Southwestern U.S. Trip
(Allen and Nancy’s awesome hummingbird trip)
July 7-23, 2006
Friday, July 07, 2006
We left home at around 5:00 p.m. and drove south on I-75 through Ohio and into Kentucky, staying overnight in Florence, KY. The trip down was uneventful, with not many birds. Most interesting was the Northern Mockingbird singing in the parking lot of the Best Western, in the near-dark.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
We were up very early for a very long drive today. When daylight broke, we were still in Kentucky, with fields of Black-eyed Susans and cropland giving way to montane plants including Mountain Laurel still in flower. In Tennessee the cedars increased and there was even a small area of Baldcypress near Nashville. By the time we got to Arkansas it was noon (Central time), and soon after crossing the border we saw our first Scissor-tailed Flycatcher. We spent some time at the Dagmar Wildlife Management Area, just to breathe the same air as an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, and tried to buy some souvenirs in the town of Brinkley, but nothing was open. We continued west to Little Rock, stopping at Lonoke where Painted Buntings were possible, but we were unable to locate the track where they were supposed to be. We also birded a fish hatchery in the area, which was fairly productive. Northwest of Little Rock, we went to Pinnacle Mountain State Park where there are supposed to be Greater Roadrunners in the rocky areas (didn’t see any) and the easternmost Rufous-crowned Sparrows in North America on the peak (didn’t have time to hike that trail). We continued southwest to Arkadelphia, Arkansas for the night, having driven ~750 miles.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Up early again, and headed southwest toward Texarkana, but first with a birding stop at Millwood Lake State Park, where we spent more time than expected, and saw quite a few birds, in addition to helping our first Box Turtle of the trip across the road. Then, it was just hard driving southwest to Dallas and south to Austin where our next destination was Zilker Park. We were trying to see the endemic Barton Springs Salamander there. It turns out, not unexpectedly, that Zilker Park is where the entire population of Austin goes to swim on a Sunday afternoon. We were directed to secondary parking locations. Once we got our bearings, it was clear that the best way to see the salamander (maybe) was in the Splash! exhibit of the Sheffield Education Center. In our typical fashion, we arrived 15 minutes after the building had closed. But, we wandered around and found a back way in to a couple of the springs that had been fenced off to keep people out, and to allow them to remain natural. Of course, no self respecting salamander would be visible on the surface of the water, but the 97° temperatures (and 100% humidity) clinched it. At least we now have information for our next visit, probably best done in early spring. And, according to the signage, we learned that there is a second endemic salamander species here, discovered in 1998. We then continued through the awful freeways and construction of Austin south to the town of San Marcos where there was another spring (Aquarena Springs), and another endemic salamander (San Marcos Salamander). The Visitors Center was long closed, and the boat tours were of course not running. But, we were able to walk around the grounds a bit and see a few birds, dragonflies, Nutria, and turtles. We then headed into the awful freeways and construction of San Antonio, where we veered off to avoid some of it and got lost, where we got a motel somewhere near the middle of town.
Monday, July 10, 2006
We began the morning early, in the dark, both literally and figuratively. We eventually found our way to a freeway, which of course we entered going the wrong way and had to backtrack to get going the right way. We headed southeast to Corpus Christi with only minor stops along the way, then south to the Laguna Atascosa NWR. We spent some time in the heat watching the feeders, and then drove the 15-mile loop road We didn’t seen too much either place as it was quite hot. We then headed to Brownsville and walked around the trails at the Sabal Palm Sanctuary, and photographing birds at the feeders there. We finished by going to another part of town where Green Parakeets were breeding. Then we headed to Harlingen via a superhighway that had not been built the last time we’d been in this area. Very difficult to get around on these highways in the sky, with no access to restaurants, not to mention everything being under construction. We found a motel in Harlingen and turned in for the night.