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 Tucson Audubon Society
Story of the 2006 Bearded Tyrannulet Birdathon
by Kendall Kroesen, (520) 206-9900

We saw 143 species of birds in 24 hours. That’s 20 better than the previous Bearded Tyrannulet record! Then there are the three species we saw within 15 minutes after the 24 hours were up.

But that’s the end of the story. Let’s start at the beginning.

We planned to start our 24 hours of birding on Friday afternoon. On Friday morning I learned that the four Bearded Tyrannulets would only be three this year. Scott Wilbor’s 3-month-old puppy came down with a very serious illness. Probably Parvo, as it turns out, in spite of the fact he was immunized. Scott and Kathy took the dog to the veterinary hospital and naturally he wanted to stay and make sure it was alright.

At 5:15 p.m. the other three of us, Randy Grohman, Brian Nicholas and I, started the Birdathon at a pond where Brian lives, on the northeast side of Tucson. The Lakes at Castle Rock is a planned development that includes more than one pond, including this one lined with cattails, mesquites and several large eucalyptuses.

The beginning of a Birdathon, or any “big day” (24 hours of birding) is exciting, since every species seen counts toward the eventual total. They came fast: lark sparrow foraging on the ground, mallards and pied-billed grebe on the pond, northern mockingbird on the fence, Harris’s hawk in a eucalyptus. Migratory warblers chipped and buzzed in the mesquites, Wilson’s, yellow, yellow-rumped and MacGillivray’s.

Many were common species the counting of which seemed a formality, since we knew we would see them several times in the coming hours: European starling, rock pigeon, mourning dove.

One of the reasons for coming to this pond, however, was that Brian knew of a great horned owl nest in one of the tall trees. That’s not a species you know you’ll see many times. It’s one you have to look for. We scanned the eucalyptuses as we walked back to the car, wondering where they were.

Finally Brian saw one on a branch near the trunk of a eucalyptus, about halfway up. His wise look seemed like more of a wise-cracking look, saying he was glad he was a bird rather than a birder who was about to spend 19 out of the next 24 hours looking for birds. He planned to look for some birds to eat tonight, and then nap all morning.

I should explain the name of our team. There is a bird species called the northern beardless-tyrannulet. It’s a member of a group of birds most of which have small bristles around its bill—a kind of modified feather. The beardless-tyrannulet has none. Most of our team members are bearded, or at least were at the time we came up with the name. Thus, bearded tyrannulets.

Our next stop was Woodland Road; one of those areas with large houses surrounded by much larger pastures. Pastures are good for sparrows and flycatchers, among other things. Yellow-hued western kingbirds and brilliant vermilion flycatchers were added to the list, along with sparrows like Brewer’s, chipping and white-crowned.

Common Sonoran Desert birds were in abundance here too, including verdin, ladder-backed woodpecker, Gila woodpecker, and cactus wren. A red-tailed hawk sat on top of a telephone pole and Cooper’s hawks turned tight circles in the air. The real prize here was a Eurasian collared dove, an exotic species increasing in numbers but still not easy to find.

It was beginning to get dark and it was time to find some night birds. A lesser nighthawk swooped past the car, so one less species to worry about.

But the owls would be a different story. The task of finding owls was hampered by the cold front that had arrived the previous day. The evening was chilled and would only get colder as we ascended the Santa Catalina Mountains, where we had hoped to find several species of owls.

But first we searched the foothills near Agua Caliente Park and the base of the Mount Lemmon Highway . I did western screech-owl calls in hopes of getting a reply, but no luck. The normally abundant elf owls were not making their barks and chirps either. We started up the mountain making plenty of stops along the way to listen.

At the first stop, the Babad Do’ag overlook, all we saw were couples necking and a group of young men testing out some kind of video camera equipment. At the next stop, a pullout just short of the Molino Vista overlook, we definitely heard elf owls in the canyon below us. Still no western screech-owls.

Nothing more until we stopped at one of the first pullouts in Bear Canyon . Now too high for western screech-owl, I tried a tooting whiskered screech-owl imitation. Immediately a whiskered screech-owl responded, with a call that sounds like nature’s version of Morse code.

This was to be our last owl species. At various stops up the mountain where we hoped to hear flammulated owl, northern saw-whet owl, and spotted owl, all we heard was frigid silence. All this ended at the top of the road at the ski area, around midnight. We backtracked down to Rose Canyon campground and set up tents with cold fingers and flashlights.

At a little after 5 a.m. I awoke with a start to Randy and Brian’s voices. We were already “burning daylight.” Well, we were burning a thin predawn light, but the first birds were singing already so it was time to get birding again. Damn birds.

The cold front had passed and even the early morning air, unheated by sunlight, was much more comfortable than the previous evening. Encouraged by this, ethereal hermit thrushes and rasping Mexican jays combined to start the predawn chorus, closely followed by northern flickers, Grace’s warblers and the ziiing of a passing broad-tailed hummingbird.

