Thursday, April 14, 2011

Cienega

The cienega and a majestic cottonwood near Arivaca
One of the wonderful perks of being a docent at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is the monthly "birding" trip arranged by the Friday docent captains, Martha Mount and Buzz Hoffmann.  Actually "birding" trip is insufficient -- it should be "birding, mammaling, entomologying, botanying, herpetologying, geologying, etcetera'ing".  It's a grab bag of indulgences for those with a passion for nature, and the chance to experience these rambles with folks with loads of Sonoran Desert knowledge makes it not only a real pleasure, but a real learning experience.

Male Vermillion Flycatcher between snagging flying insects
Male Summer Tanager, just looking red 
Cattail lined nest
A few days ago we headed to Arivaca, well south of Tucson, to visit the cienega in the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge.  Here the rare southern Arizona experience of surface water draws in incredible birds, some permanent, some migrating, and not a little wildlife.  We saw everything from a coyote pouncing again and again in the tall grasses, probably hunting mice, to three Gray Hawks circling overhead.  To give you an idea of the range of birds and other animals, insects, and plants (and poop) we saw, here's Martha's list of the day's sightings:

Birds:
Great Blue Heron
Black Vulture
Turkey Vulture
Mallard
Cooper’s Hawk
Gray Hawk
Swainson’s Hawk
Zone-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Mourning Dove
White-winged Dove
Great Horned Owl
Broad-billed Hummingbird
Ladder-backed Woodpecker (heard)
Gila Woodpecker
Small flycatcher (not identified)
Black Phoebe
Says Phoebe
Vermillion Flycatcher
Cassin’s Kingbird
Western Kingbird
Bell’s Vireo (heard)
Plumbeous Vireo
Common Raven
Violet-green Swallow
Barn Swallow
Bewick’s Wren
Northern Mockingbird
Phainopepla
Yellow Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
MacGillivray’s Warbler
Common Yellowthroat
Wilson’s Warbler
Yellow-breasted Chat
Summer Tanager
Song Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Red-winged Blackbird
House Finch
House Sparrow
Roadrunner
Mammals:
Coyote
Arthropods:
Sow Bug
Pinacate Beetle
Pepsis Wasp
Pipevine Swalowtail
Fatal Metal Mark
Golden-headed Scallopwing
Reptiles/Amphibians/Fish:
Ornate Tree Lizard
Elegant Earless Lizard
Mosquito Fish
Bullfrog
Fat Herp (you’ll have to ask Glen about this one)
Plants:
Fleabane
Fiddleneck
Verbena
Willows w/Catkins
Mexicn Elderberry
Hackberry
Barberry
Cattails
Lots of grasses
Other Cool Stuff:
Hearing the Gray Hawks and Red-winged Blackbirds
Watching the coyote hunting
Coyote Scat
Javelina Scat
An extraordinary list for a day's outing, which only goes to show the incredible diversity that is the Sonoran Desert.


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