More Avian Adventures!

With June left holding the fort in the Algarve, Peter has again been off again leading a tour for Avian Adventures, this time in his favourite Arizona.  It was his 22nd visit to the Grand Canyon state and his 14th spring tour there.

This year's tour was confined to the south-east of the state with just one brief excursion north of Tucson to find Burrowing Owl.  The itinerary included stays in Portal, Sierra Vista, Green Valley and Tucson, giving access to more excellent birding sites than could possibly be covered in the time available.

Here are some photographs of a few of the birds seen and places visited during two weeks of sunshine:

Scenic Cave Creek Canyon in the Chiricahuas

Burrowing Owl - in decline and becoming harder to find around Tucson

Willow Tank - an oasis in the desert, near Portal

Whitewater Draw - not much water at this time of year but still worth a visit

Patagonia Lake - a large man-made lake, good for ducks, grebes, shorebirds and more

Lower Sabino Canyon - saguaros, chollas, mesquite, palo verde and more

Amado Sewage Pond - often attracts something unusual, this time a Greater Scaup

Portal Main St. - always good for an early morning or evening walk

Black-throated Sparrow - an attractive common resident of desert scrub

Lark Sparrow - one of the most numerous birds we saw

Cactus Wren - the official state bird of Arizona

Greater Roadrunner - always popular and seemed particularly numerous this year

Scott's Oriole - one of three oriole species seen

(Mexican) Spotted Owl - well worth the climb up Miller Canyon 

Lucifer Hummingbird - eight species of hummingbirds were seen

Vermilion Flycatcher - presumably a first-year male

Arizona tour

Peter writes:
I’m just back from Arizona and another successful birding tour in the Grand Canyon State. The itinerary was the familiar one that we have been using for several years now. It included Tucson (Sabino Canyon, Sweetwater Wetlands and Mount Lemmon), Portal (Cave Creek Canyon), Sierra Vista (San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, Garden, Huachuca, Ramsey & Miller Canyons), Green Valley (Madera Canyon), Sedona (Oak Creek Canyon) and finally the Grand Canyon itself.

In contrast to last year, the weather was mostly very warm and we found everywhere to be very dry after a winter with little rain. It was also quite windy on occasions. These are conditions that give rise to an extreme risk of fires and since my return there has been a major outbreak in the Chiricahuas which is affecting about 10,000 acres near Portal. It has threatened Cave Creek Canyon and quite a number of homes in the area have been evacuated. Currently, it is reported that the fire is 10% contained and that the Forest Service has 343 people fighting it. Up to date news of the fire can be found here.

As in 2006, our tour coincided with the passage through Arizona of thousands of Wilson’s Warblers heading north from Mexico and Central America to breed in Canada and the Pacific North-West. There were times, particularly along the San Pedro River, when we were almost in danger of stepping on them! Audubon’s (Yellow-rumped) Warblers were also numerous.

Wilson's Warbler...

...and another Wilson's Warbler

Audubon's Warbler

Empidonax flycatchers were abundant and gave us repeated identification challenges! With the popular field guides (Sibley, Kaufmann, National Geographic) saying that Cordilleran and Pacific-slope Flycatchers are identical in appearance and separable only by the call of the male, it is probably best to call them ‘Western’ Flycatchers, as they were before being split in 1989. There are many who still regard this as a ‘bad’ split and I can understand why! Dusky and Hammond’s Flycatchers probably are separate species but they, too, are very difficult to separate.

'Western' Flycatcher

Hammond's Flycatcher - I think!!

Fortunately, there were also plenty of brightly-coloured and easily identifiable birds to see, which is what you want, particularly if, like some of our group, it’s your first visit to the USA. Not everyone on a birding tour wants to spend time agonising about the identity of lots of small, grey, brown or olive-green birds! So, Painted Redstart, Elegant Trogon, Hooded, Scott’s and Bullock’s Orioles and Western Tanagers were popular.

Elegant Trogon

Western Tanager

Greater Roadrunner and California Condor were two of the ‘most-wanted’ species and although it would have been a major surprise if we hadn’t seen them, both took a little longer to present themselves than I would have liked. There are now reported to be 74 Condors living in the wild in Arizona and as a result of captive breeding, the total population has increased dramatically from 22 birds in 1987 (the brink of extinction) to 369 birds in 2011.

Greater Roadrunner

California Condor

Our total bird list fell just short of 200 species, about par for the course. As always, among my own personal favourites were the waders (shorebirds if you’re reading this in the USA). They included Willets, Wilson’s Phalaropes, American Avocets, Long-billed Dowitchers, Lesser Yellowlegs, Solitary Sandpipers and, of course, Killdeers.

Willets

American Avocet

Solitary Sandpiper

Killdeer

We are hoping to be back in Arizona (and California) at the end of the year when we lead the Avian Adventures Christmas tour across the deserts from San Diego to Tucson.

Arizona

I'm just back from Arizona, my 17th visit to my favourite 'Grand Canyon State'. It was another tour for Avian Adventures and followed the now familiar itinerary: Tucson, Portal, Sierra Vista, Green Valley, Sedona and then the Grand Canyon itself.

What made this trip different was the weather! This must have been the coldest late-April in Arizona in living memory. There was really late snow and as it began to melt, rivers and creeks were flowing that I've only been used to seeing completely dry! To give an example of how cold it was, the temperature in Sierra Vista on 30th April reached a high of only 57° F when the average for this date is 80° F. You might think that 57° isn't really cold but it was so unexpected and what made it worse was the wind, really strong wind that on one or two days made birding extremely difficult. Fortunately, we also had several more typical baking-hot Arizona days.

With the spring being late some of the migrant birds were hard to find but there weren't too many surprises and the total bird list fell only just short of 200 species. There was only one of these that I hadn't seen before in Arizona: Red-necked Phalarope - two birds at Sweetwater Wetlands. The total included 11 different hummingbirds and 'Flameboy', the unpaired male Flame-coloured Tanager that has returned for the eighth consecutive year to Madera Canyon.

'Flameboy' on his favourite feeder

Broad-billed Hummingbird - common in the Huachucas and elsewhere

Greater Roadrunner - 'Beep, Beep'

Desert Spiny Lizard - one of several reptiles seen

Great Horned Owl - seen here on its usual perch at Whitewater Draw

The Grand Canyon - one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World

Zone-tailed Hawk - a Turkey Vulture mimic

California Condor - re-introduced to Arizona - a face only a mother could love

Painted Redstart - always on the move

American Robin - according to the IOC the only Turdus to remain a Robin.
Maybe it should be called North American Lawn Thrush

Gambel's Quail - flying the flag

Spotted Owl - one of the Miller Canyon birds

Mexican Duck - soon the be a separate species?

Western Tanager - heading for the jelly jar