Hello birders, twitchers, twitchy birders, bitchy twirlers, and Italophiles who misread the title. Pour a glass of Montepulciano red to pair with your Carne Seca Chimichanga — we’re going back to the Old Pueblo for Part 2 of my Southeast Arizona Birding Festival chronicles.
In Part 1, I documented several wonderful field trips, as well as my heroic effort to prevent my wife from earning any lifers that I didn’t also get. Her trip was only half as long as mine due to work obligations, leaving me to explore the amazing Madera Canyon and my hometown of Tucson on my own at the conclusion of the festival.
The festival days brought me more than halfway to my goal of 25 lifers — the 20th of which would be my 800th overall — and gave me a glimpse of Arizona’s marquee warbler, the Red-faced. But my other biggest targets remained: Bridled Titmouse, which is possibly the cutest bird ever invented; the Southwest’s stunning bunting duo, Varied and Lazuli; and Arizona’s most sought-after bird, the Elegant Trogon. I also wanted to see a Cactus Wren on a cactus.
Before hitting the mountains, I spent the morning at Sweetwater Wetlands, a wastewater recharge facility that has been lovingly nurtured into one of the city’s hottest hotspots. I knew that a large flock of Lazuli Buntings had been seen regularly, so I headed straight for the west side of the ponds to end the suspense:
Despite being at desert altitude, the Wetlands are more cattails than cactus. They attract waterbirds, flycatchers, warblers, and lots of rarities during migration. I tallied some good southwestern species such as Bell’s Vireo, Gila and Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Gambel’s Quail (a frustrating photo miss), Black-headed Grosbeak, and Western Tanager.
One low-elevation bird that loves both deserts and city parks is the ubiquitous Verdin. They are tiny and fast, and their “chip” sounds like many other birds — so they invariably fall prey to the “oh darn, it’s just a Verdin” insult. I actually had trouble photographing one in its full adult coloring — but here’s a juvenile:
One of my big targets at the Wetlands was Lucy’s Warbler, the only Arizona specialty warbler I missed earlier in the trip. Like Verdins, they’re small, fast, and gray — and so my best hope was to point the camera at everything small, fast, and gray and hope to get luc(k)y. I didn’t even know until I looked at my pictures that night, but I did indeed manage to find one Lucy’s:
Not exactly in the sky or with diamonds, but good enough to document lifer #798.
***Scales Interlude***
You can never have too many Vermilion Flycatchers:
After that hot morning, I checked out of the festival hotel and drove an hour south to Madera Canyon, the mid-elevation jewel of the sky-island Santa Rita Mountains. The pretty drive sees saguaro cacti give way to desert grasslands, which in turn are replaced by mixed woodlands as the canyon approaches.
The Santa Rita Mountains
A trail in lower Madera Canyon
I booked two nights at the famous Santa Rita Lodge, a rustic inn in the middle of Madera Canyon with no cell service and the nearest food 20 minutes away in a snoozy retirement town called Green Valley. It also has great owners and employees, a beautiful setting, a cute gift shop, and as impressive an array of bird feeders as you’ll find anywhere. Oh, and Green Valley has an amazing Turkish restaurant, of all things.
My ambitions were high for my less-than-48-hours there, so I didn’t even unload the car before I plopped down on the large porch, joining other guests and day visitors who were looking for the Berylline Hummingbird that had crossed the southern border this summer. To complicate matters, a hybrid Berylline x Broad-billed was also seeking asylum at the lodge, and they were rather hard to tell apart unless the sun was illuminating their wing and tail feathers at the right angle. Fortunately, the sun and the pure Berylline cooperated to give me lifer #799:
Another highlight of the afternoon was my first good picture of a lifer I had obtained the day before — a Bridled Titmouse:
Can we take a moment to appreciate this colossus of cuteness? The North American members of the irrepressible Paridae family are either called titmice or chickadees. While chickadees typically have adorable face patterns, titmice make up for their plain coloration with darling little crests. But the Bridled Titmouse is the best of both worlds — essentially a chickadee with a crest. It also makes sounds that resemble both types. It leapt off the page of my first bird book in the early 1990s as an “OMG I must see that bird” species — something I finally did more than 30 years later.