After our fill of other ponderosa pine forest birds, including some red crossbills which I had not necessarily expected to see, we drove down to Rose Canyon Lake to see what was hopping there. One bird was actually hopping on the ground, a spotted towhee. But most were foraging above us in the pines and oaks. We added several warblers, vireos, kinglets, and a belted kingfisher looking for a breakfast of cold fish. I’m sure it wasn’t thrilled about having to dive into the cold mountain lake to get it.

We went to Mount Bigelow Road, usually a very fruitful location, but we only saw two new species there, red-breasted nuthatch and brown creeper. It was creeping. Up a tree. The nuthatch was creeping down a tree.

A quick stop followed at the Box Canyon trailhead, where an olive warbler and western bluebird awaited us. But time was growing short—more than half of our 24 hours were over and we were still high in the mountains. We had a long series of stops ahead of us at lower elevations.

So down the mountain we went, looking out for birds in the air off the sides of the road. I hope Randy wasn’t looking for birds in the air, as he was driving. But Brian and I saw white-throated swifts and turkey vultures.

We made a few stops where we picked up cool birds such as bushtit, Virginia’s warbler, western tanager and bridled titmouse.

At the Windy Vista pullout I finally got a decent cell phone signal and, being since it was after 8 a.m., I figured It was safe to call Scott and give him an update on our progress. I woke him up! They had gotten the puppy back from the vet the afternoon before, but it had taken a turn for the worse in the middle of the night and they had spent from 2:00 to 4:30 a.m. at the veterinary hospital, where the dog still resided.

We commiserated, and he was encouraged by our progress but suggested we step up our pace or we wouldn’t make it through our full itinerary.

At our last mountain stop in Molino Basin, we had the fortune of finding the cryptic crissal thrasher, the scarlet-hued summer tanager, and a deep blue broad-billed hummingbird.

In the sky two birds wheeled circles together, riding a breeze up the mountains—peregrine falcons! You can go through a whole 24 hours without seeing one of those, so two was a treat.

Now for a quick drive across town to Sweetwater Wetland, a constructed marsh associated with one of the waste water treatment plants. But first, another unexpected turn of events. Randy’s Ford Explorer started pulling to the left, and then to the right when he braked. He concluded the left-front brake caliper was frozen, and quickly wearing through.

He carefully drove us back to his house, which fortunately is located along our route in central Tucson. What would we do now? Neither Brian nor I had a car that could carry the three of us comfortably on a long trip south of Tucson.

Randy’s partner Jessie was out in their other car, a Toyota Corolla. She soon returned and we negotiated the use of the Corolla as a replacement. Jessie and her daughter adapted by riding their bikes to the school where soccer tryouts were taking place. THANK YOU JESSIE AND CARLIE!

Off again after losing some time, but it wasn’t a total loss since we found a curve-billed thrasher at Randy’s house!

We headed for the wetland hotspot. This probably would be the last stop where we would find a large number of species we hadn’t seen yet. While we had been to a pond already, it wasn’t really a big enough habitat in which to find a lot of the wetland species we were going to need. Sweetwater Wetland is the spot for this.

We quickly started racking up the species. First there were birds on the water, like blue-winged teal, cinnamon teal and common moorhen. Then there were the wading birds, including great blue heron, green heron, and snowy egret. Other birds were eating the abundant bugs in the air above the marshes: barn and bank swallows, black phoebe, and two great surprises, an olive-sided flycatcher and Vaux’s swift, both migrants that rarely linger as they pass through bound for nesting grounds to the north.

In the willow trees was a Townsend’s warbler and an orange-crowned warbler, two of the warblers we hadn’t found yet. A female brown-headed cowbird trilled as she looked for the nest of another species in which to lay her eggs. Fifteen more species were added before we left the wetlands.

Green Valley Waste Water Treatment Plant

The clock ticking, we headed south toward our last five stops. First the Green Valley Waste Water Treatment Plant! Birders get teased for going to the sewage plants, but hey, we go where the birds are!

We had well over 100 species by now; what could we hope to add?

Shorebirds! That’s what. The edges of the ponds are often crawling with shorebirds—we hoped to get several species.

It wasn’t to be. We found only least and western sandpipers. But there were some ducks and grebes we hadn’t seen yet, plus migrating Wilson’s phalaropes. Phalaropes are a group of water birds unto themselves, unrelated to most other birds that float on water.

Our dreams of a yet rarer red-necked or red phalarope was not to be, but just then Brian told us to look closely at a big black bird soaring in the distance. At first glance looked like a turkey vulture. But the head didn’t look right to him—yet I didn’t see the tail band that would make it an adult zone-tailed hawk (a turkey vulture mimic). Yet as it came closer, it was indeed a juvenile zone-tailed hawk, which had not yet developed the large, white band on the tail, but instead had very fine barring that we couldn’t see at a distance. Way to go Brian!

