Dear Birders,

On this past Saturday, March 25, Jake Mohlmann, John Yerger and I did our fourth monthly Big Day Count in Arizona, again smashing the old record of 134. This time around we got 162, two short of our February big day.

Highlights were:

SPOTTED OWL- calling along the Carr Canyon road before dawn (on the switchbacks) and one calling well *after* sunrise down in the canyon proper, heard from the uppermost part of the Comfort Spring Trail.

BLACK-CAPPED GNATCATCHER - At Patagonia Lake State Park we found a female clearly paired with a male BLACK-TAILED GNATCATCHER above the first stretch of the trail shortly before it drops down to the lake level. It was great seeing the differences in the bill length with such a close comparison.

NEOTROPIC CORMORANT - still just two at Patagonia Lake.

MERLIN - An amazingly faithful bird at Kino Springs, in the same tree it's been in all winter. It perches high in the cottonwood on your right just after the nasty dip in the road just before you reach the clubhouse parking lot. I suppose it will be heading north soon.

RUDDY GROUND-DOVE - We saw 3 at the clubhouse parking lot at Kino Springs.

GREATER PEWEE - We relocated the bird at the Tubac bridge over the Santa Cruz. It was on the west side of the river and flew over the road from the north to the south side and perched high in the cottonwoods. At the bridge we also enjoyed watching an equally matched duel between a CASSIN'S KINGBIRD and WESTERN KINGBIRD. Seeing the two species in such proximity was a good way to see how really different they are.

As we passed through the Santa Cruz Flats towards the end of the day, we were reminded how important scouting and luck are. We were at the Tweedy-Pretzer sod farms just 5 minutes before sunset and discovered that the Mountain Plovers had left. And we were to later discover that the American White Pelican at Arizona City was no longer there. But as the sun disappeared behind the haze-obscured horizon on our way to Arizona City, a flock of LONG-BILLED CURLEWS flying low over a plowed field and a PRAIRIE FALCON departing from a power pole were nice finds. But before reaching the Arizona City lake, we had a flat tire 19 minutes after sunset along Phillips Road. As luck would have it, we stopped to change the tire opposite some old farm equipment and tanks. In from inside one of the tanks was a begging juvenile BARN OWL, our 162nd species.

In all, I would say that we did things right, the route was good, and we stayed pretty much on time all day (at times we were happily ahead, but you're always behind no matter what on a Big Day, if that makes sense). But we had some of the worst luck possible with early migrants and several stake-outs. Birds missed that we should have seen were: Elegant Trogon, Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, any vireo other than Hutton's, any oriole other than Scott's, any tanager, Cliff Swallow, Least Grebe (darn it!), Rufous-winged Sparrow (we know they were there). And in the Santa Cruz flats, we narrowly missed Ferruginous Hawk and Crested Caracara, judging from posts from other birders that very day. We couldn't find time to squeeze in birds such as Costa's Hummingbird, Gilded Flicker, and Bronzed Cowbird, even though we knew where they were. The only group of birds we did well with was waterfowl, missing Canvasback and Hooded Merganser (the Greater Scaup at Patagonia Lake seems to be gone too). So with even just better than average luck, 180 is within sight for this month.

The official record to beat in April is 191, although a total of 200 was reported to this e-mail list but not to the ABA by Will Turner, Wade Leitner and Laurens Halsey in 2002.

Good Birding,

Rich
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Rich Hoyer
Tucson, AZ


Senior Field Leader, WINGS, Inc.
http://www.wingsbirds.com