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!"

Spring Break 2008 Part 2: Sierra Vista Days 1 & 2

After exhausting the desert museum in Tuscon, we rolled south and east for Sierra Vista. We weren't sure how far out of Sierra Vista town our B&B was supposed to be, so we made arrangements to stay in Sierra Vista proper on Saturday night. We drove around town a little bit and settled on a Best Western.

The lady behind the desk recommended Daisy Mae's Stronghold for dinner, which is a 100-year-old steakhouse in town. We unloaded our stuff, cleaned up a little, and headed out. The taverns was in the armpit of town, and looked like it had been there for 100 years, and not too well taken care of. I thought for a moment that we were entering a biker bar and facing our own deaths, but it turned out to be a sleepy little establishment full of locals who didn't stare too much when a couple of tourists stumbled in. All the reviews online are about the same--shabby restaurant, great service, incredible food. Honestly, I don't think I've ever had a better steak. It was fantastic.

Next morning we were up early and out to the EOP, the Environmental Operations Park (a fancy name for the wastewater treatment plant). The city of Sierra Vista has piloted this program to restore native wetlands. It's got a birding observation deck, and on Sunday mornings, the local conservancy leads a special walk throughout the grounds. The people who turned up were a fifty-fifty split of local birding buddies and tourists who found out about the walk and showed up for some local expertise. We saw lots of great stuff, and the hike leaders were world-class birders. One was especially good at birding by ear, while another was a specialist in marsh critters. I got myself some street cred when I spotted a bird sitting out on a piece of grass rather close to us, and it turned out to be a relatively good find and difficult to ID, besides.

By the end of the walk, several of the local folks had given us tips of other places to go birding, and other guided walks. We decided to join one of the leaders on a walk on Monday morning, too.

On our way out and back from the EOP, we saw this sign, which caused me much amusement.






From the EOP, we went back to the hotel and cleaned up and checked out. Meanwhile the guy from our B&B called us. There had been a pretty good mix-up with him taking over the ranch we were supposed to stay at. We ran over to the ranch we were supposed to stay at to meet him. He offered us a few alternatives, none of which really gave us what we'd been looking for: privacy, unconnected apartment with kitchenette, barbeque, internet access. He told us that the larger apartment at his other B&B had the kitchenette, barbeque and internet. Turns out there was no internet, television or radio on purpose--a philosophical choice that I understood but that eventually made our lives difficult when I had a due date for my class.

We finally agreed on where we'd stay, shook hands on it, and headed back out of town for a few hours while they turned the room around for us. We decided to head out to Tombstone, which was only about 15 miles away.



On our way out of town, we saw another sign which amused us to no end. A utility shed in someone's back yard had this on one side, and a basketball hoop on the other.






Tombstone has been totally corrupted into a tourist trap of epic proportions. It looks a lot like a hollywood set, mostly because something like 50 westerns have been filmed there. A chunk of the old main street has been preserved as a pedestrian area with horse-drawn tours in covered wagons and stagecoaches. Every few minutes a troupe of actors in wild west costumes play out a short skit of a story from the old Tombstone. These escapades culminate every evening with a re-enactment of the famous gunfight. During the afternoon, though, it's a little more lighthearted. The troupe has also errected a pretend gallows and has a pub lady taking $5 for the chance to put a pretend noose around your neck and stand next to the hangman. While we were there, we watched a mother pony up her cash to put a noose over her own neck AND the neck of her 9-month old infant.

People do some crazy things.















When we got back into town, we checked in to the Ramsey Canyon Inn B&B. We got the Trogon Suite, though the manager worked a deal with us to stand by the terms of our original agreement with the Rail Oaks Ranch, where we were supposed to stay in the first place. As the website says, the Ramsey Canyon Inn's pies are out of this world. There was a weird smell in the main lodge, though, that haunted us throughout our visit.

The view from the Rail Oaks Ranch was fairly open since it was farther down the canyon. Our view from the Trogon Suite was still pretty amazing.













The next morning we were up early for a Riparian Walk along the San Pedro River. We were frequently stuck in the back of a line on a narrow trail along the river, so there were a bunch of things that we didn't get to see. However, we saw lots of things that were new to us, and we touched base with some of the folks that we'd walked the EOP with the previous day.

One of the guys, Rick, had chatted us up quite a bit at the EOP and we saw him again on Monday morning. By mid-walk, he had talked himself into going birding with us on Tuesday morning. He decided to be our local guide-on-the-ground for no other reason than that he felt like going birding to the same place we did.

After our morning walk and catching some lunch in town, we went back to our room where we spent some time watching the feeders in the yard. We spent an hour or better stalking some hummingbirds and taking a few shots of other birds. We saw a black-headed grosbeak, several acorn woodpeckers, and a mess of hummingbirds.


































We were most excited because we thought we saw a rufous hummingbird at the feeder, something we thought was fairly unusual. Turns out that nearly every sort of hummingbird in the entire universe makes its way through the Huachuca mountains in spring migration!







Later we made our way up to the Ash Canyon Bed and Breakfast, fondly referred to as Mary Jo's place by local birders. Mary Jo has just one guest house, but opens her garden to birders for a small donation that she uses to buy food and sugar for the birds.

Out front, she's got almost a dozen humming bird feeders, and out back she's got all sorts of other feeders for birds. You can literally sit in a comfy chair for hours watching the birds that come in there.

The hummingbird feeders were crowded, so we made our way to the back yard, where we took some decent shots of all sorts of birds.

A gila woodpecker helping himself to an orange:







A bridled titmouse came by to have some suet cake and look at me:





The Mexican jays liked to pose for me:








An Arizona woodpecker came by for some suet, too.




The hooded oriole was having an identity crisis and snacking at the hummingbird feeder:




The canyon towhee posed for me, too:





A yellow rumped warbler was flitting around quite a bit:








A Gambel's Quail was strutting around in back and posing with his punk-rock mohawk. These guys are hilarious and I can't get enough of them:









Finally, we had some folks who REALLY knew the difference between a house finch and a Cassin's finch. We know that this is definitely a Cassin's, though I'm still not a crack shot at telling them apart.






After baking in the sun at Mary Jo's for most of the afternoon, we went in search of dinner and called it a night. We were having a really hard time staying awake much after dark!