Great Horned Owl chick surveying his kingdom- Portal Arizona
In last week’s Dawn Chorus I chronicled my birding adventures in the Sierra Vista and Patagonia areas of southeastern Arizona. The mountains, canyons, deserts and grasslands in the southern part of the state provide the most exciting birding experience in the United States. Today I‘m going to conclude with a look at the Santa Rita and Chiricahua Mountains and the areas from Nogales to Tubac. As before, this is a combination of three trips, taken in February 2016, May 2917 and August 2019.
In May 2017 I signed up with Birding Festival group- Southwest Wings- to take an overnight trip to the Chiricahua Mountains and Portal. The Chiricahuas are about two hours drive to the east of Sierra Vista, so I wanted to spend at least two days just on this side trip. I wanted to be with an experienced local guide who knew exactly where to go and what to expect so I could get the most out of my short time and to learn the area.
Scenes from the Chiricahua Mountains
The Chirichuas are incredibly scenic. Every vista looks like something out of a 1950s western. And in fact, many TV shows and movies were filmed here with these mountains as a backdrop.
We drove up over the top of the Chiricahuas through the Onion Saddle along a dirt road that seemed to consist only of switchbacks. Our main target bird here was Slate-throated Redstart, a tropical warbler that rarely strays across the border. We searched without success before moving on to some areas that our guide had lined up for another of my “wish-list” birds- Mexican Chickadee. But although we hit the all the best spots, that one got away from us. It turned out to be a bit of a nemesis bird for me- August of the following year I was back in the Chiricahuas - this time on my own- and spent hours going back through the likely spots. This Mexican Spotted Owl was my consolation prize, but the chickadee frustrated me, especially since other birders I spoke with were seeing ones and twos in the same areas.
No Mexican Chickadee on this day, so Spotted Owl will have to do!
That day I eventually continued on to Portal, birded there that afternoon and the next morning, and then went back to into the Chiricahuas determined to spend the day, if necessary, looking for the chickadee. Finally, after several more hours, I heard one calling near the place where I had seen the owl the day before, and after some concentrated listening, I managed to get some views of the birds up near the tree tops.
Really poor photo of Mexican Chickadee, but I count myself lucky to have found it on my third attempt!
The high reaches of the Chiricahuas were ravaged by forest fire in 2011 and still have not recovered. Birding was slow, but most of the expected species are still there to be found, including Yellow-eyed Junco, Buff-breasted Flycatcher, Bridled Titmouse and Pygmy Nuthatch.
Yellow-eyed Junco
Bridled Titmouse
Pygmy Nuthatch- very similar to its southeastern counterpart, the Brown-headed Nuthatch
Coming down out of the Chiricahuas on the eastern side, we came into the area known as Cave Creek. Cave Creek is one of those long famous birding locations, and is one of the better places to connect with Sulfur-bellied Flycatcher, another of those South-of-the-Border specialties that barely makes it into the states. It’s best found by walking slowly along the roads and trails and listening for its call, which sounds very much like a squeaky dog toy!
Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher
Chiricahua Fox Squirrel is one of the mammalian specialties of the region, and tropical mammals like White-nosed Coati occur as well.
Chiricahua Fox Squirrel
The local screech owl variety here is called Whiskered Screech Owl- tough to identify other than by location and call notes.
Whiskered Screech Owl near Cave Creek
This area is also home to the Southwest Research Station, operated by the American Museum of Natural History where scientific teams conduct research on topics ranging from astrophysics to environmental sciences to paleontology. The feeders at the research station were jumping, with lots of hummingbirds including many Blue-throated Mountain-gems (formerly Blue-throated Hummingbird)
Blue-throated Mountain-gem is the largest breeding hummingbird in the United States
Although the Chiricahuas were kind of quiet on both my visits, the areas around Portal and Cave Creek, just to the east were really good. I was happy that I had gone with a Southwest Wings guide on my first trip. Besides getting us to the known public sites, like Cave Creek and the Southwest Research Station, he also knew exactly where the “yards” are. Those are private residences where people put out feeders and water features and welcome visitors to stop by and it a while to see whatever birds and other wildlife may be drawn in.
One yard invited non-avian migrants to cross through the property.
There’s usually a donation box nearby, and dropping in some cash to help to defray the costs of seed and sugar water is a great way to encourage people to keep up this local tradition. A sampling of the yard birds here includes
Bullock’s Oriole
Immature male Lazuli Bunting
Western Tanager
Black-headed Grosbeak
Downtown Portal consists of a motel- the Portal Peak Lodge- and an adjoining general store with a restaurant in the back. Further along the main drag is the Post Office. A large oak tree abuts the lodge and housed two owl nest- a Great Horned Owl nest with a large chick peeking out the nest hole, and a family of tiny Elf Owls, who called all through the night but proved to be impossible to see.
Scenes from Portal, Arizona, including Great Horned Owl chick keeping an eye on the downtown traffic
Down in the drier areas around Portal, Collared Peccaries take advantage of the feeder setups
Collared Peccary- aka Javelina
One of my favorite activities, whenever I’m in unfamiliar territory, is to drive and walk the back roads at night, looking for mammals, reptiles or whatever else may come out for the safety of darkness or for the cooler temperatures.
