SE Arizona in August Bird Festival Tips (1 Viewer)

[lostintwilight]

HI Everyone I'm from New Jersey, my wife and I are planning to attend the SE Birding Festival in August in Tucson. This is our first time visiting AZ also. We are looking for any tips or suggestions from those who have been to the festival itself or any general SE AZ birding tips in early August. Thanks so much!

 

[Lisa W]

Hi, first off welcome to the forum. I just took a quick look at some of the available field trips. Wow! If I were still living in SE AZ I would be signing up for as many of those as I could. I would definitely be interested in the Carr/Ash Canyon, Patagonia Lake - possible Trogon could be there, Empire Ranch at Las Cienagas for Grassland Sparrows, Madera Canyon for hummingbirds and tanagers (flame-colored if they are still there); Paton Center - for more hummingbirds. Unless it is flooded out due to rains California Gulch is usually a good place for Five-striped sparrows. If Sherry Williamson is leading any of them, I would sign up. She definitely knows not only hummingbirds but birds of SE AZ.
Tips - be ready for rain if there is a good monsoon, and if you go out on your own and it rains definitely don’t go through the washes - they can flood in an instant.
Honestly in case you have specific target birds almost all of them look great.

 

[njlarsen]

Just curious if this thread would be better in the "Information wanted" section
Niels

 

[Lisa W]

Thanks Niels, I’ll move it. For some reason didn’t notice that it was in Opus.

 

[lostintwilight]

Hi, first off welcome to the forum. I just took a quick look at some of the available field trips. Wow! If I were still living in SE AZ I would be signing up for as many of those as I could. I would definitely be interested in the Carr/Ash Canyon, Patagonia Lake - possible Trogon could be there, Empire Ranch at Las Cienagas for Grassland Sparrows, Madera Canyon for hummingbirds and tanagers (flame-colored if they are still there); Paton Center - for more hummingbirds. Unless it is flooded out due to rains California Gulch is usually a good place for Five-striped sparrows. If Sherry Williamson is leading any of them, I would sign up. She definitely knows not only hummingbirds but birds of SE AZ.
Tips - be ready for rain if there is a good monsoon, and if you go out on your own and it rains definitely don’t go through the washes - they can flood in an instant.
Honestly in case you have specific target birds almost all of them look great.

Thanks so much for the warm welcome and all the great tips. We will def add some of those places to our list. Appreciate the monsoon tips also. They really seem to do an amazing job with this festival and cover SOOOO many spots, like you said, I don't you could go to a bad place!