life list: 507

Oops! I didn’t write for months and months! My bad! I was in the trenches of Job Hell and my ongoing existential crisis (shouts to my Saturn return!) but am trying to reconnect to the things in my life that are important to me: birds and being the center of attention. Going to post another throwback today!

In May, I did an Arizona Big Day with my family. We kept things mostly to Pima County, including but NOT limited to: Madera Canyon, Reid Park, Box Canyon, Sweetwater, Agua Caliente Park, Canoa Ranch, and Mt Lemmon.

I did not bring my camera on the trip because I am lazy and also I went with Patrick, who owns a super nice camera and is an excellent bird photographer. So, all photos in this post are taken by Patrick!

This Big Day was less meticulously-planned than my last one, which was a relief because we went in a 5 person convoy which is difficult to manage. Marghi mostly slept in the car and refused to come out even to see the Trogon (?).

We started at Madera Canyon, a classic, at around 5:30 am and from there made an unplanned trip to Box Canyon after a man sleeping in his car to see a warbler (goals) told us about the Five-striped Sparrow there.

The Five-striped Sparrow is a N2MB who was not known to live in the US until the 1950s. He’s now known to be a rare sight in several canyons in southern Arizona, but no one knows if it was simply overlooked in the past or if it is actually a recent arrival north of the border. We now know that their populations are confined almost entirely within the Sierra Madre mountains in Mexico and SE AZ. We saw two of them and they were really a huge treat. He clearly is more special than all other sparrows and we got to hear him sing!

Another Big Day highlights was seeing the Elegant Trogon. Seeing the Elegant Trogon while wearing our matching Elegant Trogon shirts felt a bit like wearing a Phoebe Bridgers t-shirt to a Phoebe Bridgers concert, but I do consider myself a super fan, so whatever. I now feel that I have Trogon Sightings down to an art between finding him on command during the AZ Big Day and guiding others to see him next week.

Basically, the course of action during April/May/June is:

1. Go to the Carrie Nation Trail at Madera Canyon, around 7:30 AM.
2. Mostly stay in the first mile or so of the trail, with a focus on the bench area near the sycamore trees.
3. Ask every single person you happen upon if they’ve seen a Trogon that morning. Be relentless.
4. Wait to hear the wonderful bark of the Trogon. It is unmissable.
5. Follow the sound until you find him.
6. ✨✨✨

The other highlight of the day was seeing a Montezuma Quail. This sighting went so dummy that it made the Trogon look like a Mourning Dove (jk I love you Trogon). Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would see a Montezuma Quail, yet, lo!

Montezuma Quail are rare birds and are seldom seen, even by people spending a lot of time in their habitats. We were very lucky that a professional bird guide pointed us in the right direction and called the Quail over. Tbh I’m not a huge fan of using a bird’s call to trick one into appearing but seeing a Montezuma Quail was perhaps worth a breach in ethics.

Faustian bargain aside, my #mom bought me access to Birds of The World, Cornell’s online bird database. Thank you, mom!!! Now I hold information that I can dole out when I feel like it. Although less is known about MQs than other more observable and less spectacular birds, here are some facts:

• Cute Fact: “Individuals sleep in tight circles, on the ground in shallow cups, with heads oriented outward, in almost full body contact with other individuals.” Umm… baby alert!!
• Live fast die young bad girls do it well: “In southeastern Arizona, based on 19 adults marked with radio-transmitters, 11 individuals survived 1–10 d; 2 survived 11–20 d; 3 survived 31–40 d; 1 survived 51–60 d; and 2 survived 120–140 d.” Yes, “d” means day. In captivity they live for 6-7 years.
• The estimated Montezuma Quail population within the United States is fewer than 150,000 individuals, although estimations vary because they are hard to find.

Over the course of a very long day, we saw 70 bird species, including 8 N2MBs! The N2MBs were:

• Black Bellied Whistling Duck (we saw about a half dozen of these extremely beautiful ducks at Amado Water Treatment Plant)
• Western Wood-Peewee (Off of the highway between Madera and Box Canyon, proving you should have binocs with you at all times)
• Brown-crested Flycatcher (Madera and Aqua Cliente)
• Rock Wren (Mt Lemmon)
• Five-striped Sparrow (Box Canyon, pointed out to us by several birders!)
• Brown-headed Cowbird (Canoa Ranch)
• Red-faced Warbler (Mt Lemmon)
• Montezuma Quail (THAT’S RIGHT BITCH)

Here’s my trip report.

Coming up, I have some CA birding posts planned and I hope to update my page with a portfolio of my film photography, zines, and prints! Stay tuned!