All in all we found 11 species at the sewage plant—better than I had hoped in the absence of more sandpipers.

By now it was 2 o’clock. Only three hours and fifteen minutes to go. Our remaining stops would have to be fewer than planned, and fast. There was a lot of driving between stops too if we were going to finish in Patagonia, as planned. We quickly headed farther down I-19 to Rio Rico Drive.

Searching the flood-irrigated agricultural fields off Rio Rico Drive, we managed to find six new species—again more than I’d hoped. I knew there would be white-faced ibises and probably black-bellied whistling-ducks, but we also found gray flycatcher catching flies, and a lone black vulture sniffing for roadkill.

Two birds finally showed up that we had expected to see sooner—greater roadrunner and Cassin’s kingbirds. We had perused lots of kingbirds previously and they had all turned out to be western kingbird.

Time for three more stops. The first was to be Kino Springs, just east of Nogales. But first, another call to check in with Scott, before cell phone coverage got spotty leaving Nogales. Again—woke him up! This time from a much deserved afternoon nap. The dog was still in the hospital, hooked up to an IV. If it could take a little food, it could come home that afternoon. He was pleased with our progress and agreed that we only had time for these last three stops. We wished him well.

Kino Springs, a development with a golf course and ponds, is very close to the border. It is a good oasis for birds making their way north. It dripped with Wilson’s warblers, but we had seen those already. Still, we did better than I thought at this late stage of the game—six new species.

The expected gray hawks were easy to find. And although we had already seen ravens, we stopped to watch one deliver food to a nest where we could see three hungry bills reaching to the sky to compete for food.

One of the few egrets to elude us so far, the great egret, landed by the side of the first pond. Across the road from the pond Randy and Brian chased a towhee into the mesquite scrub. We found it and it was the hoped-for canyon towhee. As often happens, that chase led us to other nearby birds, a black-tailed gnatcatcher and a black-throated sparrow. A gilded flicker landed on a pole near the pond.

On to the second pond to try for ruddy ground-doves that had been reported there, but no luck. We had to keep moving.

Up the highway we went, to the famous Roadside Rest, located a few miles before you get to Patagonia on Highway 82. We hoped to see the male rose-throated becard with his, well, stunning rosy throat!

But it didn’t appear. Maybe if we had time to wait longer he would have shown himself. But with possibly only one of these birds in the entire state, we weren’t too surprised when we failed to find it. We did pick up a Nashville warbler, the only relatively common warbler that we hadn’t found till then.

Final stop: Marian Paton’s house in Patagonia. This is a lady with thousands—maybe hundreds of thousands—of friends around the world. They are people who have visited southeast Arizona and stopped by her back yard to watch birds at her feeders. Many, many people see species there they have never seen before, and they remember Mrs. Paton as an unparalleled patron of birds and bird watchers. Her yard is almost always open during daylight hours. When the gate is open, anyone is welcome to stroll right in and around back of the house. You don’t have to call, knock, or otherwise announce yourself. Just leave a little money in the “sugar fund” can.

The sugar is for hummingbird nectar. We had high hopes of adding at least one hummingbird to the list. At her feeders Anna’s and black-chinned hummingbirds raced around each other to get to the sugary water. Be we had seen these species already. Finally a violet-crowned hummer showed up. And then as a bonus, a Costa’s hummingbird—which somehow we had missed up to then.

At her seed and fruit feeders tons of other birds were doing their afternoon feeding, which I’m sure had followed closely on their morning and midday feedings, and would be followed by an evening feeding before bed. Every five or ten minutes they would all rise into the air and seek shelter—sometimes it was a false alarm, but sometimes the danger was real as a Cooper’s hawk shot through the hard trying to catch one of them.

When things returned to normal, electric blue lazuli buntings were abundant on the feeders, another species we had not yet seen. With the last minutes ticking down, the last species of the Birdathon appeared at the top of a distant cottonwood. We put the scopes on it and it resolved into a thick-billed kingbird. This is a flycatching species not numerous anywhere in the United States. We were lucky to spot it so soon before time was up.

We lingered at Mrs. Paton’s place, talking to other birders and seeing what else would arrive. And dang it if three other species showed up after our 24 hours were over. A white-throated sparrow darted out to find seeds under the feeder. An out-of-town visitor to Mrs. Paton’s back yard found a common ground-dove. A flock of cedar waxwings landed for just a few seconds at the top of a tree, making the exceedingly high-pitched twitters.

Scott and Kathy’s puppy is hanging in there and will probably pull through. We wish luck to them, and to all the migrating birds we saw. May they all reach their nesting grounds and raise a lot of chicks so we can seem them in fall migration!

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This page was updated on 05/16/07