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Texas is closed. At least that seemed to be the theme for today. We arrived at our first destination, Santa Ana NWR, at sunrise. We had hoped to drive the loop road, as the ABA guidebook indicated it was open on Tuesday and Wednesday. But, we found out once we got into the Visitors Center (open for the first time for us), that the loop road was open only on the weekends. We walked a couple of short trails, and tried to find the old managers residence (without success), and found out that they don’t put the hummingbird feeders up for Buff-bellied Hummingbirds any more. We did see a few birds and butterflies, then decided to head west to Bentsen-Rio Grande State Park. That park was closed at the entrance, with a tram running into it now, and all the campers moved out. A significant difference from our last time here years ago. Certainly better for the birds, but harder on the people, especially when the temperature is 97 degrees! Having enough of the heat, we headed to Weslaco and walked around the small Valley Nature Center and got heated up all over again, this time in the shade. We checked a few other local birding spots, then headed to Mission to get a motel and relax for a couple hours, and have dinner. Then, we went to the Chihuahua Woods preserve of the Nature Conservancy which was, as expected, closed. This time, there was a sign on the fence that it was closed due to the high fire danger. We then drove to the International Butterfly Park near Bentsen, knowing it would be closed since it was after 7:00 p.m. It appeared to still be under construction. We decided to walk another trail in Bentsen, since it had cooled off to 91 degrees and there was a little breeze. There were few birds, but still lots of butterflies (mainly American Snouts) and a few dragonflies. We waited until dark to hear the beginning of the Pauraque chorus, then returned to the motel.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Nancy got us to Salineno on the banks of the Rio Grande River just after sunrise, which was perfect for what we wanted to see. We had two main birds we wanted to see here. Green Kingfisher has eluded us north of Mexico for many years, though we’ve seen many of them, and it isn’t that hard a species to come by, so it qualified as somewhat of a jinx bird. Muscovy Duck is just rare here and one needs to get lucky, and we hoped that this being the third time we’ve done this area the bird might come through. Within the first 15 minutes we had BOTH of them! And, a bunch of other interesting birds as well. A birding couple from Massachussetts came by about 5 minutes after the Muscovy Duck flyby, but they only had to wait about 20 minutes or so for the bird to make another appearance. We talked for a while, and learned that they had just been kicked out of the Falcon Dam area by local security. That had been our next planned stop, but having gotten the Green Kingfisher we decided we could head to the next stop after that, for another species we’ve tried to see before in North America, White-collared Seedeater. We found no birds at Zapata, but drove around in San Ygnacio and found a nice little bird and butterfly sanctuary at the end of Grant Street (and designated an Important Bird Area too), which was being planted with cane, specifically for the seedeater. We walked the whole preserve and heard a couple singing, and heard a third one singing from across the Rio Grande in Mexico. It was a great morning, and time to put on some miles. Since it was already 93 degrees by 10 a.m. it was best not to do too much walking around. As we drove northward, the temperature hovered between 97 and 102 degrees. In the early afternoon, we tried to get into Garner State Park to hike some trails for Black-capped Vireo and Golden-cheeked Warbler, but there were hundreds (maybe thousands) of people camping in the park. It was very noisy and when we finally found the trailhead it didn’t look shady enough at the beginning so we continued on to our main afternoon destination, Lost Maples State Natural Area. There’s an isolated patch of Bigtooth Maples here that gives the park its name. We walked two portions of trails, much of it in complete peace and quiet (we only saw one other family in the park, camping near the entrance). We managed to find a few birds, including Black-capped Vireo but not the Golden-cheeked Warbler. We then made a long drive north to Junction and decided it was too far to go to San Angelo for the night, so we headed west for Sonora. We had a bit of trouble finding a motel with a vacancy, but just around 9:30 we did, and crashed for the evening. Happy Birthday Nancy.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Our first destination this morning was a place where Bob Sargent and Ross Hawkins have been banding birds for several years, and where the 2005 HumConf (for hummingbird banders) was held. It isn’t on the birding itineraries (yet), but it was a very nice experience. With at least a dozen (maybe 20) hummingbird feeders, there were Black-chinned Hummingbirds everywhere (at least 100 at once). It was also nice seeing about 20 Painted Buntings (including a half-dozen males) at once, at their feeders. We then departed for another of the Sargent’s special places, the ranch of Freida [lastname?], about a two hours drive away. While Dan Brown’s was in a well wooded area, on the western edge of the Edwards Plateau, Frieda’s is in arid Chihuahuan desert. But, her photo blind was excellent, in fact we thought it was better than those at both Santa Ana NWR and Bentsen-Rio Grande SP. We departed Freida’s around 1:30 and began the long, long, long drive to El Paso. It was about 300 miles, but seemed more like 50,000. And, with very little in the way of food or gas, not to mention hotels, along the way. As we got toward El Paso, we ran into a thunderstorm that was kicking the wind up quite a bit too. But soon it was past, and the brief temperature drop (to 70 degrees from a peak of 104 along the way) vanished along with the clouds and within minutes it was back up to 97 degrees. We stayed the night in El Paso.
