McDonalds with internet access. Brian bought fries for him and a sundae for me while I tried to get my work done before the battery died. The only plug in evidence was in use by a woman who had a saint-style bleeding-Jesus-on-the-cross desktop photo. STRANGE.

Tuesday was looking up quite a bit when local birders Rick & Cindy arrived at our B&B exactly as Brian and I were loading the car. They directed us through the back residential streets to the front gate of the Ft. Huachuca Army Depot. They talked us through the process of checking in to the base, and in no time we were on our way up Garden Canyon.

We were in search of the Elegant Trogon, birds that nest in only a few places in the United States. They usually show up on tax day. This year they were a day early, and we got a great view of them. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera when we got excited that they were there. On our return trip, they were hunkered down somewhere cool & shady for the afternoon.

We drove higher into the canyon on a rough dirt road. It was a good thing that we'd rented a SUV with high ground clearance. At the second picnic area, we parked and walked into the woods looking for warblers and petroglyphs. We saw the cave art, but didn't get any warblers.





At the end of the road, we parked and hiked up the trail probably two more miles. Rick was an excellent ear-birder. He would hear one or two notes and tell us what we were listening to. His eyes weren't so good, but Cindy's were excellent. He'd tell us what we were hearing, and without fail she'd spot it. The woods were pretty quiet, but we still managed to get a large number of birds. Most of them were flycatchers that we never would have been able to ID without Rick & Cindy.

We spent the entire morning in the canyon with them. About lunchtime, we threw in the towel and headed off the fort and back in to town. Before we dropped Rick & Cindy at their car, they took us up their road a little bit looking for scaled quail, these goofy little quail that look like they have cotton balls glued to their heads. Rick heard a Scott's Oriole flying overhead, but neither of us got a good enough look at it to add to our list.

Unfortunately, the gigantic ops blimp that the fort uses for reconnaissance training was down on the ground, signaling high winds. The winds did, in fact, come up as the morning progressed. By afternoon, it was pretty breezy. We decided to spend the afternoon at another B&B that is known for the sheer variety of hummingbirds.

Up at Beatty's Guest Ranch, there were fewer hummingbird feeders. A gentleman at the entry directed us up through the apple orchard to the other viewing station. It was really strange being in the middle of the desert and surrounded by budding apple trees.

Up at the observation station, we ran into a guy we'd seen in Garden canyon photographing the trogons earlier in the day. We ran into the loud couple from Pennsylvania that had been on the river walk with us, and the obnoxiously loud couple from Pennsylvania that had been on the EOP walk. As the two other couples chattered away, we learned that one of them was the nature writer for a newspaper in the Allentown area . I wish him joy of his columns the next few weeks, because he certainly dampened the pleasure of our visit to the viewing station.

We did see lots and lots of hummingbirds there. Most were species we'd caught at Mary Jo's or at our own B&B yard: Black chins, Magnificents, Broad billeds, Anna's. Finally, after almost an hour, we saw what we thought was a female calliope hummingbird. A few minutes later, her mate buzzed in for a snack and we were sure.

On the left, a female calliope. On the right, a magnificent.





While we waited for our calliope, we spotted a lucifer hummingbird, too.






Finally, our calliope lit long enough for me to get a few shots of him.





An Anna's started buzzing around, too, and I got a really lovely shot showing the iridescent red hood they wear.



The wind kept up, though, so we gave up after a few more minutes. Back in our canyon, we birded our way slowly back up the road. We started with a nice little Swainson's Hawk sitting on a utility pole at the end of the road.





We didn't get a second shot at the orioles, but by the time we got back up the canyon, a flock probably 20 turkeys was in and around the yard at the B&B. Within an hour or so, most of them had roosted in the trees and were just gobbling at each other now and then.

After making dinner, we walked down the road at dusk to try and spot some elf owls. We heard them chattering at each other and saw some bats. Another quarter-mile down the road and we were able to see the tiny, tiny owls flitting up onto utility poles and starting to hunt.

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Wednesday was the day we were planning to go the farthest afield. We were headed to Patagonia, where there is a rest stop that is a hot spot for wrens, warblers, and other migrants. Up that way was another state park and yet another backyard habitat that attracts an incredible number of birds.

First stop was the rest stop. We got there as a few other birders were finishing up. We had to work really hard to see much of anything, and nothing photo-worthy. We had grabbed the camera and were about to cross the road to a small river that is another great spot for birds. In rolled three vans of retiree birders and their guides. Brian and I decided to bag the walk across the street if we were being invaded by 20+ people. We would cross and re-cross paths with these vans for the rest of the day.

From there, we drove up to Patagonia Lake State Park, another hot spot for migrants to lay over on their way north. We got skunked again out there, with very few birds coming out to play. We hiked up one trail, failed to see the promised black-capped gnatcatcher.

We made lunch at the shoreline of the lake and headed back into town to Mrs. Patton's place. The Patton's home has been open to the public for years and years, even since Mr. Patton passed away. We ran into some folks from the EOP walk, and some other folks from the river walk here! It was getting to be a very small town for birders.

We sat in a very pleasant back yard watching lazuli buntings and finches galore, until a kestrel came zipping through and chased everyone away. The hummingbirds were the first to filter back in, but finally the bigger folks came back to the feeders. We finally got our eyes on our Scott's Oriole. A few minutes later, our violet crowned hummingbird showed up. Those were the two real prizes we were hunting for, so we birded and ran!









From Mrs. Patton's, we drove into a Nature Conservancy area. The wind was up and the birds were hiding, so we didn't bother to pay the fee to walk the trails--especially since they were less than an hour from closing. Instead, we opted to go back to the rest stop and try the river walk there.

We were rewarded for our efforts with a rufous crowned sparrow and more looks at vermillion flycatchers and scotts orioles.

It was getting on to late afternoon, so we decided to head back home. We chose an alternate route home, which was going to take us past Parker Lake. We drove along grassy uplands on the east side of the Huachucas through a road that got smaller and smaller the farther we went. We finally got to the lake, where we were rewarded with a spectacular view of a gigantic lake. We spent about twenty minutes trying to decide what kind of cowbird we were looking at. When we finally gave up and were pulling out of the lot, I caught a glimpse of a bird. I got a good look before he flew, but Brian missed it. A flip through my book revealed that it was a Black Phoebe. Brian was able to spot him and even take some shots of him sitting out over the water, waiting for his next meal.











The gazetter showed us a road that wound around the south side of the mountains and brought us home back up from near the Mexican border. The narrow paved road turned into a recently graded gravel road. Since Border Patrol passed us and made their way on ahead, we figured it had to be a decent road.

We did keep seeing these signs, which sort of amused us and sort of worried us.




So the road. It was in the gazetter. Had to be navigable, right?

Uh, NO.

It got incredibly twisty and windy and narrow and climbed in altitude to almost 6500 feet. Brian was a basket case, and though I'm not scared of heights, even I was a little nervous on the road. I was mostly nervous because the sun was setting and we were losing light fast.

Just as we neared what we hoped was the crest, there were some pretty good sized rocks in the road.

Except, then they flew out of the road into the ditch alongside it. Turns out they were two exceptionally complacent Montezuma Quail.





Finally, just as the sun was setting, we crested the hill and were on our way down. It didn't take long for the gravel road to become paved again, and by full dusk we were back down in the valley and listening for owls as we cruised back up the canyon.

For the next two days, Brian kept pointing at the mountains and saying, "I DROVE up there!"