Natural History Journal

Continuing our birding adventure through southeastern Arizona, we headed north from the Huachucas , leaving the Sky Islands behind us to travel across a sea of saguaros. We spent one night at Saguaro National Park and the next at Lost Dutchman State Park, solely because I wanted to truly experience the Sonoran Desert.  This, of course, can't be done from inside an air conditioned vehicle on paved roads or the comfort of a hotel room.  To really experience this magnificent desert, one must feel sun on skin and smell creosote bush in the heat; one must hear the crunch of gravel underfoot, the soft tremolo of Lesser Nighthawks rise as darkness falls, the mournful cries of a pack of coyotes breaking the utter stillness of a desert night. And so, as the sun began to sink low over the western hills (and the temperature began to become tolerable) we rolled out our tent beneath the vast desert sky and prepared to experience the desert. Sunset over our camp near Saguaro Natio...

After visiting Madera Canyon  and a few of southeastern Arizona's riparian areas  along the Santa Cruz River, Sonoita Creek and the San Pedro River, Eric and I spent a couple days of our birding expedition exploring the Huachuca Mountains. When most of us picture the natural landscape of Arizona, I'm sure we think of two things: the Grand Canyon in the northern part of the state, and vast deserts dominated by the Saguaro cactus of the Sonoran desert.  But there is much more to Arizona, particularly the southeastern part, than one might realize!  This is because southeastern Arizona is a region of transition, where four major ecosystems come together, the lines defining and separating them far less rigid than on a map.  Here are the southern reaches of the Rocky Mountains, the influences of which are seen most strongly in the plant life at higher elevations, which includes familiar conifers like Douglas fir, white fir and ponderosa pine.  Here too is the n...

Riparian forests are invaluable in all regions and climates around the world, but as one might imagine, they are especially critical in arid regions like southeastern Arizona.  While a plethora of bird species cluster along the rivers, breeding in the complex, multi-level gallery forests, even more incorporate these riparian corridors into their migratory pathways.  With this in mind, I knew that a good portion of our time birding in southeastern Arizona would need to be spent along such rivers, and we found a few locations that lived up to their reputations as particularly good spots to find neat birds. (In case you missed it, in Part I of this series, we visited  Madera Canyon .) The San Pedro River, near Sierra Vista The Santa Cruz River, which we visited near Tubac, has its headwaters in high grasslands to the east of the town of Patagonia.  From there, it flows south into Mexico before changing its course to flow north past Tucson where it eventually ...

Sitting at the dining table of my grandmother's house in the Sierra Nevada a few days after Christmas, my attention was divided between flipping through Kaufman's Field Guide to Birds of North America and watching Anna's Hummingbirds and Acorn Woodpeckers visiting the feeders on the deck.  Pondering what the new year would bring in terms of birding, I began mulling over where I could go in the United States to see the most new species of birds to add to my life list.  That is, what region has the highest number of species that are different from what we have in California? As one who likes lists, I started jotting down regions and species, noticing a few areas that began to emerge as likely candidates: For spring migrants like warblers, the northern Midwest and eastern U.S. is promising; Florida has a number of neat things (like flamingos!) I will never see in California; southern Texas is a hotbed of unique species, with its tropical Green Jays and Plain Chachalacas. ...