Friday, July 14, 2006
With salamanders on the agenda for today, an extremely early departure was not necessary, though we didn’t have specific locales to look so we still started fairly early. We drive north to Alamogordo, then up into the Sacramento Mountains to find the Sacramento Mountains Salamander, endemic to only three local mountain ranges on southeastern New Mexico. At Cloudcroft, one of the several locales we had listed, we stopped in at the headquarters for the Lincoln National Forest and tried our luck in asking. To our amazement, they brought out Rene Guaderrama, who told us exactly where to go, thus saving us a LOT of time and miles. The road where he sent us was the same as the New Mexico birding guide had listed for the area, so we saw lots of birds too. Luckily, it didn’t take too many logs to be flipped before we found our first Sacramento Mountains Salamander! Then, we had a second, and Nancy had a small one that got away (bronze stripe down the back). From here, we headed back to Alamogordo, then to the White Sands National Monument, where we raided the gift shop for books, and drove the loop road. We then headed into Las Cruces where we had dinner, and then headed west, straight into thunderstorms that somehow missed us, staying in Deming for the night.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Our first destination was a riparian area north of Lordsburg, New Mexico, the Red Rock Wildlife Management area. A few essentially Mexican species apparently occur here, but we found very few of them. The highlight was probably the large number of Cassin’s Sparrows, which we’d been seeing and hearing, but we had perhaps our best looks ever on the road into this area. Then, it was on to the Lordsburg Playa, which had a little water, but nothing but Killdeer and Horned Larks. We continued south, hoping to cross the Animas Mountains, but the main road there does not go up into the habitat we were looking for, so we headed into Arizona. At the Portal store, there were NO hummingbirds at the feeders, but perhaps this was because it was 11:00 and getting warmer. We next headed for the South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon, where we walked a bit of the trail and heard two Elegant Trogons and saw a few other interesting species. But, for the most part, it was slow here too, and we continued on to the South West Research Center and checked their hummingbird feeders briefly. Mostly Black-chinned, but with a couple Magnificent and Blue-throated bullying them, and oddly, a couple of Acorn Woodpeckers bullying the larger hummingbirds. We continued on to Rustler Park where we found Olive Warbler and Mexican Chickadees, among a few other interesting species. Then, an looooong drive (19 miles) on a rough dirt road, finally picking up the pavement and heading into Willcox for dinner, and a quick check of Lake Cochise (aka "Willcox Playa" though the actual Willcox Playa is inaccessible). We had good numbers of shorebirds here. Finally, we moved on to Sierra Vista for the night.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
Following up on an invitation we had gotten the evening before, when we met in the lobby of our hotel, we went to Fort Huachuca to help out Laura Davis with their hummingbird banding there. The downside was that we had to get to the Fort at 4:50 a.m. to make sure we got all our paperwork done to enter this active military base before the official opening time, and to enter areas where birders normally don’t go. When we arrived, we helped her and two other assistants Debbie and Emily, and the banding (for the Hummingbird Monitoring Network, following their protocols) began at 5:30 a.m. There were lots of Black-chinned Hummingbirds buzzing around the trap while we were setting up, but the first several captures only included one; the rest being Anna’s, Broad-billed, and Rufous. We continued for a couple hours this way, with perhaps 25 birds captured, then a really odd one came in, and I tripped the trap and we had, amazingly, a Violet-crowned! It was a wonderful morning, and Laura, Debbie, and Emily were going to continue until 10:30, but we wanted to go birding elsewhere on the fort, specifically to Garden Canyon and Scheelite Canyon. We walked a bit of Garden Canyon and found a few new birds, and did the trudge about ½ mile up Scheelite Canyon where "Smitty" had helped us find the Spotted Owls back in 1984. This year, the birds were ¾ mile up the canyon, so we didn’t make it. We then headed back to the motel for a mid-day siesta and lunch, and did some shopping (needed another memory card for the digital camera). In mid-afternoon, we headed east to San Pedro House and enjoyed the gift shop and feeders before heading out on the trail. We only got about ¼ mile out when rain was coming, and we made it back to the car just in time. We then drove south toward Palomino and some nice grasslands, looking for a small pond that apparently isn’t there any more. And finally, we went to Ash Canyon to enjoy the hummingbird feeders at the B&B there, especially the Lucifer hummingbirds. We then headed back north to Sierra Vista for the night.
