The list from our California Gulch tour, which visited Sonoita, Ruby Road, California Gulch, Montosa Canyon, Amado, Rio Rico, Pena Blanca Lake, and the Patagonia Roadside Rest. Five-striped Sparrow was our target, but we ended up seeing a lot more as we wandered through some of southeast Arizona’s best birding spots.

Black-bellied Whistling-Duck

Mallard

Green Heron

Plegadis sp.

Black Vulture

Turkey Vulture

Cooper’s Hawk

Gray Hawk

Swainson’s Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk

American Kestrel

Killdeer

Spotted Sandpiper

Long-billed Dowitcher

Rock Pigeon

Eurasian Collared-Dove

White-winged Dove

Mourning Dove

Common Ground-Dove

Greater Roadrunner

Lesser Nighthawk

White-throated Swift

Broad-billed Hummingbird

Black-chinned Hummingbird

Gila Woodpecker

Ladder-backed Woodpecker

Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet

Black Phoebe

Say’s Phoebe

Vermilion Flycatcher

Brown-crested Flycatcher

Tropical Kingbird

Cassin’s Kingbird

Western Kingbird

Thick-billed Kingbird

Loggerhead Shrike

Bell’s Vireo

Mexican Jay

Chihuahuan Raven

Common Raven

Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Cliff Swallow

Barn Swallow

Verdin

Cactus Wren

Rock Wren

Canyon Wren

Bewick’s Wren

Northern Mockingbird

Curve-billed Thrasher

European Starling

Phainopepla

Lucy’s Warbler

Common Yellowthroat

Yellow-breasted Chat

Summer Tanager

Western Tanager

Canyon Towhee

Rufous-winged Sparrow

Cassin’s Sparrow

Rufous-crowned Sparrow

Five-striped Sparrow

Lark Sparrow

Black-throated Sparrow

Song Sparrow

Northern Cardinal

Pyrrhuloxia

Blue Grosbeak

Indigo Bunting

Varied Bunting

Red-winged Blackbird

Eastern Meadowlark

Great-tailed Grackle

Brown-headed Cowbird

Hooded Oriole

House Finch

Lesser Goldfinch

House Sparrow

California Gulch

As hoped, our Southwest Wings tour recorded four species of kingbird this week, though the famous and occasionally uncooperative Thick-billed Kingbirds at the Patagonia picnic table remained heard only this year. But we had good studies of Western, Cassin’s, and Tropical Kingbirds, that last so rapidly increasing in Arizona as to no longer be much of a rarity at all.

This photo, from the Tubac bridge, shows the yellow diffusion of the breast, the long (if somewhat foreshortened bill), the dull brown rectrices, and of course that notorious tail notch.

Eager birders visiting southeast Arizona or the Rio Grande Valley in late summer often rely too much on tail shape in identifying yellow-bellied kingbirds. It’s true that Tropical (and Couch’s, which has occurred once in Arizona so far) show a far deeper and better defined notch than the other species in fresh plumage–I repeat, in fresh plumage. This time of year, adult Western Kingbirds are beginning their tail molt, and nearly all the Westerns we saw this week were missing their central tail feathers, giving perched birds a nice deep notch and flying birds a funny frigatebird look.

Our tour was intended to add rarities and specialties to the list, but as usual, what I think most of us will remember is learning a little more about some of the common birds we might not have known so well. None of us will ever look at a kingbird again without at least trying to age it–and no tail notch will fool us again.