Any readers who have an aversion to spiders or snakes may want to jump ahead a bit at this point! Also big, bumpy, black and yellow lizards!
One productive night on the roads near Portal, I found this Western Diamondback slowly working its way across the roadway. Fortunately it didn’t seem to be disturbed at all by my presence- it never coiled or rattled, just continued sliding along until it was far enough to the side that I could get by.
Business Offices
Advertising Department
Being from the northeast, I was very surprised at the numbers of Tarantulas out and about. I saw quite a few around Sierra Vista at night, but this black one near Portal was a different species. I happened to run into a woman who was a tarantula expert. In fact, she literally wrote the book on tarantulas of the area and she identified this as Aphonopelma vorhiesi. There are many species in this genus, and I was frankly a little disappointed that, although I walked the line, I did not run across Aphonopelma johnnycashi .
Aphonopelma vorhiesi, I am told.
Gila Monster along the back roads near Portal, August of 2019.
Back at the western edge of the “main corridor” of birding sites that I’ve been to, Tubac, Tumacacori lie to the north and west of Nogales, and the ghost town of Ruby and California Gulch are off to the west. In 2019, I signed up with Southwest Wings again, this time to visit the Gulch, and that trip included an overnight in the Tubac area. The trip leader was Richard Fray, a transplanted Brit. He was a Leicester City supporter and he was happy to have finally found an American over whom he could lord his club’s Championship (Manchester United here).
We stayed overnight at the Rancho Santa Cruz in Tumacacori (which apparently is pronounced tumaCACori), a newly opened property whose owners would really like to cater to birders. The highlight for most of us on this overnighter was the trip down into California Gulch, fabled as the best location to find Buff-collared Nightjar. The nightjar is a Mexican cousin to the Whip-poor-will, and finding it requires a fair amount of specialized knowledge. The gulch has a reputation of being a very tough place to navigate- about 90 minutes of bone-jarring dirt roads, washouts, stream crossings with potential flash floods and lots of illegal drug activity and desperate people crossing the border. There are times when the bird guides hire a second car to follow with armed escort, and almost every car I see there is Border Patrol, especially since going into the gulch for the nightjar means getting there in the dark and being prepared to spend several hours. In short, its the only place I’ve ever birded where I would probably not go solo, and I was happy to sign up with the SWW groups to have a chance for the nightjar.
The trip started in Sierra Vista and we headed toward Box Canyon Road, an area that I had birded before. On the way we passed through extensive grasslands at Las Cienegas. The grasslands are home to open ground species like Swainson’s Hawks, Loggerhead Shrikes and Pronghorns.
Pronghorn along Rt 82 near Sonoita
In fact, a few days earlier I had picked up a couple of nice birds in Box Canyon, including a Rufous-capped Warbler and several Varied Buntings. The bunting was a bird that I really wanted to see. Although it isn’t anywhere near as rare as the warbler, I had missed it on my other trips because its a very late spring migrant, not arriving in numbers until late May.
Rufous-capped Warbler at Box Canyon Road
Varied Bunting at Box Canyon Road
Box Canyon lies just to the north of Madera Canyon, and although we didn’t get in tp Madera on this group trip, I did spend a couple of days there in 2016. . At that time, the Florida Canyon trail was the best spot for Black-capped Gnatcatcher, another super-rarity only found in this part of Arizona. The gnatcatchers are tough- Black-tailed is pretty common, Blue-gray (the one most of us see) is also common, so you have to be pretty careful about working this bird out!
Black-capped Gnatcatcher- head pattern more like Black-tailed but undertail is mostly white like Blue-gray. Luckily it sounds pretty different than either of them, so that’s usually the first clue
Also in the Madera Canyon area is the Santa Rita Lodge- on my bucket list of places to stay, but so far I’ve only birded on the property. They have an extensive feeder setup, and you could just loose yourself there for hours.
Rivoli’s Hummingbird (formerly known as Magnificent) at Santa Rita Lodge.
Back to the Southwest Wings trip, Box Canyon turned out to be a great choice.
A tiny stream runs alongside the road, just enough water to attract nesting Gray Hawks to the area
Adult Gray Hawk
Blue Grosbeak Box Canyon
Further along Box Canyon Road the group gathered to look down the slope into the nest of a Lucifer Hummingbird. It was tough to see, and having seen Lucifer before I wandered further along hoping to spot a Plain-capped Starthroat a mega -rare hummingbird that had been reported a few days before. I didn’t find it, but I bumped into a different group of birders who were part of another Southwest Wings trip. They had just had poor looks at Montezuma Quail- one of the biggest “bucket birds” on my wish list and one that I had spent many hours searching for in 2016 and 2017. I made my way over to the area and soon heard a female Montezuma calling from up o the hillside. Gradually my group caught up just as a male Montezuma picked its way down the slope. We all had incredible looks at this beautiful but bizarre bird, as the female caught up to it and they both flew past us to the opposite side of the road and continued calmly waking down the slope.
