How time is
getting away from me! I got home December 4 from my Yucatan tour and dug myself in
to get the post-tour materials done while at the same time preparing for the
Tucson Valley Christmas Bird Count, for which I’m the compiler. This year I had
some help from local birder Luke Safford, and next year he will be the
compiler. I’ve had fun organizing this for the past five years, and I’m very
lucky to have already found someone to pass it on to.
As I have
for the past years, I made tons of home made chili from scratch (no chili
powder – real toasted dried chilies ground in the food processor with other ingredients such as cumin and cocoa powder) and baked
several loaves of breads for the CBC countdown potluck. The six batches of
chili took all day Monday the 12th, and the bread took much of the next day. The CBC was on
this past Wednesday, December 14, the first day of the CBC season.
Two loaves each of a traditional French sourdough (30% whole wheat), and a hearth rye seigle (60% rye).
I chose to
cover the area that involves a very strenuous hike up Finger Rock Canyon to
Mount Kimball with my friend Max Li. It’s a total of about 13 miles round trip
as we did it (going a bit beyond Mount Kimball into upper Pima Canyon and
back), and elevation gain of 4860 feet over 5.7 miles.
I last
did this four years ago in the
snow, but this time we had record high temperatures, and in only a few very
shady slopes were there tiny patches of snow from a front that came through
over two weeks ago. This area has the highest elevations in the circle with
lots of oak-pinyon forest and even a few stands of Arizona Pine.
Here’s a
view looking south over Tucson towards the Santa Rita Mountains.
Here is
looking southwest at the back side of the rocky peak that has Finger Rock (the
tiny, slightly left-leaning spire to the left of the highest ridge).
The slopes
to the north and west of Mount Kimball are even steeper, if that’s imaginable,
and views that direction have no intervening ridges. This is Picacho Peak right
along the I-10 corridor towards Phoenix.
Many species
occur in these woods and nowhere else in the circle. The pinyons had a good
crop of cones this year, and we had plenty of all three species of jay,
including this Woodhouse's Scrub-Jay (the others being Steller’s and Mexican).
It was so
warm, we had four species of butterfly, such as this Red Admiral.
We had two Coues's
White-tailed Deer at this viewpoint called Linda Vista.
This
Cooper's Hawk, with a molting tail, almost giving it a Sharp-shinned shape,
provided a bit of an ID challenge.
Other good
high-elevation birds we had included Acorn Woodpecker, White-breasted Nuthatch,
Bushtit, Bridled Titmouse, and a rare Juniper Titmouse. This Rufous-crowned
Sparrow sat on the trail on our way back down the mountain, but this species
was found by one or two other groups covering other foothill canyons that get into grassy slopes above the desert scrub.
Our last new
bird of the day and yet another scoop for our area was this Northern
Beardless-Tyrannulet, only about 1 ¼ miles from the car. It’s rare in the
Tucson area in the winter; this is only the 8th year out of 45 that
it has been found.
With my legs
in excruciating pain from the ridiculous hike, I then proceeded to hike a total
of about 6 miles the very next day for the Patagonia Christmas Bird Count. I
birded with Malcolm Chesworth (left) and Josh Stewart (right, tooting into his
pygmy-owl whistle). This was the same area I covered last year, called Sycamore
Canyon and Finley and Adams Canyon, both off of Duquesne Road between Nogales
and Patagonia. We were about 3 ½ miles from the border with Sonora Mexico.
Here’s a view
of the San Rafael Grasslands and Huachuca Mountains, looking to the southeast.
As last
year, we had a stakeout Spotted Owl in a known territory.
We had at
least four Hepatic Tanagers, a scarce winter bird in Arizona.
My best find
was this Golden-crowned Sparrow, chirping loudly on a weedy hillside with two
White-crowned Sparrows and about a dozen Lincoln’s Sparrows accompanying it.
We had lots
of Western Bluebirds but only one small group of Eastern Bluebirds of the
resident subspecies. Note the white belly, the brighter orange tone to the
breast, and the pale cheek contrasting with the top of the head.
It was
another record warm day (up to 84°F in Tucson, probably about 5 degrees cooler
here), so it wasn’t surprising to see seven species of butterfly and even a few
grasshoppers. I think one is Melanoplus
lakinus, the Lakin Grasshopper.
Finally, on
Saturday the 17th I did my third and final CBC before I have to leave for my
Oaxaca at Christmastime tour, which starts on December 22. This was the Santa
Catalina Mountains CBC, which borders the Tucson Valley circle to the east. And
as last year I did it with my friend Andrew Broan.
This time we
were assigned a portion of the Arizona Trail starting at Molino Basin, in the
lower oak zone, a much easier route than the treacherous cross-country trek we
did last year starting higher and ending at this location. Our route today was only 8 miles, though my legs weren’t quite
back to normal and pain free yet. I figured the activity (pain relieved a bit with some ibuprofen) was better for recovery than
sitting at the computer all day.
We went over
a small ridge and then had gradual downhill multiple use trail (horseback
riding and mountain biking too), turning off toward La Milagrosa Canyon to drop down into the NE Tucson basin. Much
of the hike was in mid-elevation desert grassland, and northern slopes had
Red-berry Juniper woodland.
In this zone we had the count's only Sage Thrasher, and I got this very distant photo of it.
I’m pretty
sure this is Mammillaria macdougalii,
MacDougal's Nipple Cactus, formerly known as pancake cactus, but a young, well-watered, and swollen individual.
Our hike
eventually took us down through the “thermal belt,” the cold-drained lower
slopes of the Santa Catalinas covered in Saguaro forest. Here we had the count's only Gilded Flickers.
Andrew
spotted this Saguaro in full bloom, exactly 6 months out of sync.
With the
passage of a cold front the night before (including lots of wind, ¼” rain, and
high temperatures nearly 30 degrees lower than two days earlier, bird activity
was still high in mid-afternoon when we got back to the car at the Horsehead
Road trailhead.
Female
Northern Cardinal
Male
Pyrrhuloxia
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A very
photogenic Black-throated Sparrow right next to the car.
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