The Sulphur Springs Valley

Winter is coming to a rapid close here in the Southwest, and happy as I am to feel the warmth and to hear the songs of the desert birds, these bright days are a reminder to get out and see our winter visitors before they take off for their northern breeding grounds. Waterfowl, raptors, sparrows: they’ll all be moving out soon, and there’s no better place than the Sulphur Springs Valley to bid farewell to them for another year.

Most of Tucson seems to have had the same idea yesterday. Joining an immensely well-attended Tucson Audubon trip led by Ned and Linda, I enjoyed the chance to bird with friends old and new on a lovely spring day. If rightly I recall, I took the photo above when the group stopped to admire a female Merlin perched in a tree; that species and American Kestrel were the only falcons for the day, but other raptors were well represented. Ferruginous Hawks eventually gave good close views (heat shimmer was a problem all day–a cause for complaint most birders don’t have on the last day of January!), and among the abundant Red-tailed Hawks were at least one “black” and several robin-breasted intermediate birds.

Northern Harriers were present in force throughout the valley, and a Golden Eagle and a nice pair of Harris’s Hawks were “good” birds for the area.

The group that I tagged along with was interested in more than just raptors, happily, and so we spent a good part of our time looking at what the trip leader jestingly (I hope) called “just prey.” We wound up seeing four or five Bendire’s Thrashers, a species perhaps more easily found in the Sulphur Springs than anywhere else in southeast Arizona. Sparrow numbers were not overwhelming, but we enjoyed good looks at the common species, including nice flocks of Lark Buntings, a bird I haven’t seen much of this winter. The most abundant were, as expected, White-crowned, Brewer’s, and Vesper Sparrows, all of them giving excellent views in the “sparrow pit” at Whitewater Draw.

The best emberizid of the day was a Brewer’s Sparrow at Whitewater Draw with a hint of streaks on the flank and breast and a heavily limned face pattern: Timberline Sparrow, anyone? Fortunately, there were enough other sparrows to distract me from the perennial frustration of not being able to identify that bird–and the male Northern Harrier harassing the flock didn’t let me dwell on it anyway.

If anything disappointed on an otherwise fine day, it was the waterfowl numbers. The couple of hundred white geese included a single Blue Snow Goose and nice numbers of cute little Ross’s Geese, but duck numbers were low; only Northern Shoveler was anything like common. There were a few Green-winged Teal pushing themselves through the mud, while small numbers of Northern Pintail behaved differently, but no more decorously, out in the deeper water.

The teal shared the muck with a few shorebirds–Killdeer, Least Sandpiper, Greater Yellowlegs–and a couple of hungry Great Blue Herons. Both of the herons were juveniles, no doubt already dispersing from colonies on the Gulf of California–a reminder that the seasons are advancing, and with them the birds.