It’s a cold & rainy Friday in Erie County, Pennsylvania today, so harkening back to warmer climes with (finally!) digital photographs from an epic field trip this past August with the Southeast Arizona Birding Festival. West of Nogales, AZ and just north of the border with Mexico, it’s a rugged, mountainous area essentially combining wilderness & open- range cattle grazing. There lies the remote California Gulch, famous for Five-striped Sparrow & adventurous birding generally.
After an absurdly early start at 4:30am, the first stop was a bathroom break at Arivaca Cienega, part of Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge, just outside the tiny town of Arivaca (approx. 100 km SW of Tucson). In the parking lot, a great sighting of male Western Tanager.
Next up, a roadside stop south of Arivaca along S. Ruby Rd. Far in the distance, beautiful views of Baboquivari Peak, sacred to the Tohono O’odham people:
Also, birds:
More Western Kingbird:
Randomly along the road, an amazing encounter with a beautiful Gray Hawk, perched on what looked like an old Century Plant (Agave americana) bloom stalk:
(These shots taken from the field trip van.)
With Common Raven in background (very blurry to right of hawk):
More shots of Gray Hawk, + Western Kingbird:
ID tip on the Western Kingbird – note the distinctive outer white tail feathers visible in this shot:
GHIF (Gray Hawk in flight) – wow!
More on this plant in upcoming posts, but just an amazing amount of native Velvetpod Mimosa (Mimosa dysocarpa) shrubs in bloom, all over:
Finally for today’s post, another roadside stop, this time w/ rainbow:
the hawk pictures are fantastic! The inflight shots are especially beautiful!
This team member would have liked to have been along, but 4:30 a.m. is way to early for an old guy!
It makes for a long day, especially with all the driving!