February 21 and 22, 2011 - San Diego and the Salton Sea
February 23, 2011 - Phoenix, Tucson, the Santa Cruz flats and Madera Canyon
February 24, 2011 - Madera Canyon, Patagonia, and the San Rafael Grasslands
February 25, 2011 - Cave Creek Canyon, Barfoot Canyon, drive to Ventura, CA
February 26, 2011 - Kern and Santa Barbara Counties, CA
February 27, 2011 - Santa Cruz Island
February 28, 2011 - Los Angeles, flight home
February 25
We awoke early in Cave Creek Canyon to yet another cold
morning, on our last full day in Arizona. Come to think of it, on most days this trip we encountered
temperatures before freezing! This cold morning did not deter Dave though – he
still had a “road shower”. All you need is a bottle of water, a t-shirt to use
as a towel, and a road.
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| road shower |
Like the previous day, we started this day by driving back
down the mountain to the desert where the temperatures would hopefully be
warmer. We ended up at the NM/AZ border and the birds were active. It didn’t
take long before we spotted a covey of Scaled Quail on the New Mexico side. We
got out and admired the birds, but couldn’t tease one to run across the road
into Arizona (Dave still needs this bird for AZ!). Other birds around included “Lillian’s
Eastern Meadowlark (NM), Ferruginous Hawk (NM), Lark Bunting (AZ, NM), Vesper
Sparrow (AZ, NM), and Prairie Falcon (AZ). Our main goal though was to check
out the area around Willow Tank where a few species of longspurs had been seen
lately. Well, as expected, we dipped on these birds.
After a bit of confusion, we managed to find Dave Jasper’s
famous feeders where we saw, among common birds, Curve-billed Thrasher,
Northern Cardinal, Pyrrhuloxia, and Western Scrub-Jay.
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| Curve-billed Thrasher |
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| Gambel's Quail |
The sun had finally
started to warm the area so we headed right back up the mountain. All we ever
seemed to do on this trip was drive up and down mountains!
We drove down to Paradise and managed to get brief looks at
a Black-chinned Sparrow and Golden-crowned Kinglets. The hike up Cave Creek
Canyon was fairly uneventful bird wise, but slowly the birds started to show
themselves. A Northern Mockingbird was nice to see as were the Red-naped
Sapsucker and Spotted Towhee. I was really determined to find an Arizona
Woodpecker so I pulled over at a decent looking spot and promptly saw a
woodpecker fly across the road. We finally had good looks, and it was an
Arizona! A second one was near the vicinity. Perhaps our luck in Arizona had
finally turned.
We were getting a little tired of birding so we made a
detour to hike straight up the side of the mountain to a cave where a mountain
lion supposedly hangs out. It was really nice to actually spend some time
hiking in this incredibly scenic place, as most of our time in Arizona so far
had been spent driving. We explored the cave for quite some time, enjoying the
scenery and soaking up the rays.
What a cool place! I definitely would love to
return some time as this place looked perfect for some species of hard to find
snakes such as montane rattlesnakes. Unfortunately we didn’t really see any
herps on this February day.
Up next on the agenda – Barfoot Canyon for some of the montane specialties we had yet to see. Yellow-eyed Junco, Juniper Titmouse, and Mexican Chickadee were our main targets here and we managed to get great looks at them all! We saw our only Brown Creeper for the trip and got a Hairy Woodpecker too. The ride up the Canyon was filled with switchbacks, random spots with a foot of snow, and incredible views. We parked near the summit and hiked the rest of the way up. Here, at 12,000 feet we saw a roving flock of Pygmy Nuthatches. I mentioned to Dave that this was my “highest” lifer, but he had to one up me and mention the White-tailed Ptarmigans he had out west at a higher elevation.
The view at the top of Barfoot was, as expected,
spectacular! Mountains surrounded us, gradually diminishing to foothills and
eventually desert. Unfortunately we had to leave this wonderful place, and
Arizona, shortly after to head back to Cali.
On the way we made a last ditch effort for some desert birds
near Tuscon but didn’t see anything new. Afterwards we made the decision to
race over to the Santa Cruz flats for one last shot at the rarities that were
still being reported there. We missed them once so there is no way we would miss
them again! Well, we did. At one point we were so desperate to see some
Colorado Dirtpipers (er...Mountain Plovers) that we ended up spotlighting a
field in the dark for them. I even jogged to the middle of the field with a
flashlight and searched all around. I did hear some shorebirds calling in the
distance but wasn’t 100% confident they were the dirtpipers. Fortunately the farmer did not see who, as I certainly would have been taken out with
a shotgun. From here we drove straight through the night to Ventura on the
California coast to hopefully take a boat to Santa Cruz Island. Matt and I
drove the whole way while Dave and Brett were passed out in the back, probably
getting the best night’s sleep of the trip! It was not one of the easier drives
I have done, as I fought sleep-deprivation, hallucinating, torrential rainfall,
and idiotic California drivers.
While we struck out on most of our target species in
Arizona, we still had a blast and saw a ton of cool things. We still managed to
see most of the montane birds, tried some awesome local restaurants, saw some
amazing scenery, and overall had a good time with a good group of guys.
Part 6 of our trip will cover a full day of birding in Santa Barbara County, California.
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