life list: 507

Whitewater Draw holds a v special place in my heart because it is where I saw my sparkbird, the Sandhill Crane. At Whitewater Draw, I’m not even joking, you can see around 5,000 of these bad boys and girls. The cranes flying in after having their morning corn or flying out in the evening to eat some night corn is so thrilling that even a non-birder will love it. You don’t even need binocs! You can free bird (this is what I call birding sans nocs), use one of the telescopes set up in viewing areas, or ask a birder to use theirs (in my experience, people with nice scopes love letting strangers take a peek. You can ask or if you look happy enough at the cranes someone may just offer). The cranes make a beautiful gurgling sound and are impossible to miss. They are large and goofy fliers, so spotting them landing is a real treat. Seeing them is so great that I recommend heading out here if you’re in Arizona at all during their season, which runs October-March, pending the weather and “how the cranes are feeling” (this is an actual quote from the Arizona Game and Fish Department). Also, on a busy day, Whitewater Draw is the closest thing in southeast AZ to a lesbian bar. Birding, by the way, from what I’ve noticed, is one of the few queer spaces that is primarily sapphic instead of male-dominated. 🌈

If you make a trip out to the cranes, a fantastic second stop is a winery in the Willcox area. Believe it or not, the wine in AZ is actually great. Most wineries seem to specialize in Mourvèdre, a red wine varietal grape that produces high tannin wines (I’m just vamping on wine words here). It’s a super nice place to enjoy a scenic wine tasting and buy a cute bottle of great wine to take home. Willcox itself is pretty cute too.

Enough! info about this area. Let’s get to my own specific trip I did today because it went pretty dummy!!

Today it was pretty empty out here! I guess because it was a weekday. It was also extremely muddy due to recent rains. Def don’t wear cute shoes here.

At around 10-11 am, the Cranes arrive in giant crowds in the sky, returning from their morning corn. They mate for life, are very social, and the oldest recorded SC lived to be almost 40 years old.

They are extremely photogenic and one of my first forays into 35mm film photography was a day shooting them with my dad’s Canon AE-1.

We of course primarily came to see the Sandhill Cranes, but the area is one of AZ’s top birding hotspots; over 300 species have been spotted.

A great highlight for me today was seeing a giant flock of Snow Geese. Snow Geese are maybe my favorite bird. They are stunning in their simple look and are incredible migrators. Tiny baby goslings can walk 50 miles, not to mention the insane migration they take on annually. I encourage anyone to check out their page on All About Birds, . Also check out their beautiful call, which is sooo classic goose. Also, here is Mary Oliver’s wonderful poem, Wild Geese, which I think is about Snow Geese:

You do not have to be good. 
You do not have to walk on your knees 
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting. 
You only have to let the soft animal of your body 
love what it loves. 
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. 
Meanwhile the world goes on. 
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain 
are moving across the landscapes, 
over the prairies and the deep trees, 
the mountains and the rivers. 
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, 
are heading home again. 
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 
the world offers itself to your imagination, 
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - 
over and over announcing your place 
in the family of things.

A rarity: Greater White-Fronted Goose! Hidden amongst the Snow Geese, we searched for an already-confirmed GWFG. If you check out a species map, you will see that GWFG is normally not near here at all. They split there time between the Gulf of Mexico and the far north of North America (must be nice). This lone goose may have gotten lost, but I am happy to report they have a surrogate flock of geese to spend their time with. This goose seems to be a resident of the area since September 2022, according to eBird.

One of the most thrilling moments of the day was seeing not one, but TWO roosting Barn Owls. A rule on birding ethics is to NEVER dox an owl’s roosting or nesting sight. This is because all owls are celebrities and everyone wants to see them. Doxing an owl can lead to owl harassment via flash photography, unnecessary noise, etc. Luckily, these Barn Owls (I will not refer to them as BOs because that’s rude and these owls are deities to me) have a special and secluded protected roosting area at Whitewater Draw, marked by many signs.

Drama alert! A few hours after getting home from Willcox, I received an email from someone at eBird to confirm that we actually saw a Bonaparte’s Gull. Idk who called the bird cops on me, but joke’s on you because we have low-res photographic evidence.

The most common type of gull here, by far, is a Ring-billed Gull. Those have yellow beaks with a ring on it (duh), and are larger. Upon some eBird investigation, no one has reported a Bonaparte’s Gull in this area since November, when they were maybe here in larger numbers. Another birder with a great eye confirmed this ID hunch and helped us ID several other birds. Shout out to him!

This bird day brought my 2023 bird total to 48. I saw one N2MB (a Vesper Sparrow), bringing my life list to 363. It was an especially fantastic day because I saw two of my all-star fav birds, Barn Owl and Snow Goose. See ya for the next one!