Monday, July 17, 2006
An early start (what else?) found us heading for Patagonia, with our first stop the roadside rest area famous for birding. We found a few interesting birds there, including a White-eyed Vireo which is quite a rarity for Arizona. We continued south to Patagonia Lake State Park where we hiked a trail looking for our lifer Black-capped Gnatcatcher. The map makes the trail look easy, but since there were loose cows in the same area, there was quite a network of trails. We think we made it to the right area, but failed to find our lifer. We returned north and went to the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary of The Nature Conservancy. It was closed. This is at least the second time we’ve done this, tried to visit on either a Monday or Tuesday when they’re closed. We walked the road and saw a few birds anyway, then headed to the Paton’s feeders where we enjoyed their hummingbirds. We came back to the motel and relaxed for a couple hours, then went back out to Miller Canyon where Beatty’s Bed & Breakfast had lots of hummingbird feeders, and lots of hummingbirds, in particular, White-eared Hummingbird. The sound of wings and call notes was constant and impressive. We then went back to San Pedro House and walked the trails in dryness this time, and later in the evening. We saw some interesting birds, but not the hoped-for Green Kingfisher. We returned to the motel in Sierra Vista for the night.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Today was a day for target birds. We drove all the way around to the west side of the Santa Rita Mountains to Montosa Canyon, where we walked 3 miles of road, with no shade, looking for, and finding, our life Black-capped Gnatcatcher. Then, we went to Madera Canyon, which seemed uncharacteristically quiet to us, but nonetheless our target bird, Flame-colored Tanager, was fairly easy to find. We then stopped briefly at the Green Valley Wastewater System and found nobody in attendance, so we weren’t able to view all the ponds. Next was the Avra Valley Wastewater System, which involved about a ½ mile hike around the impoundments. It was challenging because it was 1 p.m. and 106 degrees. Several interesting species were seen, including Least Grebe and Brown Pelican. Then, on to the western unit of Saguaro National Park where we hoped to find Gilded Flicker, which we did despite the extreme heat of 108. It was nice just to drive around in the Saguaro forest anyway. On the way through Tucson, we tried unsuccessfully to find Rufous-winged Sparrow, and soon ran into a major rainstorm. We returned to the motel around dinner time and decided to catch up on e-mails and sleep, going for owls and nightjars early tomorrow morning.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
We were up at 2:45 a.m. to try for owls and nightjars. We first went to Miller Canyon where we had some success with Whip-poor-will and Poorwill, but no owls. Ramsey Canyon had no night birds calling, and since the gate there didn’t open until 8:00 a.m. we went back to Miller Canyon and walked up the canyon about a mile where we saw Red-faced Warblers. Of course, there was a brief stop at the hummingbird feeders at Beatty’s B&B before heading to Ramsey Canyon. We arrived at 7:30 a.m. and discovered that Susan Wethington was banding hummingbirds (she started at 5:30). We chatted a bit and, since the feeders were getting slow and it was not possible to photograph the birds, we went to Ash Canyon and spent time with other hummingbirds, including the Lucifers. Then, we came back to the room for lunch and a mid-day siesta (it was 100 degrees). In late afternoon, we went back to Ramsey Canyon and had some success photographing the hummingbirds there. We returned to the motel and had dinner, and ended up scrapping plans to try one more time for Green Kingfisher at a different locale because the rain seemed rather widespread and persistent.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
We had a long drive, more than 130 miles, to Aravaipa Canyon northeast of Tucson where we then drove 12 miles east along a narrow, winding dirt road in the hopes of finding a Common Black-Hawk. It was an interesting road, but no hawk. We then went to Dudleyville and had a brief glimpse at another target bird, Mississippi Kite. Then, a long drive on winding roads, some through a very scenic Indian Reservation, to the Painted Desert. Then, a long drive east to Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Friday, July 21, 2006
We got up into the Jemez Mountains just after sunup to begin our search for the endemic Jemez Mountains Salamander. We had a contact name, but didn’t have time during working hours to get in touch with her. So, we started at the Jemez Falls area, and also checked the XXXXXXXX Caldera, along the Valle Grande trail. We failed to find it, but saw a few interesting birds. We then headed northeast through Los Alamos and Taos and east to the Maxwell NWR where the rain from the mountains began to catch up with us. We then headed north into Colorado, and drove across the Comanche National Grassland, and into Las Animas to the Best Western where there was a bird sanctuary in the back where some friends had had Black Rail in the spring. We went out in the mosquito-infested night and played a tape of the call, but no response.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
We were up very early and headed for Kansas. It was a 250 mile drive to our first, and only stop of the day, the very birdy Quivira NWR. We spent about two hours driving the roads here, seeing thousands of shorebirds. We continued east into Missouri, stopping just west of St. Louis for the night.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
No birding today, just a long drive home (625 miles).