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Tucson Audubon Society
2007 Birdathon: Windy Adventure for the Bearded Tyrannulets
By Kendall Kroesen
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The Bearded Tyrannulets formulated an ambitious birding route for the 2007 Birdathon. On May 4 our itinerary took us from the Catalina Mountains to Willcox, with many stops in Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise Counties . Team members Randy Grohman, Brian Nicholas , Scott Wilbor and I planned the trip for weeks—mostly over beers at Nimbus Brewery, conveniently located only 100 yards from Brian's place of work!
In short, after some post-Birdathon consultations to make sure we didn't leave anything we saw off our list, we have determined that our final tally is 140 species. We are proud of this mark even though it was three short of last year's record. The conditions on May 4 were very windy. We feel we did well considering the weather. Birds tend to hunker down in breezy conditions, making them harder to see, or hear.
Yes, hearing counts! Some of the 140 birds we identified were by ear. Birders consider this method of identification as solid as IDs by sight. Believe me, if we could smell the difference between one species and another, we'd be using that too!
The Birdathon is a fundraiser competition with rules. The primary rule is that you must search for birds during a period of 24 consecutive hours. We decided we would start at 2 a.m. and do some “owling” on the east side of Tucson , where Brian lives.
We arrived at Brian's gated community off Tanque Verde Road at 1:45 a.m. Every Birdathon has at least one amusing snafu, like somebody pulling their pants off due to an ant bite, or repeatedly being stopped by the police in the wee hours (as we were last year). For us, it came early on. We rang Brian from the gate to be let in, and there was no answer. I called his number from my cell phone and got a bleary-sounding Brian.
“It's today? I thought it was tomorrow!”
He had thought of it as a Saturday trip and neglected to notice that the date was actually a Friday!
Fortunately he had the day off from work and was able quickly to throw on some clothes and grab some equipment. We managed to get underway only a little bit late. He got a good deal of ribbing about that for the next 21 hours.
At 2:15 a.m. weather conditions were great! Not too cold, not too hot, and it wasn't windy yet. A big plus was a nearly full moon. Some owls, and even other birds that are normally not nocturnal, vocalize more when there's a full moon. We stopped at a pond near Brian's house and heard Mallards and Great-tailed Grackles. The Great Horned Owls that live there weren't calling, for some reason.
At the Houghton Road Bridge over Tanque Verde Wash we did hear a Great Horned Owl, which we heard again at almost every stop we made that night before heading up the mountain. Driving east on Speedway a Barn Owl careened across our path—fortunate since we didn't hear or see one the rest of the night! Elf owls and lots of Lesser Nighthawks were calling as well. Stopping where Wentworth Road crosses Tanque Verde Wash , we didn't hear any night birds but a Northern Mockingbird was singing its heart out to the light of the full moon!
We headed toward the Mt. Lemmon Highway , making a stop just below where it starts up the mountain. There we heard Common Poorwill, and some Gambel's Quails clucking in a little wash.
After some non-productive stops low on the mountain, we got to Bear Canyon . At a highway pull-off we heard Whip-Poor-Will and Western Screech-Owl.
Unfortunately, although it was still only about 3:30 a.m., these were to be our last night birds. As we went up the mountain the wind began to pick up. When we reached the top, the wind was howling through the trees. Owls were laying low and even if they had been calling, we wouldn't have heard them unless they were very close.
However, we didn't have to wait long for some action. By then it was 4:30 or so, and the eastern horizon was already lighting up. The daytime birds were beginning to sing. We quickly heard Spotted Towhee, Mountain Chickadee and American Robin. An area down the road a bit was sheltered from the wind and we ended up seeing or hearing 17 species up there, including gorgeous Red-faced, Olive, Townsend's and Hermit Warblers. Three Northern Flickers put on a show of mating displays and all three species of nuthatches foraged noisily in the trees.
We made a quick trip down to Summerhaven and Marshall Gulch, but it was still dim and sleepy down there, so we only added Common Raven and Hermit Thrush.
There was still a long way to go to get down the mountain. We made seven stops along the mountain highway, seeing another 28 species. Rose Canyon and Molino Basin were the most productive, with six and eleven new species respectively. A Hooded Oriole and Summer Tanager, and the Peregrine Falcon hunting high overhead, were highlights at Molino Basin . We also picked up another four species at Windy Point, including a Rock Wren, which we did not see the rest of the day.
We had planned to make some stops in the high desert at the base of the mountains for common desert birds, but we were behind schedule so we decide just to see how many of them we could see from the car while driving through town (Houghton south to Sahuarita Road, to Old Nogales Highway, toward our next stop at the Green Valley Wastewater Plant).
We managed to spot eight species along the way, mostly due to Brian's eagle eye and, shall we say, “owl ear”! Punctuating the long drive, Brian would suddenly bark “Harris's Hawk,” or Phainopepla,” causing us all to crane around and see if we could see it.
At Green Valley Wastewater we hoped the wind might have discouraged some of the migratory birds from leaving, but pickings were sparse. Still, we added thirteen species. A Willet (a kind of migratory shorebird) was there—a species we would not have seen elsewhere—along with other sandpipers, ducks and teals.
