Sierra Vista and Bisbee

We traveled out of Tucson on Tuesday to spend a few days birding and sightseeing in the Sierra Vista area. We actually stayed in Hereford, at a B&B called Battiste's Bed, Breakfast & Birds. Turns out it was a great choice. The owner, Tony Battiste, is a bird guide in the area, and from the moment we met him he was helping us find whatever birds we wanted to see. We said we were looking for Scaled Quail, so he immediately phoned up his buddy two streets over who reliably has the quails in his yard. He sent us over there and we went right through this guy's living room, waved at his wife watching TV, and out to his backyard to look for quails. No luck, but we did find another lifer, Say's Phoebe. On the fourth visit to the neighbor's house (we were really beginning to feel like stalkers by then) we finally saw 2 scaled quails! Tony also found us an Elf Owl one night, in a tree right in his yard. And he is a retired cop and a retired math teacher, so he had lots to talk about with Kenny and Chris too (besides birds).

The yard at Battiste's B&B is set up with all sorts of feeders and water features for birds, and even a photo blind for taking pictures of birds.

On Tony's recommendaiton, we went birding at the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area one morning. It's a dry grassland habitat, so very different from Tucson or the canyons we'd been to previously. Vermillion Flycatchers were everywhere! If you have ever seen a Vermillion Flycatcher, you'd remember it. They are brighter than any highligher, a gaudy fluorescent red, and they especially stuck out against the tan background of the desert grassland. Aiden fell asleep in the backpack half way through our walk, so Kenny carried him all the way back to the van.

Grasslands at the San Pedro Riparian Conservation Area (you can tell exactly where the river is because its the only place trees grow)




Lesser Goldfinches

Vermillion Flycatcher

Our next stop was Bisbee, for some cultural interest. I thought Bisbee was a strange town. It's part hippie artist colony, part wild west, and part creepy abandoned copper mine. Everyone we talked to there seemed a little cuckoo-for-cocoapuffs. But they did have some great gift shops, and Aiden loved the old replica train in the center of town.

Bisbee

The old copper mine at Bisbee

Not much you can do with this big hole

Aiden riding the old train in Bisbee

The following day we left early and went to Ramsay Canyon, a Nature Conservancy Preserve. We had a quick hike (involving a Summer Tanager) and then hit the road to go to Patagonia, to someone else's private backyard. This area of Arizona is so popular with birders that some people with especially birdy locations have opened up their homes as public birding sites. We went to several such places, and they are even in the guidebooks for the area. You just park in the driveway and walk through to the backyard where there are lots of feeders and chairs set up for birdwatchers. It's great! Donations are usually collected for the "sugar fund" to feed the hummers. We hit the Jackpot at the Paton's house in Patagonia- we had four lifers in about 15 minutes! We got the Violet-Crowned Hummingbird (what we had come to see) and then Lazuli Bunting, Zone-Tailed Hawk, and Dusky-Capped Flycatcher too! Finally, we stopped at Patagonia Lake State Park for a quick hike before heading back to Tucson and the Dolan's house.

Hiking at Ramsay Canyon

Ramsay Canyon

Violet-Crowned Hummingbird in the Paton's backyard, Patagonia

Patagonia Lake State Park

Kenny's Birthday

The day after Easter was Uncle Kenny's 60th birthday. No one said a word about it in the days preceeding, and when we all woke up on Monday we pretended it was just a regular day. We packed up some ham sandwiches and Andy and I took Kenny and Mike on a morning of psycho-birding at Madera Canyon, about an hour outside of Tucson. Chris and Carol and AJ stayed in Tucson to "watch Aiden." In retrospect, this was all probably just a little fishy for Kenny and he probably suspected something was up from the get-go. But he played along and enjoyed the Acorn Woodpeckers, Bridled Titmice, and Painted Redstarts as we ran around with our binos.

Madera Canyon

Flock of Wild Turkeys at Madera Picnic Area

Acorn Woodpeckers

Mexican Jay

It was at the feeders at the Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon that we saw an explosion of new hummingbirds. Up to this point Andy and I had only ever seen 3 species - Ruby-Throated, Rufous, and Buff-Bellied. After we sat for 15 minutes at the Santa Rita Lodge we had more than doubled our hummer life list! We got Broad-Billed (pic above), Anna's, Magnificent, and Black-Chinned! Add that to the Costa's Hummingbird we had seen in Tucson and we were up 200%.

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After birding all morning, we stopped at Nimbus Brewing Company on the way back to the Dolan's house. I didn't take any pictures inside, but its basically like a huge shipping warehouse where they've set up all the brewing tanks and in the front there's a full bar and seating so you can drink and even get some greasy munchies if you want. Very cool. Andy, Kenny, Mike and I polished off two "samplers" which included at least 12 different 6oz glasses of all their brews. They have one called "Old Monkeyshine" which has a ridiculously high alcohol content. Of course we had to get a few growlers of that to bring back.

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Kenny's birthday present from us (Monkeyshine T)

When we finally made it back to the Dolan's, everyone "surprised" Kenny with happy birthday wishes, including his old friend "Fuzzy" from NY who happened to be in Tucson visiting her son. Kenny was not happy about the fanfare but took the whole thing like a good sport (at least after several glasses of Monkeyshine). The Dolans' daughters Jessica and Amy (and Amy's husband Eric and their two daughers) also came over for dinner so it was a big party.

Mike doling out the Monkeyshine

Clockwise from top left: Kenny and Fuzzy; AJ being a/eating some ham; Aiden and Ally (sp?); the kids in Jillian's guinea pig cage

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Hanging out in the backyard after dinner

It was Jillian's birthday too so she and Kenny shared a cake

Easter in the Desert

When Aiden woke up on Easter morning, he headed outside into the warm Tucson sun to find lots of colorful eggs left for him by the desert-cottontail-easter-bunny. He had some help finding his eggs from his Grandma Chris and the Dolan's grandson AJ (5) who was also staying over on Easter. Aiden was completely satisfied with just the plastic eggs themselves, so you can imagine his surprise when AJ showed him how to open the eggs and find little Sesame Street characters inside! La-la La-la, La-la La-la, Elmo's world...

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A.J. with his "big-boy" eggs

How many eggs can I carry?

I'm so cute, I'm about to get my little easter outfit filthy!!

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After breakfast we all climbed into the mini-van and went to the Tucson Botanical Gardens. What a great way to spend a warm, sunny Easter sunday! There were lots of beautiful flowers, citrus, and cacti in bloom. Alot of the desert succulents are really bizarre looking spiky things- almost everything has thorns of some sort. Aiden especially loved the Children's Garden which had a big dirtbox with garden tools to root around with. Amazingly, his Easter outfit came out fairly unscathed.

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Neigh! Neigh!

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There was a butterfly free-flight enclosure in the Botanical Gardens which Aiden loved! He pointed and pointed and pointed and said "Wow!" over and over and over. Butterflies were landing on all our heads and our shoulders and we had to go through a "security check" before leaving the humid aviary in case there were any freeloaders trying to escape.
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But the best part of the day was right before Easter dinner (which, by the way, was delicious) when Aiden got to cool off with a big bucket of cold water and his Easter half-eggs. I don't think I have ever seen him so excited! We're looking forward to this summer when he can do that every day.