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A multiday, shared expense birding trip undertaken by a group of friends to Southeast Arizona during the first two weeks of August 2013. Participants - Bert Filemyr, Mike Rosengarten, Connie Goldman, Ann Scott.
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Pictures by Mike and pictures by Bert have been posted on the trip website. These pictures include birds, creatures, and general trip photographs.
http://www.thefilemyrs.com/Birding/Arizona2013/index.htm
Mike posted a great set of pictures.
Check out
http://www.flickr.com/photos/78856147@N08/sets/72157635095144677/
I took over 1800 pictures, most of them birds. It is taking lots of time to go through them and find the few good ones. I will post here when they are available for viewing.
We are all home safely from a great trip. We saw 181 species of birds including 11 species of hummingbirds (Costa's attached.) Snakes, mammals, reptiles and other creatures were seen and enjoyed.
It was a great trip. Pictures will be posted at www.thefilemyrs.com as soon as possible but it will take some time to sort through the thousands of pictures we took.
Hope you enjoyed following our adventure
Bert, Mike, Ann, Connie
Before the trip we often joked about the heat. We convinced ourselves that it would be "dry heat" and not uncomfortable. But realistically heat is heat. We knew it would be hot but that would be the tradeoff for seeing good birds. The image above is from the forecast page of a smart phone app. You will see that here in Phoenix it is a little after 8 pm and the temperature just dipped below 100 degrees. And looking ahead you can see what Phoenix is in store for.
With the exception of a couple of hours the first day and now the last night we spent our time south of here. And the area south of here is slightly higher in elevation and is cooler than the Phoenix area. Most of our days topped out in the low 90s and were relatively comfortable.
Today was our last day of birding. We went up Mt Lemmon , just north of Tucson, to see some high altitude birds we had missed. It was great to see Red-faced Warbler (photo), Townsend's Warbler, Virginia's Warbler, Mountain Chickadee and other birds.
When we came off the mountain we did a takeout lunch and headed to Avravaipa Canyon Road. It was a neat area but as expected with temperatures over 100 degrees, birds were hunkered down and not to be seen.
We are now in Phoenix, ready to fly home tomorrow.
We will be at breakfast at 6 am and then out of the motel shortly afterwards. This morning we will bird Mt. Lemmon here in Tucson before heading to Phoenix. If we have time we will bird some areas north of Tucson on the way.
Today is our last birding day and we want to use all of our remaining time wisely.
This Hooded Oriole was seen yesterday in the Tucson area.
We went to a sports bar for dinner and ran into a local couple who were in the restaurant where we ate dinner last night. We chatted with them last night and came over to talk to us tonight. That was a nice gesture on their part.
No ice cream after dinner tonight. Everyone was full.
Tomorrow is our last birding day. We will bird Mt Lemmon in Tucson and some other areas. The trip has gone fast.
(This Roadrunner was seen today on Ruby Road on the way back from California Gulch)
We are back at the motel after a full day of birding. We left the motel at 4 am and after driving about 15 minutes returned to the motel for me to get my wallet which I had forgotten to take. That put us 30 minutes behind schedule. Not the brightest move on my part! Our major goal was getting to California Gulch which the most reliable place in the United States for Five-striped Sparrow. It is about 17 miles of dirt road to get there and then a walk down a steep trail to get to the bottom of the gulch. Once there, after a little work we found several of these elusive sparrows. I struggled to get a picture and while the attached shot is not the best shot I have ever taken of a bird, it is a memorable shot. You have probably read the posts from earlier today which told the timing of our adventure.
We are debating what to do for dinner. We stopped in Patagonia and had a nice lunch and at this time none of us are hungry. We might just have a cocktail hour and not go for dinner. But later, if there is an ice cream place in the area…………