Little Birds in the Pajaritos

It’s raining this evening, and Luddy and I have decided to take the night off, postponing our owling until tomorrow. We’ve had a busy, and very productive, couple of days!

Yesterday morning, June 28, we made the long drive to the aptly named Pajaritos, the mountains of the little birds. Sycamore Canyon was as beautiful as ever, and we enjoyed the walk as much as we enjoyed the birds–which included our major target for the morning, a singing, feeding, almost-on-your-shoulder Rufous-capped Warbler. Just as exciting for me were the raptors, which included a Zone-tailed Hawk and, more surprisingly, a pair of vocal Common Black-Hawks just overhead late in the morning; where they came from, and where they were headed, is a mystery. Gray Hawks have fledged, and the screams of the juveniles were with us all morning.

One of these days I’m going to walk cross-country from Sycamore to California Gulch, but we decided, prudently, to drive the 7 or 8 miles. It was noon when we arrived, but we decided that we would walk down to the sparrow areas and simply wait for cooler temperatures and singing birds. No need: a Five-striped Sparrow was perched high on the slope, singing his heart out, and while we stood in admiration, he decided to fly down to another, much closer perch, where we had great views of one of the most beautiful members of the most beautiful genus of North American sparrows.

It was a long wait ’til dusk, then, but we distracted ourselves by wandering around the old Oro Blanco minesite, enjoying common birds such as Vermilion Flycatcher and Blue Grosbeak. A few Gambel’s Quail gave us a start at one point, but it was not until 6:00 that two pairs of Montezuma Quail emerged from the grass to perform their evening ablutions, dusting in front of us for an hour. I’d been confident that we would find this species, but had begun to worry a little when we’d been in the habitat for 13 hours without turning it up!

At dusk, an Elf Owl yelped a few times against the aural tapestry of Common Poorwills. Finally, about 8:30, one or maybe two Buff-collared Nightjars began to sing, and with that we made our way back home. Long day, but a good one!