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Flagstaff and Tucson- March/April 2015 (1 Viewer)

Mr G.Finch

Well-known member
Hi,
My wife and I will be visiting Arizona for 12 days from 27th March-7 April 2015. The holiday will be a mixture of sightseeing and birding with 6 days in Flagstaff and 5 days in Tucson.
The majority of the time in Flagstaff will be taken up with trips to Monument Valley and the Grand Canyon although there will be 1 or 2 days free to try and get some birding done.
In Tucson I am hoping to get the most birding done as this part of our holiday will be at leisure.

A few points to note:-

To keep costs down and lack of experience driving abroad I won't have a car for this trip, I realize that a lot of the best birding spots will be inaccessible due to this.

This will be our first birding trip in USA, so all birds we see will be life ticks

Would pay for a guided tour for a day or a few hours if possible.

A few target species would include Greater Roadrunner, Gambel's Quail, Oriole spp, Tanager spp, Hummingbird spp, Mountain Chickadee

Any help or advice on what birds I can expect to see at this time of year and any birding spots that are central to Flagstaff and Tucson would be most helpful

Thanks in advance
 
You'll have no problem with mountain chickadee and gambel's quail! When in flagstaff it would be worth getting a taxi to kachina wetlands, a few miles to the south. I visited in May this year and really enjoyed birding around the city, saw things such as Lewis's woodpecker, townsends solitaire and pinyon jay amongst others in the city itself, check ebird for specific sites and to see what species are around at that time of year. In Tucson, sweetwater wetlands and agua caliente park are worth visiting. Driving in America is easy, it's when you get home that you start questioning if your on the right side of the road! Would be worth getting a car for at least a day at each location if you can afford to
 
Hi Mr G.Finch, I'm assuming that's not your real name, and you're not the well known Leics birder of that name (if you are, hi Graham!)

Firstly, if you want a birding guide in the Tucson/SE Arizona area, please check out my website (http://www.arizonabirder.com/) and let me know ASAP, as April is one of my busiest months and will fill up fast.

The birding in SE Arizona is fabulous! But it's a BIG area, more than twice the size of Wales. Tucson is very spread out, physically about the size of London (with a population of about a million in the Greater Tucson area). Public transport is almost non-existent, and taxis aren't very reliable, because EVERYONE has a car. So you're going to find getting to birding sites very difficult, to be honest, with a lot of walking combined with trying to figure out the paltry bus system. I'd highly recommend hiring a car. The driving here is very easy, mostly on big, straight roads.

In terms of birding sites, this book is easily your best bet for accurate information: http://goo.gl/T2ljCU. The current edition was published in 2011, and a new version is due in 2015.

You can also follow the Arizona/New Mexico birding list (http://birding.aba.org/maillist/AZ), which is largely news from SE Arizona. This, and other lists such as the N Arizona list mentioned above, concentrates on local rarities, so may not be that relevant to you as you'll be interested in common birds as well as the oddities.

Sites such as Sweetwater Wetlands on the west side of Tucson, and Reid Park in midtown Tucson, will give you a broad range of species and are well worth your time. Goodness knows how you'd get to Sweetwater without a car, though - you'll have to cross the freeway at some point. A trip along the Catalina Highway up Mt Lemmon will give you access to a wide range of species that are elevation-dependent, rising from Tucson at 2,300 feet to Summerhaven at over 8,000 feet. If you wanted to walk this, it's the route of what's billed the world's toughest marathon, being 26 miles from the bottom to the top. So, a car would be almost essential to do that, I'd have thought. There are dozens more birding sites around Tucson, and hundreds throughout SE Arizona, so it would be hard to give a summary of them all (that's what the Finding Birds in SE Arizona book is for).

As for what to look for, I've created printable monthly checklists (designed for US letter-sized paper, not A4) which should help: http://www.arizonabirder.com/birding-in-se-arizona/arizona-birding-checklists/. These are based somewhat on the bar graphs in the back of Finding Birds in SE Arizona.

Regarding the species you mentioned specifically...

Greater Roadrunner is fairly common, but very hit and miss. I might see five one day, and then not see another one for a week. There are some in the more desert-like parts of Tucson, and they can also be found at lower elevations almost throughout the region.

Gambel's Quail is common in desert habitat and regular in Tucson suburbs.

A few tanagers winter (Hepatic in mid-elevation oak woodland) but they're essentially summer visitors. Hepatic Tanager arrives from early April and becomes common from mid-April, Summer doesn't usually arrive until mid-April, and Western late April-early May, so you may be too early.

Likewise, orioles are essentially summer visitors with the odd wintering bird (Scott's sometimes in oak woodland) but they do arrive earlier than tanagers, with Hooded and Bullock's from mid-March and Scott's from early April. You can find Hooded and Bullock's in Tucson, but Scott's is usually at mid-elevations (eg: Molino Basin on Mt Lemmon, Madera Canyon, Ash Canyon B&B).

Many hummingbird species are elevation dependent. By early April you should find Anna's, Costa's (desert), Broad-billed and Rufous (migrant) in Tucson and other lowland areas, but you'll need to get to higher elevation to find the likes of Broad-tailed, Magnificent, Blue-throated and the rarer hummers. There are several amazing feeder sites, which are well worth visiting for hummingbirds and general birding, although they're all an hour or two drive from Tucson. The best are at Madera Canyon (Santa Rita Lodge and Madera Kubo Cabins), the Paton house in Patagonia, and Beatty's Guest Ranch and Ash Canyon B&B, both near Sierra Vista.

