We started our day in Patagonia by heading to Paton’s Hummingbird Center, or as it’s called by those ~in the know~, Paton’s Yard. It’s a great spot to head to because you are guaranteed to see some cute hummingbirds up close, including several that are not in Tucson. Another great thing about Paton’s is that at any given moment it is teeming with birders from across the world, and they will absolutely unprompted announce every bird they see, every Must See Bird in the area, and various details about birding-related vacations they have been on. When I hear these people talk, I’m always like…this is so cringe. What is going on with these people that led them to just blow money traveling the world to see a, like, sparrow. But then I realize I am these people, just poorer and younger and sometimes (but def not always) hotter.
Anyways, we saw a handful of birdigans, including a Sharp-shinned Hawk terrorizing some sparrows, and a Violet-crowned Hummingbird. We also saw a bobcat chasing a white-tailed deer about 20 feet away from us, which was very insane.
This is a Pyrrhuloxia, a bird whose name I cannot remember nor pronounce and in order to find it had to google like 8 different alternate spellings that were so wrong Google didn’t know how to help me. Any attempt at description I would give to this bird can’t touch what Allaboutbirds.org (now THAT’S a website name) wrote about him: “Dapper in looks and cheerful in song, the Pyrrhuloxia is a tough-as-nails songbird of baking hot deserts in the American Southwest and northern Mexico.”
Following a recommendation from a Bird Sage at Paton’s Yard, we headed out to Empire Ranch Road. We found the road a little difficult to navigate in our old Camry, but literally any other car should be able to manage unless it’s muddy. We were on this road at around noon, AKA bird siesta time, so we didn’t see too many birds. However! The scenery was gorgeous, and we saw something I didn’t know existed on this continent: Pronghorns.
For a brief and exciting moment, we thought we witnessed some of the 160 remaining endangered Sonoran Pronghorns in Arizona, but, we didn’t. They are more svelte and lighter in color, and significantly more skittish.
These normie pronghorns that we saw are native to Arizona’s prairies. Their closest relatives, crazily, are giraffes (must be nice). They are the second-fastest mammal in the world, after the cheetah; their max speed is 60 mph and they have the stamina to sustain speeds of 30-40 mph over extended distances. Their giant buggy eyes act as binocs to spot predators from far away. Once extremely everywhere, hunting drastically dropped pronghorn numbers. Thanks to conservation work, their numbers are on the upswing. This herd we saw may have been some of the 2014 group released near Patagonia from New Mexico. Apparently we traded some turkeys to acquire them. Okay. Anyways, this was a total highlight of the day!
Remember a week ago when we saw a Williamson’s Sapsucker in Madera Canyon? In the downtown Patagonia area, we saw another one! This time I was able to get better pics. When we were at Patton’s, the Bird Sage from earlier mentioned the WS that had been spotted chilling between two buildings in downtown Patagonia (“downtown” used loosely here). We arrived at the spot and–insanely–there he was! He was going absolutely dummy on this tree to drill for sap, which you may have assumed because of his name.
Despite our less-than-ideal start time (arrove at 10 ish), it was a very fun day and we saw 24 species of birds, bringing my 2023 total to 72, and my life list to 365. I saw two N2MBs: a Sharp-shinned Hawk (or a Sharpie) and a White-throated Sparrow.
join me on a wild goose chase 
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