But back to the hummingbirds — what a show! We saw lots of Anna’s, Black-chinned, Rufous, Broad-billed:
Broad-tailed:
And Rivoli’s:
I needed to rest up for the full Madera day, so I tried to retire to my room after a fabulous kebab dinner. However, many of the other guests were still on the porch, so I had to see what the fuss was about. It turns out that the manager takes down every hummingbird feeder except for one each night. He fills the remaining feeder, and then this happens for about two hours:
Anyhow, I got up early the next morning — a redundant thing to say on a birding trip — and drove to the highest picnic area in the canyon, where the trails to the peak of Mt. Wrightson (9456’) begin. I wasn’t planning to get anywhere near the peak, of course — but finding the most sought-after birds does involve some ascent from the 5500’ parking lot into the pine forests above it.
There wasn’t much birdage early on, but I did run into the woman who sat next to me on the flight to Tucson a week earlier, along with the friend with whom she was traveling. We were all there to see the Elegant Trogon — a reliable summer resident of the canyon, but never a guaranteed sighting. After some nice conversation, my (relatively) young legs and I plowed ahead on the trail. Shortly thereafter, I saw a man who was struggling over some big rocks in the creek bed, having clearly gone off-trail. I signaled him back to the trail, and then we searched together for the Trogon.
The best way to find an Elegant Trogon is by its unmistakable, repetitious barking call. We eventually heard one in the distance, and we stopped hiking as it got closer. After the bird teased us for a while, the two women caught up to us, and our spontaneous party of four kept all eight eyes peeled for it.
My adrenaline was flowing, not only at the chance to see Arizona’s Christmas-colored headlining act — but also because, sitting at 799 life birds, I had a chance to gain a milestone in the most dramatic way. However, as the Trogon continued to come in and out of earshot, a dilemma arose: I heard an unfamiliar sound, which Merlin identified as a Sulfur-bellied Flycatcher. Ahh, do I look for this apparently close lifer? Or do I save 800 for the Trogon? Smartly, I followed the sound to #800:
This milestone came without toll.
I say “smartly” because — you guessed it — it was the only one I saw on the entire trip.
“Bark, bark, bark. . .” Now it was really getting close. Finally, the other guy in our party — apparently better with binoculars than with trail navigation — spotted a stunning adult male.
I usually keep my first photo of a species, even if it’s blurry or otherwise bad. And this one was bad:
Not so elegant
But(t), at least I had documentation. It took off and landed several times, each prompting frantic scurrying by the four of us, until it posed for this shot:
While the women headed back down the trail, the other guy and I stayed put a bit longer. At one point, we realized that Mr. T was dropping down to a small puddle in the otherwise dry creek. Within a few minutes, the watering hole became more crowded than a Wrigleyville bar after a Cubs game. We saw a ridiculous number of birds in or near the water on this hot morning, including Yellow-eyed Juncos, Hepatic Tanagers, Mexican and Steller’s Jays, Bridled Titmice, Northern House Wrens, Hutton’s and Plumbeous Vireos, Dusky-capped Flycatchers, and four (!) warblers: Black-throated Gray, Red-faced:
Arizona’s second-most sought-after bird is red-faced with anger at being a mere sideshow on this hike.
Painted Redstart (an adorable juvenile):
The juvies haven’t fallen into the red paint can yet.
And Grace’s:
Say my name. . .
I also got my first good picture of an Arizona Woodpecker, a Mexican species whose range barely reaches into its namesake state:
Why is there no bird with Texas in its name? I nominate the Golden-cheeked Warbler, which breeds only in Texas.
