Arizona Trip Report

[XemaSab]

So I went to Arizona. I went to go look at birds. I wanted Botteri's and Five-Striped Sparrow, Lucifer and Berylline Hummingbird, Purple Gallinule, Buff-Breasted Flycatcher, Aztec Thrush, Black Capped Gnatcatcher, Virginia's Warbler, and BZuff Collared Nightjar.

I left Santa Barbara last friday at around 4:30 only to find myself in the NASTIEST traffic ever. I rolled into San Diego at like, 10:30. Spent the night at my friend Clay's friend's house in San Diego.

Early the next morning we set out on our birding adventure. We rolled into Tucson at around 3 and spent about 3 hours searching unsuccessfully for the Purple Gallinule at the Sweetwater Wetlands. We then went to Saguaro National Park and camped out in WICKED HOT weather. The morning of the next day was spent at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. In the aviary were many captive birds, including a moorhen that mated with Clay's foot while I sat there with tears of laughter rolling down my face. In the afternoon we went to Madera Canyon, where I had my first lifer of the trip, Botteri's Sparrow. That evening we met up with some other birders who said they had had the gallinule right after we left the wetlands.

The next morning we hiked up into the canyon and spent about 2 hours staring at a tree that had supposedly once hosted Aztec Thrushes. There was also a Berylline Hummingbird in the vicinity, which provided my second lifer of the trip. In the afternoon we went down to Arivaca and got POURED on. We went to Tubac and spent a happy afternoon shopping, then went to a motel in Nogales where we had a sit-down dinner and regrouped.

The next morning we set out to return to Arivaca when I realized that my wallet was missing. We searched the hotel and the car to no avail, and finally I decided I had left it in the restaurant. The guy who answered the door at the restaurant spoke NO ENGLISH, and with my handy Spanish phrase book we deciphered that they had the wallet there, but they wanted me to come back in 10 hours when the manager was there in order to retrieve it. This was really lame news, as I was not planning on returning to Nogales, and I sure as hell didn't feel comfortable leaving my wallet for a day in a sketchy border town with a bunch of likely Mexican nationals. I have nothing against Mexicans in general, but it really sounded like a one-way ticket to identity theft to me. So we agreed to go back to Nogales that evening to get my wallet. We then made our way to Arivaca and birded Arivaca Cienega before heading out to California Gulch in the Pajarito Mountains for Five-Striped Sparrow.

Both of the birding guides to Southeast Arizona had maps of California Gulch, and both of the maps sucked hard. The "road" out there is little more than a totally unmaintained dirt track with all kinds of side roads and ambiguous locations, and worst of all, it was been raining so the road was totally flooded in spots.

We bombed through the first few puddles with no problem, and then we got to what was basically a creek running across the road. It was about 20 feet wide and Lord knows how deep. Someone had created a side track that circumvented most of the water, but this little side road was really muddy, steep, and narrow. Clay offered to get out and assess the situation, and I agreed that it was probably a good idea. I was all for going through the water, but Clay insisted that the side road was totally viable. I was very, very leery of this, but Clay said he would guide me through it and it would be fine. It was a steep, narrow, muddy track that I lurched my way through. The car kept sliding sideways, and I was totally terrified of sliding into a tree that was literally 2 inches from my right side mirror. I was so scared of hitting the tree that I wound up hitting a rock but good, and I now have a Five-Striped Scrape in the rear bumper of the rental, which I am returning tomorrow.

We spent in all about 4 hours trying to figure out the maps before it got dark and we had to leave without having seen the sparrow. On the way out I went right through the foot-deep water without a hitch. We got back to Nogales and went to the restaurant, where the manager told me to come back the next night. I was really pissed and went back to the car under a black cloud. I opened the door of the car to get in and saw my wallet sitting on the floor of the car.

I made an executive decision that we should go to Carr Canyon, which was going to be the last spot of the trip, and bird our way back west. We got to Carr Canyon, which has a road that under ordinary circumstances would be sketchy, but after the "road" to California Gulch seemed like a freeway. It was windy and raining, and both of us didn't sleep well at all. The next morning we hiked out the Comfort Springs trail for Buff-Breasted Flycatcher and got poured on. We decided we wanted a real lunch, so we went down the sketchy, scary road to Sierra Vista and had lunch. I called my mom both to check in and to get a rare bird update. She told me that Aztec Thrushes had been seen the previous day up in.... Carr Canyon. We went BACK up the road and hiked to the spot where there were two birders already raptly watching the tree in question. We sat there for about an hour, and all we saw was a robin family, with two adults and a spotted baby. While we were sitting there, 5 other birders showed up and sat on the other side of the tree from where we were. I went to go chat with them and they told me that they had been watching the Aztec the whole time they had been there. Eventually they went away completely convinced that the spotty baby robin was an Aztec Thrush. We gave up and went back down the hill and spent an hour staring at some hummingbird feeders in Miller Canyon where a Lucifer Hummingbird had been seen on and off.

