Southeast Arizona Update No. 1

Life on the long, brown desert path continues. The Vermont Bird Tours group I’m guiding is off to an amazing start. We began with walkaway looks at Rufous-winged Sparrow and a rattlesnake species. Our morning in the Sonoran Desert near Tucson went on to include Guilded Flicker, Curve-billed Thrasher, Pyrulloxia and all the other usual good stuff. Lake Cochise in Willcox produced its dependable array of birds, including Cinnamon Teal, breeding plumage Wilson’s Phalaropes, a Sanderling molting into its reddish breeding plumage, a Franklin’s Gull and a pair of Scaled Quail (I lost it over the Scaled Quail).

Chiricauhua National Monument is not only among the most beautiful places on the continent, it’s also birding bliss. On Day 2 of the trip a calling male Elegant Trogon weakended our knees in the South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon. A Zone-tailed Hawk flew low and lazy over our heads (as we watched a couple of late Orange-crowned Warblers). Owls have been good to us: Western Screech Owl, Whiskered Screech Owl (click on the photo above for a full-frontal) and Elf Owl (also pictured), all five inches of him, fresh out of his nest cavity (an abandoned Acorn Woodpecker hole). We even watched these two owls snatch insects from the air.

Onward to the high ground for Red-faced Warbler, Mexican Chickadee and, yeah, even Short-tailed Hawk.