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Einstein’s
Great Tits 2006 Birdathon Account
or
Desperately Seeking the Flicker and
Roadrunner
or
Touring
Southeast Arizona Wastewater Treatment Plants
by
Carrie Dean
We began the morning of May 4, 2006 bright and early at 7:30am at Jessie’s house. After loading the ice chest, scope, several field guides, bird song CDs, the battery powered boom-box, food, binoculars, water, hats, checklists and us into the car. Having been wished good luck by Jessie’s family, but not too much luck as Randy was competing against us being on the Bearded Tyrannulet team, we were on our way.
Our first stop was the Green Valley Water Treatment Facility, but the wind was so blustery and as we ultimately decided that we would see most of the same species elsewhere, we moved on. However, we did keep the Lesser Scaup that was being bounced around on the cresting “pools of poop”. By the time we made it to Madera proper, we were well on our way to what we hoped would be a high species count. As the birds flitted from tree-to-tree and peeped and squeaked (technical terms, mind you) in the bushes, we freely rattled off names of, Red-naped Sapsucker (“Was that a flicker? No.”), Western Tanager, Bridled Titmouse, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and Costa’s Hummingbird among others. We nonchalantly pointed out the Flame-colored Tanager to other Madera Kubo visitors, after we had recorded it of course, and perhaps gave off the air that we knew what we were taking about!|
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Eating our lunch in the car, we made our way to Kino Springs with a brief stop in Rio Rico to check off the Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks along with a Kestrel, Zone-tailed Hawks, a Great Egret and others; probably the most species-bountiful, five-minute stop of the trip. Once at Kino Springs, the other birders might have suspected we were on a mission or off our rockers when Inca and Mourning Doves and Mallards elicited high-fives and shrieks of joy, but alas, no flickers or roadrunners! From Kino Springs to the Roadside Rest and on to Paton’s, we were shadowed by some California birders who had been at it for two weeks; oh, to have the luxury to bird for two weeks!
The Roadside Rest gave us the Hooded Oriole and Ash-throated Flycatcher, but no Rose-throated Becard, although its nest was very lovely swaying in the breeze. At Mrs. Paton’s house, the Thick-billed Kingbird stood proud atop one of the trees and the Yellow-breasted Chat moved in and out of the brush to visit the oranges on the feeder while Violet-crowned and Rufous Hummingbirds visited the nectar-rich feeders. But we had to move on to make it to Willcox while it was still light.
 Team at the Willcox twin lakes |
Willcox was, as always, wonderful. Scaled Quail (a life bird for half of us) ran along the road, a Loggerhead Shrike carried a critter away in its beak and a circuit of the ponds (and not once did we end up in the water) yielded American Avocets, Wilson’s Phalaropes, what looked to be a Wilson’s Phalarope nursery (a bunch of fluffy youngsters huddled together in the shallows), and an especially tricky-to-identify Western Sandpiper ~ “…is the tail bobbing up or down…are those yellow or black legs…what’s the bill look like?”. The trees sang with Yellow-headed Blackbirds, and Horned Larks skipped along the mounds of dirt, but not one Eurasian Collared-Dove or Ruddy Ground Dove. As we departed for Madera for a night of owling, a Lesser Nighthawk swooped in front of our car and a Western Wood-Pewee flitted from ground to fence post; and bats, can we count bats? They have wings!
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Back in Madera, we listened through the wind and heard two Western Screech-Owls talking to one another and a Whip-poor-will interrupting their conversation. On our way back into town, all but the driver slept, despite trying to hit every pothole. However, we were all awake once at Agua Caliente Park at 12:15am just in time to hear the Elf Owl call and to see the Great Horned Owl take off from its perch; are owls perching birds? Back at Jessie’s by 1:30am, we crashed on her couch and futon, and hopefully didn’t disturb her family, and Hazel was a good dog and didn’t make a peep (evidently, she’s not a bird dog) except to sigh when we weren’t in the mood to play that early in the morning.
Up and at it at 5:00am, Feliz Cinco de Mayo, Hazel was now eager to get outside and so were we, to finish our Birdathon. A brief stop at the bridge at Ina gave us the Black-necked stilt and then we quickly moved on to Sweetwater Wetlands as time was running out. As we headed down the Frontage Road to Sweetwater, eyes were still droopy from sleep and morale was ebbing, but wait, what was that? something standing in front of a hole on an embankment ~ a Burrowing Owl! After much cheering and high-fiving, a very effective method of waking up, another bird was checked off the list.
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Of course, on the way back to Jessie’s, a roadrunner ran alongside the road (aptly named I would say), and each of us individually saw a flicker when we returned to our respective homes.
The final tally of species seen or heard was a very respectable 134! Although it was an exhausting Birdathon, we are all eager to get out and practice, practice, practice for next year ~ Anyone for a rematch?!
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This page was updated on 05/16/07