First things first. My lovely wife wants me to mention the tremendously large Black Tailed Jackrabbit (Lepus Californicus), which she saw along the road as we drove to our first birding venue. It looked like a small kangaroo, she said.
The first place we visited at 5 o’clock in the morning was Madera Canyon. This is a world class birding spot in southern Arizona. The temperatures there were 66 degrees F in the early morning. We were looking for birds that we had never seen before, and this promised to be a great place to look.
We started by seeing and hearing a flock of the noisy Western Scrub Jay (Aphelocoma Californica) which we had already seen in South Dakota. The Say’s Phoebe (Sayornis Saya) we had seen plenty in the South. It was cool when we started, so we walked down a forest path on the side of Madera Canyon. Part of the path was dirt and part of it was stones and rocks. It became difficult to walk on the rocks and look up at the birds. We heard the tapping of the Red Naped Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus Nuchalis) in the upper branches of a tree.
We noticed a lot of birdic activity in a certain parking lot. The two of us sat on a small wall and started counting the different birds. There was squawking behind us, chirping above us, and squabbles across the way. Birds were everywhere. The Bridled Titmouse (Baeolophus Wollweberi) was the only new bird for us at this spot, but it was fun to sit and enjoy the ornithological antics around us.
A couple from Macon, GA introduced themselves. We pointed out to them the endemic Arizona Woodpecker (Leuconotopicus Arizonae) right above and behind them. They turned and studied the bird in the tree. Then suddenly, the Arizona Woodpecker dove down and swooped across the parking lot.
I spotted the tiny brown Canyon Wren (Catherpes Mexicanus) ; this bird has become now Berry’s “Spruce Grouse”. Let me explain. We were birding in Vermont several years ago, I was driving the car down a ridiculously thin road, the size of a bicycle path, in the woods, with precipitously steep cliffs on both sides. Needing to pay close attention to my driving, I could not look and did not see the beautiful Spruce Grouse (Falcipennis Canadensis) that Berry spotted on the passenger’s side of the car as we passed. Get it ? I did not see it; she did see it. Ouch ! And one of the few places you can see it is in the Northeast. So, every time she brought up the Spruce Grouse, I would cringe.
So this time, on October 1, 2015, I saw the Canyon Wren, flitting in and out of the light behind a large boulder, right behind a Bed and Breakfast. And Berry did NOT see it. She had walked forward about twenty feet. I whispered and she came back quickly, but the Canyon Wren was gone. She stared at the rock with the saddest little look on her face. So now, MY Canyon Wren is HER Spruce Grouse.
There was a chance to drive to the nearby Buenos Aires Wildlife Refuge. This place has swampy wetlands, full of crickets and midges which attract birds. Also there were fields of sunflowers, which attract bumblebees. There are also fire ants, so called Red Imported Fire Ants (Solenopsis Invicta). They look like the harmless Red Harvester Ants (Pogonomyrmex) that I had seen in Tennessee as a boy. I must have stepped on their nest. A fire ant crawled up my right leg and stung me. Just one ant, but it stung me twice. Ouch! That is a painful sting. They are moving into the United States from Mexico.
A beautiful Green Tailed Towhee (Pipilo Chlorurus) was searching for food underneath the branches of a Cottonwood Tree. It lurched into the light, then hopped back into the shadows. It ran forward, then jumped back. To identify this bird we needed to keep watching. The green wings, the white throat, the rufus crown. Finally we had it.
There was a large flycatcher, perched on an empty branch in the middle of the swamp. It would fly out to catch an insect, then fly back to its perch on the same tree. This was the Thick Billed Kingbird (Tyrannus Crassirostris). He kept flycatching for more than twenty minutes. There were plenty of insects.
Twice we drove through a checkpoint of the US Border Patrol. We are very close to the Mexican border and we are proud of the job done by the US Border Patrol.
Robert and Berry
photos courtesy of wikipedia
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