Male Montezuma Quail- WOW
Montezuma Quail occur over a pretty wide area- east to Texas, but they are very hard to find throughout their range.
Pushing onward through Box Canyon we came through breeding areas for some of the rare sparrows that I had seen before- Botteri’s and Rufous-winged, but we were also lucky enough to find a few Five-striped Sparrows. Five-striped is a real specialty of the area- probably the most range-restricted bird in the area. The entire population breeds in a small sliver from this part of Arizona down into Mexico, and requires a very specific elevation and plant community.
Five-striped Sparrow staking out territory in Box Canyon
Head on view showing the 5 alternating black and white stripes
Before making the trek down to the gulch we stopped in at our lodge, where we had a few minute to unwind before heading back to Nogales. We made stops at Pena Blanca Lake and at nearby Walker Canyon. Pena Blanca was the location where I saw my first Rufous-capped Warbler (Part I). Walker turned up our only Thick-billed Kingbirds- one of the species that started the Patagonia Picnic Table Effect.
Thick-billed Kingbird in Walker Canyon
Pena Blanca Lake- just west of Nogales
By this time, it was getting well into evening and time to head south and west toward California Gulch. I had volunteered to take the back seat of the 15 passenger van, partly because I had already seen almost all the birds that we were looking for and partly because I had more room to put my scope and two cameras. But soon enough, what was a rough gravel road turned into a “where’s the road?” and my head and the van roof became very familiar with each other over the next 90 minutes.
We passed the ghost town of Ruby, where some sort of visitor center may or may not exist. That probably explains the population count of 2, one of whom apparently is named Sundog. Our birding guide filled us in on some of the history of Ruby, especially noting that in 1920, the general store was sold to new owners who were robbed and murdered eleven days later. New owners took over, but they were also robbed and murdered a year and a half later.
On the road to California Gulch: Top left- the flat hill in the distance is just north of the Mexican border. Bottom left and top right- the ghost town of Ruby- population 2 (?). Sunset
We made it down into the gulch and had a few fleeting glimpses of Elf Owl and at one point a nightjar called and landed for about half a second in a open dirt patch. After about an hour, bright lights fell over our little group and we were interrogated via megaphone- “HOW many of you are there?” “ARE you all American citizens?” Busted by border patrol, but luckily our guide handled the situation. Being a Brit- he was not the kind of immigrant they were looking for. A short time later Richard picked out a branch that he said the nightjar favored and a few minutes later, there in the beam was Buff-collared Nightjar!
Amazingly poor photo of a Buff-collared Nightjar in a flashlight beam. Top left is the beak and eye and the buff collar is visible just below (I think?)
We were all elated, and jumped back in the van for the 90 minute bone crushing ride out to a sort of road then eventually a real road and our lodge. The best part of seeing that bird is that I’ll never have to make that trip again!
Our accommodations at the Rancho Santa Cruz were first rate, and the birding there on the grounds was excellent. A family group of Zone-tailed Hawks kept us entertained the whole time, and Tropical Kingbirds sat up on the wires and called to each other.
Rancho Santa Cruz
The Zone-tailed Hawk is a Turkey Vulture mimic- it soars with the vultures, wings up in a “V” and has two-toned underwings just like a TV. On closer inspection you can see the white tail band, and that’s when you become aware of the ruse. Zone-tails use this tactic to take prey unawares- vultures rarely attack live prey but for the hawk, that’s his bread and butter (or mouse and rat).
One of the adult Zone-tailed Hawks at rancho Santa Clara.
I saw my first Zone-tail on Mt Lemmon, and even though had heard about them being a TV mimic since I was a kid, I almost passed that one off as a vulture.
After breakfast, we set out after our main target bird of the day- Rose-throated Becard. We hot a few spots, but ended up at the de Anza Trail in Tubac, There are several nests along the Santa Cruz River in the area and these are the only nests in the country. You may remember from Part I that Rose-throated Becard is the bird that kicked off the “Patagonia Picnic Table Effect” back in 1960. That wa the first nest in the United States since the 1940s, and Patagonia was the only spot up until 2006, when the birds left. They stayed away until the last couple of years, when the Tubac birds were found.
After a great hike down to the river, we found the Becards, first a female then a male, then a couple of more birds. Finally Richard pointed out a nest- a long, dangling mass of sticks suspended from a branch about 50 feet up. Considering that the bird is about 7 inches long, a one or two foot long nest seems like a bit of overkill!
Male Rose-throated Becard
Becard net
After spending some time in the Tubac area, I finally started to feel as if I’d gotten to complete my pilgrimage to the birding spots that I had only read about for all those years. There are, of course, plenty of other great spots left to see, and I hope to get to them when the world returns to normal. In the meantime, I’m really happy that I’ve had these opportunities, and I would encourage any of you who can manage it to add the Sky Islands to your wish list! I hope you enjoyed, and thanks for having a look.
