Day in the Huachucas
A great day in my favorite Arizona range, the Huachucas. These richly forested scarps are said to have been called by the Apache “thunder mountains,” and the wisdom of those long-vanished people was apparent today, when Bryan and I wandered the canyons beneath skies lit by lightning and darkened by rain.
The weather wasn’t so helpful, but the birds could hardly have been more cooperative. We started on the grasslands of Fort Huachuca, where Rufous-crowned and Botteri’s Sparrows sang against a background of Blue Grosbeaks and Eastern Meadowlarks. Viva Aimophila!
A major surprise was the abundance of Scaled Quail. I usually hope to see a couple on the way up to the mouth of Garden Canyon, but this morning we found them all the way from the water tower to the oaks, the largest covey a gang of about 20 scurrying away from us in the grass. Several were obviously young.
Even better, though, was a pair of Montezuma Quail that flew across the road in front of us. The female quickly melted into the grass, but the male gave us a second chance and a nice second look. This is perhaps the best time of the year to look for this secretive little quail; they seem to get careless when the eggs hatch, actually letting themselves be glimpsed on oak-clad hillsides.
Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers accompanied us all the way up the road once we’d entered the canyon proper, and it wasn’t long before we started to hear Elegant Trogons. We tracked down one persistently honking bird, spotting first the lovely female, then the singing male; as we watched, the female entered a sycamore cavity, whence she issued four or five seconds later: a new nest!
Scheelite Canyon was quiet as always, a perfectly sepulchral setting for the allopreening pair of Spotted Owls we discovered perched just above the trail. Canyon Wrens serenaded us all the way down, and Bryan picked the day’s only White-throated Swifts out against the cloudy sky.
On up to Sawmill, where we had scarcely opened the car doors when I heard the funny chlirrps of Buff-breasted Flycatchers. Two birds there and another four or five higher up were one of the day’s highlights: at least, that is, until an adult Red-faced Warbler materialized. That bird was followed quickly by a small mixed flock containing Grace’s Warblers, Brown Creepers, White-breasted Nuthatches, and my first two Hermit Warblers of the fall. And by then it felt like fall, too, the air and the rain getting colder by the minute.
Time to seek shelter, which we found at Tom Beatty’s wonderful feeders in Miller Canyon. We paused on the way up to admire a flock of a dozen Band-tailed Pigeons, posing with uncharacteristic aplomb over the road.
We walked reluctantly past the fresh rhubarb and fragrant apples at the store up through the orchard to middle feeders, where good numbers of hummingbirds were dodging the raindrops and each other’s aggressive impulses. Black-chinned Hummingbirds were most common, but there were also many Broad-tailed, a few Broad-billed and Anna’s, half a dozen Magnificent, a single bossy Blue-throated, and a breath-taking male White-eared Hummingbird. Numbers should only increase over the next couple of weeks at the hummingbird capital of the US.
A quick stop at Mary Jo Ballator’s place in Ash Canyon was equally enjoyable. Though we missed the Lucifer Hummingbirds still in residence there, a male Scott’s Oriole was some consolation as it fed among the swarms of hummingbird in the blooming agaves.
Even if it hadn’t been thundering, it would have been a roaring good day all around!