Heading toward Madera Canyon , we hit the mulberry trees in Continental where there were lots of fruits and lots of birds eating them. Cedar Waxwings and Western Tanagers were the highlight.
We picked up a couple sparrows (Black-throated and Brewer's) on the road up to Madera , along with a Wilson's Warbler. At Madera , a walk from the Proctor Road parking lot found the conditions very quite. We would have added no new species there if not for the fact that a Golden Eagle appeared over Elephant Head Butte and gradually wended its way across the sky above us!
We only added a total of 10 species at Madera , but some we would not end up seeing anywhere else, including Flame-colored Tanager, Painted Redstart, Wild Turkey, and Acorn Woodpecker.
Again we were behind schedule when we left Madera (about noon or so by this time). Our next scheduled stop was some fields in Rio Rico, and we decided to go there only if we kept it short, watching only from the car window as we drove east along Rio Rico Drive through fields east of the Santa Cruz River. This was very successful since we were able to get a quick nine species and still get back on schedule. We actually did get out of the car once to make sure everybody saw some of the herons that (again, eagle eye) Brian saw hiding in vegetation along the edge of pond. It was also hard not to stop and admire the large number of Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and White-faced Ibises in the fields.
The next stop was the Kino Spring development near the boarder northeast of Nogales . We piled on another ten new species there, including somewhat tough tough-to-find ones such as Gray Hawk and Common Yellowthroat, as well as beauties like Bullock's Oriole, Yellow Warbler and Lazuli Bunting.
The rest of our route involved three stops near Patagonia . Then there was to be an assessment of where we needed to go next. That would depend on our count up to that time, and what kinds of birds we hadn't seen yet. Leaving Kino Spring about 3:30 p.m. we realized we had only 119 species. We were shooting for 150, so we had a lot to do.
By this time we had generally agreed that Willcox would give us the kind of punch we needed at the end of our Birdathon. The high-altitude grasslands and the ponds by the golf course harbor migrants and other birds you might not see elsewhere. But to make it to Willcox before dark, we really had to stay on schedule through Patagonia . So we hurried on.
We stopped at Patagonia Lake and added only six species. Most were on the lake, such as Pied-billed Grebe, Common Moorhen and Neotropic Cormorant. We took a quick look for the rare Black-capped Gnatcatcher, but the family of Gnatcatchers known to be nesting there would not come out of the mesquites (we also missed the ones reported at Proctor Road in Madera Canyon ).
To stay on schedule our stop at the Patagonia Roadside Rest was quick. We added no new species there, probably owing to the windy conditions and the time of day (mid to late afternoon), when birds are less active.
The last stop in Patagonia is virtually guaranteed to be productive. It's Marion Paton's house. She opens her backyard to one and all, virtually year-around, so people can enjoy the birds coming to her hummingbird and seed feeders. Since there's always food, there are always birds! In half an hour we added seven new species—a difficult task this late in the day when you've seen so many species already. Abert's Towhee, Blue Grosbeak, Inca Dove, Yellow-breasted Chat, and Violet-crowned Hummingbird were the more spectacular species visiting the feeders.
Just before we left we were able to point out to the other folks there a Zone-tailed Hawk soaring over head. Then, literally as we were walking out the backyard gate, we impressed them again by finding another good one. Brian scoped in on a noisy bird high in a tree, and he and I determined it was a Thick-billed Kingbird. This is a Mexican species only found in the U.S. in southeast Arizona —and most of the sightings come from the Patagonia area. The whole backyard group came over to see it.
We quickly launched ourselves toward Willcox, knowing we'd have precious little light once we got there. We had 132 species at this point, so we were feeling a little better about ourselves. But we wanted that 150 mark or as close to it as we could get. Brian spotted an American Kestrel and a Swainson's Hawk from the car along the way, which he was able to point out to one or more other team members (birds needed to be seen by more than just one person). So we were at 134 when we arrived in Willcox.
Unfortunately, the sun was already setting behind a thick western cloudbank, so we had even less daylight left than we had hoped. It was about 6:45 and already getting dark. After a momentary scare when we thought a slow-moving train might block the road to the golf course for a while, we got through and headed toward the ponds. Brian, or just “Eyes” as we should now refer to him, found us both a Eurasian Collared Dove and a Scaled Quail from the car on the drive into the golf course ponds.
At the ponds, because of the waning light and the windy conditions, we couldn't find enough bird to get to 150. But the Wilson 's Phalaropes, a couple sandpiper species and a Loggerhead Shrike, which strangely we had missed in all the other locations, got us to 140. We felt we had done well given that we had had 143 the year before under much better conditions.
After driving around in the dark for a while just to see if we could scare up anything else (we didn't), we finished up with dinner in a quaint and unique restaurant located in an old rail car near the tracks in Willcox.
On the drive back we valiantly tried to stay awake and talk to Randy, our driver, so that he wouldn't nod off. But I'm afraid Scott, Brian and I slept for big portions of the trip. But Randy was a trouper and stayed bright and chipper, and awake, to get us back to our starting point in Tucson . Thanks Randy for driving us around throughout the day, as well as for your birding skills.
In all it was a fabulous trip and we're looking forward to better weather next year, and a new Tyrannulet record!
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Email This page was updated on 06/04/07