Sedona

Even professional birders need to slip away once in a while, so Alison and I headed to Sedona for a couple of days, where we enjoyed the scenery and (what else?) birded! Just as on our last visit, we found birding Oak Creek Canyon a mixture of delight and frustration: frustration at the traffic and noise on nearby Highway 89, delight at getting great looks at some species we don’t see often here in southeast Arizona.

But puddle-watching was good, with the highlight a bathing Townsend’s Solitaire among the Hermit Thrushes and American Robins. We also enjoyed multiple Winter Wrens each morning, and found a Red Fox-Sparrow as a bonus at the Halfway Campground. But best of all was an American Dipper, blithely dipping and swimming at the confluence of Oak Creek and the West Fork—my first in Arizona, and always wonderful to watch.