August 8 - Madera Canyon and Buenos Aires NWR

I was awake ‘way before the alarm this morning, and decided to go for a walk up the road from the Santa Rita Lodge to the USFS Amphitheater.

The Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers were very vocal in the pre-dawn.  Their calls sound like a “squeaky toy” being constantly squeezed by a puppy.  I put a recording of their calls on this eBird checklist.

Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers were "Lifers" yesterday . . .

I heard the buzzing of a swarm of bees, and stopped to see that there were a couple of dozen “solitary” bees entering their burrows along the road.  I think this is the Pruinose Squash Bee - Peponapis pruinose.  They made a lot of noise, but they showed no aggressive behavior.

Our tour group from the Southeast Arizona Birding Festival had stayed the night at Santa Rita Lodge, and were gathering at 6 a.m., so I returned to the cabins.  We walked up to the Amphitheater to do a bit of birding before returning to the van and driving up to the Mt. Wrightson Picnic Area and the trail head for the Carrie Nation trail.

There were several Coues’ White-tailed Deer at the picnic area, enjoying their own breakfasts.

Coues Whitetail Doe - Odocoileus virginianus couesi

Breakfast in the Santa Ritas

As we walked up the canyon, we got a view of a Brown-crested Flycatcher.  This Myiarchus flycatcher was my ABA Life Bird No. 632.

Our target on this walk was the Elegant Trogon, and we heard a bird vocalizing just at the fork in the trails where the Vault Mine Trail takes off.  A few of the group walked up a deer trail, where the Trogon flushed.  Colleen was the only one to see it; she “got a breathtaking view of the male's red breast and belly.”

USFWS Photo by J Rorabaugh

I am not proud.  Hearing the distinctive call of the bird is sufficient for me to “twitch” the Elegant Trogon as my ABA Life Bird No. 633.  I will return to the Canyon to try for a view of the bird at a future date.

Datura wrightii

There are a lot of flowers blooming with the monsoon rains.  Scarlet bouvardia Bouvardia ternifolia is a pretty plant that is one of the most important nectar sources for canyon hummingbirds through the summer. It’s also the sole larval food plant for the Falcon Sphinx Moth, Xylophanes falco, which is one of the most amazing and bizarre-looking caterpillars around.

Scarlet Bouvardia

It was nearing 10:30, and we needed to check out of the Lodge and return to Tucson by noon, so we left the Canyon for the venue of the Birding Festival at the DoubleTree.  I checked back into the hotel and got ready for the afternoon bird tour.

I’d signed up for the field trip to Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge with Charles Corson, which departed the hotel at 2 p.m.

The Festival bio for Charles stated: “Charles learned to love birding as a kid in West Texas. One of the first birds to catch his interest was the Sandhill Crane when waves of them would come to the area’s playa lakes to roost. Over the years, Charles has enjoyed birding in the Southwest due to the variety of habitats and birds. He is particularly interested in understanding how birds interact with the environment around them. Charles spends significant time volunteering for various projects. He especially enjoys his time at the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge where, this past summer, Charles helped lead a presence survey for the Yellow-billed Cuckoo at the refuge.”

We pretty much drove straight to the Headquarters area, where we were treated to a welcome from USFWS Biologist Rebecca Chester, who gave a great talk on the efforts to reintroduce the endangered Masked Bobwhite Quail to the Arizona grasslands.

It's hard to pay attention when there's birds about . . .

Loss of habitat due to intensive livestock grazing in combination with drought and exotic species contributed to its decline.  Their historical range extends from southern Arizona into Sonora, Mexico.

The United States maintains two captive populations of these quail; one at Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, and the other at the George Miksch Sutton Avian Research Center in Bartlesville, Oklahoma.  Within the last few years, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service worked with Mexican partners to establish a third captive population at Africam Safari, in Puebla, Mexico.  There are only around 900 of these birds known, all in captivity.

While no wild populations exist in the UnitedStates, populations may remain in Mexico, with the last confirmed sighting in 2007.

This species needs the open bunchgrass habitats of the native llanos.  Initially, severe overgrazing drastically reduced the birds’ numbers to near-extinction.

Now, the grasslands are infested with the exotic Lehmann lovegrass Eragrostis lehmanniana, which has adversely modified the habitat for the quail.  Lovegrass reseeds itself quickly after disturbance, is very competitive, and where adapted, tends to replace native grasses over a period of years.  Lehmann lovegrass has replaced the native Arizona cottontop (Trichachne californica), threeawn grasses (Aristida spp.), and grama grasses (Bouteloua spp.) over much of the Southwest.

Leaving the headquarters area, we stopped at Triangle pond, as well as at a grassland area, which we walked through, looking for the desert grassland sparrows.  It was here that I got good scope views of Botteri’s Sparrow for ABA Life Bird No. 634 and a couple Rufous-winged Sparrows (ABA Lifer No. 635), amongst the many Cassin’s Sparrows.  There were chiggers in the grass, whose bites I discovered upon my return to the hotel.  I hate chiggers.  There were also several blond tarantulas out and about, which repelled some of the group and fascinated the others.

Aphonopelma chalcodes

At dusk, we arrived at Brown Canyon, and had permission (and a key) to go through the locked gate.

There was a birder, Todd, at the canyon gate, and Charles invited him to join us.  Todd had been late to the process for signing up for the Festival, and “all the good trips were already full”, so decided to bird the area on his own.  We got to the old house, and waited.

It had Rained in canyon this afternoon, and was overcast, so insect and bird activity was muted.  However, we were treated to the nocturnal calls of Western Screech-owls and the Buff-collared Nightjar.  This cryptic species was another “heard only” Life Bird (No. 636) for me, and Charles was apologetic that the evening wasn’t warmer so that the birds would fly down to the road and show themselves.  I was really happy to have heard them!

It's darned near impossible to get shots of bats without flash . . .

Madera Canyon dawn eBird Checklist is Here

Madera Canyon Amphitheater eBird Checklist is Here

Madera Canyon Carrie Nation Trail eBird Checklist is Here

Buenos Aires NWR HQ Area eBird Checklist is Here

Buenos Aires NWR Brown Canyon eBird Checklist is Here