When both my children were working in Phoenix, I started to
visit Arizona more frequently, often also heading down to the Tucson area to
visit long-time birding friend Jeff Gilligan, as well as other birders from my
Oregon days who have subsequently relocated there. Although my main birding
goal was to see birds that are absent or rare near my home in coastal
California, perhaps inevitably, I decided to work on my state list. I added
Arizona to the list of Pacific coast states where I am aiming to see at least
300 species. I have since bumped this to 350, given how easy reaching 300
appears to be. This will give me a greater incentive to look for harder species
like Flammulated Owl, which I haven’t seen anywhere in over 20 years. The
downside is that I am also chasing birds like loons, Willet and egrets that I
see frequently at home!
Fellow Santa Barbara County birder and professional bird photography guide Wes Fritz decided to join me. Wes is a pretty handy photographer himself and generously provided the photos for this blog post. We headed down to Green Valley, south of
Tucson, on Aug 11, stopping on the way to try for Purple Gallinule and Least
Grebe in Tucson, both of which we missed. Arriving in Green Valley, we found
the water was not working at Jeff’s place, which started a saga of plumbing
incompetence before it was finally fixed.
The next morning, we headed out to Willcox to look for
migrant shorebirds, stopping at Benson on the way to search for another Purple
Gallinule. This gallinule proved much more straightforward than the ones in
Tucson and we quickly obtained excellent views. Itseve was my first in the USA
for some years, although I see them regularly in Mexico. Arriving at Willcox, I
was excited to see that it certainly lived up to its reputation as a great
shorebirding spot, with several hundreds of birds in view. American Avocet,
Black-necked Stilt and Wilson’s Phalarope predominated along with a decent
number of Western, Least and Baird’s Sandpipers. The last species included a
number of adults, which are very rare on the Pacific Coast. One key target was
Semipalmated Sandpiper, which is rare but regular in the state and tends to
peak in the first three weeks of August. We were able to find two different
juveniles, presumably ones that had been previously reported over the last week
or so. Yellow-headed Blackbirds were feeding around the periphery of the pond
and a group of swallows included several Banks.
Unfortunately, several other recently reported shorebirds
were not present and we decided to head back to Green Valley and check the
sewage ponds there for a lingering Short-billed Dowitcher. We soon found the
bird – a juvenile, which turned out to be a very long stayer we would see a
couple of time more. In the late afternoon, I made solo attempt for the Least
Grebe and came up empty again.
We decided to delay a planned trip over to the Huachucas so
we could stay fairly close to Green Valley if needed by the plumbers or city
water inspectors. We got up early the next morning to head back up to El Rio to
look for the Least Grebe. The surrounds of the lake there had some “barnyard
grass” that was attracting a decent number of Lazuli Buntings. Checking these
for other passerina buntings turned up a female Varied Bunting, which
transpired to be a pretty good bird for the spot, but not a state bird like
Indigo or Painted Buntings would have been. Willow Flycatcher and Wilson’s
Warbler were indicative of migrants arriving in the area. I eventually located
the grebe by near a tule patch on the east side and got good looks.
We then headed back down to Green Valley and up into Madera
Canyon. We had nice looks at Varied Bunting and Botteri’s Sparrow around
Florida Wash and then spent a bit of time at the feeders at Santa Rita Lodge. A couple of Broad-tailed Hummingbirds were among the regular Black-chinned,
Anna’s, Rivoli’s and Broad-billed. We also saw the Broad-billed x Berylline
Hummingbird that has been present there for a couple of years. We made a short
dash to the Green Valley sewage ponds to see a Semipalmated Plover that had
shown up – another new shorebird for my state list and one we had missed at
Willcox.
Another early start the next day saw us birding along the
Anza Trail down by Tubac, hoping to find some bunting flocks that might have a
Painted Bunting in them. We had no luck with any buntings, even a Lazuli, but
did see a few Arizona ‘specials’ such as Bridled Titmouse, Zone-tailed Hawk and
Dusky-capped Flycatcher. As we were finishing up, we noticed that both Painted
and Indigo Buntings had been reported at El Rio that morning. Although we were
pretty fed up with the 45-minute drive to El Rio, that would be even longer
from Tubac, we decided to head up there. As we were driving up through Green
Valley, news broke of an Eastern Kingbird on some sewage ponds in Sahuarita,
immediately north of Green Valley. The initial information was a bit confusing.
As we were not exactly sure where it was, we carried on to El Rio. It later
transpired that the bird was at the Green Valley sewage ponds, which are close
to Sahuarita, not the Sahuarita Sewage Ponds, which we were not exactly sure
how to access. This proved to be costly as we would likely have seen the bird
had we headed straight to the Green Valley sewage ponds, whereas it was, in
typical Eastern Kingbird style, long gone by the time we arrived around 1 pm.
Arriving at El Rio, we pinned down the two spots where the
Lazuli Buntings were concentrated and patience observation was rewarded with a
female-type Painted Bunting. We had no luck with the reported Indigo Bunting.
Needless to say, we had the Least Grebe parading around in front of us almost
the whole time!
The next morning saw us back down to Anza Trail, this time
going a little further south to Santa Gertrudis Lane. A few miles before our
destination, we noticed there were a lot of kingbirds up on the wires. Mindful
of the Eastern Kingbird we had missed the previous day, we decided to check
these out. We saw around 50 Western Kingbirds with smaller numbers of Tropical
and Cassin’s Kingbirds mixed in. We heard but did not see a Thick-billed
Kingbird.
Arriving at Santa Gertrudis Lane, we quickly found both Thick-billed and Tropical Kingbirds. Further searching turned up Dusky-capped and Brown-crested flycatchers, Lucy’s Warbler, Yellow-breasted Chat, Western and Summer Tanager and migrant Western and Willow Flycatchers. We headed back up to Green Valley to check out the sewage ponds again, turning up my first AZ Blue-winged Teal as well as three Baird’s Sandpipers. Feeding swallows included both Bank Swallow and Purple Martin.
After relaxing back in Green Valley during the heat of the
day, we headed out on the long drive to Willcox to spend the last hour and half
of daylight there. We were able to quickly locate some of the desired
shorebirds with four juvenile Red-necked Phalaropes and an adult Stilt
Sandpiper knocking off a couple more Arizona targets. A juvenile Short-billed
Dowitcher had arrived earlier that day, as well as a juvenile Solitary
Sandpiper, both of which we saw well.
Our final full day saw us heading over to the Huachucas to
visit the various hummingbird spots in Ash and Ramsey Canyons. Highlights here
included at least four each of Calliope, Violet-crowned, and Lucifer’s
Hummingbirds, as well as a hybrid Lucifer’s x Costa’s, single Berylline and Costa’s
Hummingbirds and numerous Rivoli’s, Rufous, Broad-tailed, Black-chinned, Anna’s
and Broad-billed. The only miss was Blue-throated Mountain-gem, which is becoming
progressively more difficult to see in the state. I recall seeing multiples at
Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon when I first visited the state in 1988. Now
they are not even annual at that location.
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