Back at the lodge, I regaled the guests and day visitors with my triumphant Trogon tale while we watched the feeders (though I eased up on the bravado when I heard that several of them had missed the Trogon). I still needed to see the Costa’s Hummingbird that usually appeared at least once a day. Technically a rarity at this high of an elevation, he came to the feeders in the afternoon and became my last lifer of the day:
I couldn’t find the Varied Bunting that usually visited — but its Lazuli cousin made an appearance:
***Encore Titmouse Tribute***
The next morning, I drove to the lowest part of Madera Canyon in search of grassland birds. It was mostly a bust, though this male Western Tanager posed nicely:
After checking out, I spent an additional couple of hours at the lodge feeders, mainly hoping that the Varied Bunting would appear. And it finally did — first on the backside of a feeder, then hiding in a tree, then at the water feature being photobombed by an Acorn Woodpecker and a Wild Turkey:
And finally, in a relatively open area:
After that, I drove back to Tucson for my final act: driving around town creepily snapping pictures of my childhood homes, schools, malls, etc.; eating a chimichanga at the world-famous El Charro restaurant; and waking up early the next morning to spend a couple of hours birding at the world-famous Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum before my afternoon flight home. The official name of the eBird hotspot is “Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum (please do not report captive birds),” so I should clarify that I was looking for birds on the museum grounds, not in their aviaries.
The museum, Tucson’s top tourist attraction, sits in a beautiful, cactus-rich tract of Sonoran Desert just outside the boundary of Saguaro National Park. The exhibits are mostly outdoors, with lovely walking paths between them.
I was sitting at 23 lifers for the trip, two short of my (totally arbitrary) goal. Conveniently, there were two plausible lifers seen often at the Museum: Gilded Flicker and Rufous-winged Sparrow. I also wanted good pictures of common desert birds, including my beloved Cactus Wren.
As I approached the entrance at their exact opening time, a tall man with a fancy camera asked me, “are you here for the bird walk”? (Uh, bird walk? Are you kidding? It’s like an unrealistic movie script where everything falls into place). . .”Yes I am,” I lied, convincingly. “Looks like you’re the only one,” he replied. “Let’s go.”
I told Michael my lifer requests, and he said “Oh yeah, that’s easy. Let’s find the flicker first.” And we walked on a path at the outskirts of the grounds with lots of saguaros and ocotillos. We listened, looked, and. . .
Its cousin, the Understated Flicker, hangs out on the south side of town.
. . .found it pretty quickly. Next up was the Rufous-winged Sparrow. We walked into the heart of the exhibit area, looked for a couple of minutes, and. . .
So yeah, that was easy. We spent the rest of the walk trying to get pictures of the commoners. We found a Black-throated Sparrow:
Costa’s Hummingbird:
And a couple of towhees. Abert’s:
Admit it: you thought it said “Albert’s”
And Canyon:
One of my first-ever “drive somewhere to see birds” outings was with my parents sometime in the early ‘90s, somewhere in Southern Arizona. Armed with old binoculars and my new bird book, we aimed to ID some new-to-us birds. Among the first two we saw were a Pyrrhuloxia and a Phainopepla. I remember thinking, “what the hell? Do all birds have these terrible names?” Fortunately, those crested desert dwellers were nominal outliers. Anyhow, the Pyrrhuloxia is the closest relative of the Northern Cardinal:
And the Phainopepla is in the Silky Flycatcher family:
Also, the Peptocylospia is a Neotropical insect eater:
Nah, that’s the Arizona state bird, and my final photo target, the Cactus Wren. True to its name, I found it on a saguaro:
And a prickly pear:
I flew from my old home to my current home with the bittersweet realization that I’ll never again get 25 lifers on a single trip anywhere in the contiguous U.S. Probably not even 15. It was a magical trip, combining nostalgia with novelty, and getting life bird #805 while rediscovering the joy of seeing the common southwestern birds that sparked my hobby long before I could afford a camera.
