Soggy Day, Great Birds!

Bryan and I had planned a day in Madera Canyon yesterday, but when it came time for the sun to rise, we discovered that the entire Santa Rita Mountains had vanished, hidden behind a shroud of heavy rain. So we improvised, dodging rain drops and thunderstorms, sometimes getting wet but always getting our birds.

The rain made for some interestingly out-of-place birds, including a Greater Yellowlegs over the Continental maintenance yard. That site also produced the morning’s first Lazuli Buntings, along with such beauties as Vermilion Flycatchers and Lesser Goldfinches.

Hoping to skirt the storm, we headed out the Amado-Montosa Road, only to find the rain falling more heavily as we went along. But Black-throated and Rufous-winged Sparrows were up and singing, and the bright tails of Ash-throated Flycatchers in dense-leaved ocotillos against the leaden sky were postcard-perfect.

We stopped at the Rex Ranch in hopes that the Passerina flocks that frequent the brushy edges in autumn would be apparent. No such luck. What greeted us instead was a lone Solitary Sandpiper, huddled in the downpour, a sight that pretty much summed up the entire day.

A glimpse of what we thought was blue sky in the north gave us the courage to head back to Madera. Cleverly enough, we headed straight for the Kubo, where the male Flame-colored Tanager was singing lusty and loud from the tops of the oak trees. The charred mud of recently burned Proctor Road was irresistible to three soggy javelinas, and a male Varied Bunting perched up and sang for us along the road itself. Botteri’s and Rufous-winged Sparrows were audible all through the grasslands on the way back down, but oddly enough, we missed Cassin’s Sparrow both of our days out.

With our targets seen well, we decided to drive south to Patagonia. The Roadside Rest echoed with the metallic calls of Thick-billed Kingbirds. Approaching Mrs. Paton’s, we found the Sonoita Creek crossing too muddy and rutted for Bryan’s vehicle, so we parked it on the town side and slogged across. The rain let up just as we took our seats under the awning, and the hummingbirds reacted nicely to the pause in the drenching: many Broad-billed and Black-chinned Hummingbirds were joined by a single Violet-crowned, as beautiful as it is rare north of the Mexican border. A Thick-billed Kingbird was calling there too, but soon the rain returned, and with a vengeance. We ran back to the creek, which was already starting to flow hard, and splashed across to the car for the drive to Kino Springs.

Gray Hawks were still squealing from the nest tree, and Common Ground-Doves flitted around dodging rain drops. A Sora, my first of the fall, was on the first pond, but we could not find the White-collared Seedeater that had been seen there again in the morning. All told, though, a surprisingly good day for the weather!