The next morning we went to Patagonia to the Patons', where we spent 2 hours waiting for a different Lucifer to show up to no avail. We then went to Lake Patagonia and spent about 3 hours wandering through cow paths and gullies looking for the Black-Capped Gnatcatchers. I heard a few gnatcatchers, but never saw a one. Afterwards, it was raining again and I was feeling very disgruntled, so we went to the coffee shop in Patagonia where Clay promptly lost his brand new Sibley's and bird checklist. We did not realize this until the next morning, though.

We camped out at Pena Blanca Lake, and early the next morning we went BACK to California Gulch. We pulled up to the spot at the end of the road where we figured the sparrow spot was, when we were hailed by a voice asking if we spoke English. This was the voice of Stinky Steve, who has guarded a mining claim in the gulch for 6 years. He carried only a shotgun and a pistol, but he was friendly. He told us where to go to find the sparrows, so we set out. At about 11:00, Clay and I decided it was a bad time of day for sparrows, and I think we were getting a bit pissed with each other. Clay wandered off to check out the creek, and I took a sit-and-wait approach. Sure enough, after about 10 minutes a sparrow popped up onto a branch, strategically partially blocking my view of the sun. I could see a about 4 stripes and a pin-prick, but the crown of the bird was really hard to make out. It sat up on the branch for a minute, then vanished. We spent another hour sitting there waiting for the damn bird to show up again, but it never did. At any rate, I was happy to call it my third life of the trip. A swim in the creek capped off the California Gulch experience, then we headed back to Tucson for another two hours at the wetlands wating for the damn gallinule.

This morning we spent another hour looking for the gallinule and came back to California.

All in all, an underwhelming trip. :(

[carpetbagger]

1. Ouch.

ABA refers to the California Gulch "road" in quotes as well. I managed to make it to the so-called parking area at the top of the gulch without badness a few years ago in the (dry) springtime, but I wouldn't do it again, even if the road were in that state (which was better than the last year or two).

On that trip, I also lucked out with the Black-capped Gnatcatchers. Don't feel too bad, though. Sheri Williamson was trying to stake them out for a SABO hike, and must have looked for 2 hours straight without luck. I ducked under that devoid-of-life mesquite forest to get out of the sun for a few minutes, and practically walked into a branch with three juveniles on it.

If you ever hit the Texas coast in the springtime, you'll see plenty of gallinules. Hopefully one the two Northern Jacanas will stay in the Rio Grande Valley until my next weekend off (next weekend).

If it makes you feel any better, I missed two known Lucifer Hummingbirds on that trip on two trips to each of the two feeders they were at.

[XemaSab]

2. I think the simple lesson here

is that the birds I missed on the first three trips to Arizona are simply hard to find and I need to come up with a better strategy for finding them than simply bouncing around, which is what I have done before.

Hey, bouncing around got me 48 life birds in a week in Texas last January, even though I was already over 500. :D

However, bouncing around Maine for a week in August was a similar frustrating experience, so maybe the lesson here is simply not to go land-birding in August. :P

I will return to Arizona at some point for the birds I've missed, but I'm thinking next time I go I will hire a guide to help me with a couple of these birds. I'm usually not stoked on getting a guide, but I really love Southeast Arizona and I want to be able to go there and HAVE FUN. We actually had a pretty good time on the trip despite how frustrated I felt towards the end of the trip, but I think once the ants-in-the-pants are gone, I will have a better time.

We actually had the BEST. MIXED. FLOCK. EVAH. with Olive, Grace's, Black-and-White (!), Painted Redstart, WB Nuthatch, and Creeper all in one big happy group. We also ran into a smaller mixed flock earlier in the day with Red-Faced and Wilson's in suspicious association with some YE Juncos. Good times.

[semillama]

3. Guides rule for getting target birds.

Of course, If I were with you, I'd be totally stoked, as I'd be ticking off life birds left and right (having never birded the SW before).

Birding in August is pretty sketchy, I agree. I was in the Upper Peninsula last week and birded one morning. Maybe had 16 species for the day or so. But - they included GREAT looks at bald eagles and we had an Olive-Sided Flycatcher - a lifer for my dad and I. so, my attitude is "take what you can get!"