An Arizona Whimbrel!

Ironically, these excellent rains we’ve been having the last couple of weeks have badly reduced our shorebird habitat just as the birds are passing through: areas that are usually mudflats are either under water or covered with grasses and pigweed. But the Green Valley ponds still have a little bit of open mud, and Scott and I, scouting for the Aimophila Adventures shorebird workshop in a couple of weeks, found good numbers of Least Sandpipers, Killdeer, and Wilson’s Phalaropes on the flats this morning; among them were still a few juvenile Western Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpipers, and singles of Solitary Sandpiper and Black-necked Stilt.

The big excitement, however, came just as we opened the car doors. A loud and hurried kikikikikiki came down from the sky, and there above our heads was a Whimbrel in all its glory! I don’t know where the bird came from, whether one of the ponds or a site farther north, but it barely hesitated, turning just one tentative circle before continuing south to Amado, Rio Rico, or the Gulf of California. An “accidental” in southeast Arizona, and my 32nd species of shorebird for this wonderful desert state.