In SE Arizona, Mountain Chickadee is a high elevation species and only found in the Santa Catalina Mountains (Mt Lemmon). You should see it easily further north.

Have a great trip, and please do let me know if you want a guide.
 
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Thanks for the replies, Some very useful information to digest which I am doing slowly!
I realise a couple of days with a car will be necessary down in Tucson so I can access a couple of those places mentioned and I have to break my non-driving abroad rule somewhere I guess!

Another question I meant to ask previously was what kind of raptors could I expect to see In Tucson and Flagstaff? I have read about Coopers Hawk and Harris Hawk so to catch a glimpse of either of those would be a welcome addition!

Thanks in advance
 
Tucson has the densest population of Cooper's Hawks in the world, and you should see them almost daily, although more often than not fleetingly. They're almost guaranteed at either Sweetwater Wetlands or Reid Park.

Harris's Hawks are in suburban Tucson, not as common but very visible when you find them. They do sometimes wander, but overall tend to stick to traditional areas, so driving/walking one of those neighborhoods should yield good results.

eBird is probably the best way to see clusters of recent records and determine your most likely spot. Reid Park and Agua Calienta Park, and the neighborhoods around them, are good places to start, as are various places in the foothills. They used to be regular at Sweetwater Wetlands until a few years ago, but Great Horned Owls took their nest site, and they have moved, so aren't seen there as often these days.
 
As for other raptors, in no order in particular...

Early April will be a little late for the winter ones in general, so you're unlikely to get Ferruginous Hawk (almost entirely seen around agricultural fields), Prairie Falcon, or a rare (for SE AZ) Rough-legged Hawk or Bald Eagle (the latter is much more likely further north in AZ).

But of the winter raptors, there will likely still be Northern Harriers around, a few Merlins, and Sharp-shinned Hawks.

Swainson's Hawk is a summer visitor, faithfully occupying grasslands and agricultural areas away from Tucson. They start arriving in late March or early April, so you could be in luck there.

Gray Hawks should also be arriving, and they are tied to riparian habitat, the huge cottonwoods along the Santa Cruz and San Pedro Rivers, Sonoita Creek, and other places with riparian habitat. They are increasing in number and have started to utilize non-traditional sites, such as nesting in Arizona Sycamore in Madera Canyon and mesquite trees around Rio Rico, for example. They're usually quite easy to find at places like Tubac, Patagonia and San Pedro House.

Common Black Hawk nests in central Arizona, but they pass through SE Arizona on migration, and a few stragglers might still be around in early April. You've pretty much got to find your own. They mostly migrate along the Santa Cruz River. There's a regular hawk watch in Tubac during March, which is your best bet, although they can and do pop up in other places too. They should be on territory in central AZ by the time you pass through, so if that's one you really want, visit a breeding site.

April is the peak migration month for Ospreys, not that it will be high on your list I suspect.

White-tailed Kite is resident in very small numbers, utilizing almost pure grassland habitats such as Las Cienegas and San Rafael Valley. A few pairs of Mississippi Kites breed along the San Pedro in St. David and Dudleyville, but won't arrive until mid-May usually.

Short-tailed Hawk is a very rare, relative newcomer to SE AZ, with a few records per year from exclusively high elevation, in particular at the top of Mt Lemmon and high in the Chiricahuas. There have been a few oddball, lowland, winter records as well, and last year two or three were seen on the Tubac hawk watch, heading north.

A few pairs of Golden Eagles breed in each mountain range. By far my most regular site is Florida Canyon. Unless you know of the actual breeding site, they are seldom found.

Zone-tailed Hawk winters in small numbers, but arrives for summer in April. They can be encountered in a variety of habitats, from riparian (Tubac, Patagonia) to high on Mt Lemmon, and randomly elsewhere. They're never common and you have to scrutinize a lot of Turkey Vultures, to which they look surprisingly similar in flight at a certain distance.

Peregrine Falcons nest high in the mountains, and are seen around town in winter. They will probably have moved up slope by the time you're here, and probably aren't high on your list, but it's worth keeping an eye out around town, on power poles and other tall structures.

Finally, Crested Caracara is a scarce resident (a couple hudred birds at most) but they are easier to find in winter when they feed in fields in the Santa Cruz Flats, between Tucson and Phoenix. A few have been seen there in summer lately, but most depart to breed on the Tohono O'odham Nation (Indian reservation). They can sometimes be seen around Three Points all year, the edge of their breeding range.
 
I forgot to mention Red-tailed Hawk! A general rule is that if you see a large raptor, it's a Red-tail until proven otherwise. They are common, and in winter there is a bewildering range of regional variations and plumages that can be found in SE AZ. By April many of these will have departed, leaving us with mostly the Southwestern form, and a few Western, but the variety in just those two groups is staggering.
 
Oh, and a bit more on the driving... having grown up and learnt to drive on Britain's relatively tiny, busy, and often mad roads, I've lived here long enough, driving Tucson's big, quiet, straight roads, that I find driving in Britain rather scary by comparison these days. As long as you can stay in a straight line, you'll be fine, although the standard of driving in Tucson is pretty shocking, so you'll do better worrying more about the other drivers than how you're driving yourself!
 
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