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.