Chiricahua Mountains Birding Trip

The bird nerds: Kristin, Holly, Pia and Laura with Snowshed and Chiricahua Peaks behind.

At Tea a year or two ago, Pia told us about an amazing birding Mecca in Arizona. Along with Pia, Holly, Kristin and I are bird nerds. We daydreamed about going to the Chiricahua Mountains and seeing elegant trogons and other almost-only-in-Mexico birds. When we decided to delay our Japan trip until 2010, we made plans for a 2009 Chiricahua trip.

We left on Saturday, March 21. We traversed the north part of California from Eureka to Redding to Susanville, and then dropped down the backside of the Sierra Nevadas. Sprinklings of snow north of Lassen. Trader Joes stop somewhere near Reno. Gorgonzola crackers, beer and chocolate. What more could a road trip require?

Did I mention that the car and roof-rack coffin were stuffed?


On the first night out, I started reading out loud a hilarious birding book called "A Supremely Bad Idea" by Luke Dempsey. Come to find out, southeast AZ was the first birding trip mentioned, which spiced our appreciation of the book and the trip. Much of the book was read while driving on our return (Central Valley - *yawn*). Sadly, we didn't finish the book before the end of the trip, and reading to myself just isn't the same. Must start having story time after Tea.

"AK-47, meat, not entirely human". "Tomatoes. What's your stand on them?"

We were delayed for a few hours of our first morning in Bridgeport by snow. Even Kristin was awake by 6:00, and we were rarin' to go. Breakfast at the old stage stop, nice waitress, Mark Twain Room, fun in town with Cheddar Bunny. After we resumed the drive, we stopped at every scenic overlord (no sic) along the way, and tried to get blown away in the White Mountains looking for the bristlecone pine forest. Two and a half hours of dust storm north of Vegas. Our original plan of driving two days was extended to three.


A snow-covered Mono Lake landscape.

We did some drive-by birding, but it isn't easy to focus with binoculars while driving at 65 mph. We did get to enjoy a lot of great desert scenery. Pia kept us perky during the dust storm with some mystery games. "Romeo and Juliet are dead. The door and a window are open. A puddle of water is on the floor. What happened?"


Saguaro grove in northwest AZ. A stately saguaro across the road led to a gila woodpecker sighting.

Monday: Hoover Dam (Homeland Security on the alert for terrorists; nice Art Deco), drive, saguaros, drive, vermillion flycatchers, "a man is found dead, holding a stick, on a mountaintop", drive, Kristin misses seeing the roadrunner (*beep-beep!*), Tucson Audubon Society store, drive, more mysteries, arrival in Portal after dark, with spaghetti dinner cooked on the deck outside our room.


I have no idea why the AAA map calls the Chiricahuas the "Pendregosa" Mountains. Two names (Apache vs. Spanish) for one range, perhaps?


On Tuesday morning we arose early in the town of Portal, and were birding by 7:15. There were all kinds of birds in town, and we took our sweet time to track them down and enjoy watching them. Cactus wren, cardinal, curve-billed thrasher, pyrrholoxia ("pyros"), Gambel's quail, hooded and Scott's oriole. The Portal Store, Cafe & Lodge has a mass of birdfeeders, as do a few homes in town. Broad-tailed hummingbird, pine siskin, black-throated hummingbird, lesser goldfinch, magnificent hummingbird ("El Magnifico"), more siskins. One could beef up a life list without leaving town.

We hadn't gotten far down Rock House Road before a local came by and chatted us up. He turned out to be Dave Jasper, a bird guide we had read about in our Southeast Arizona birding books. Just outside town he has a piece of property that is bird and birder friendly. Anyway, Dave was waiting for a client who wound up not showing. He asked us if he could do some birding with us.

Graciously we assented, and we strolled on to a huge sycamore that was riotous with birds. Dave was pointing and firing off bird names faster than we could focus our binocs. "Bridled titmice. 'Cutest little birds', everyone says." Lucy's warbler *zoom*. Never saw it. Lincoln's sparrow, house wren, Screech owl in a tree-hole nest. We even pointed out a few that he thought couldn't possibly be there, but sure enough were: Yellow warbler, orange-crowned warbler, common yellowthroat. "I've got to make some calls!" Dave said, "Too bad everyone is out of town right now". That made us feel better, and seemed to raise us in his estimation.


Left: Dave tries to find a northern pygmy owl on the South fork of Cave Creek. Honest, he saw one there just a few minutes ago. Right: Cactus wren nest in a beavertail (aka prickly pear) cactus.

We wound up coming across Dave several times during our stay, and we jested among ourselves that we had our own personal stalker. But we didn't mind having a stalker who could help us find birds.


Views into Cave Creek Canyon from the turnoff to Paradise (top) and the Big Thicket (bottom).

Dave's property, the Big Thicket, is outside of Portal about a mile in the dry direction. Scrubby something-or-others dominated the landscape. Good cover for the birdies. I certainly hope the scrubbies leaf out eventually.

Left: Bird feeders with javelinas/peccaries cleaning up at Dave Jasper's Big Thicket. Right: A honeybee, mellow though probably Africanized, at Dave's place.

Green-tailed towhee, black-throated sparrow, scrub jay, more cardinals, pyros, quail etc. Is that a javelina?! Damn those Crissal's thrashers.

The Chiricahuas are called a "sky island": a "forested ... mountain range with moist habitats, surrounded by a 'sea' of arid lands" (Tucson Audubon Society's Finding Birds in Southeast Arizona, Seventh edition). The variety of habitats and wildlife there is wonderful.


The Sunny Flat Campground was the only one of three in the lower part of the canyon that was open when we were there. The others are sure to be open in April, when the canyon teems with more birders than birds. Sunny Flat was full, which was no grief to us, considering everyone there was in an RV of some sort. Dread of nighttime generator noise. Each site had a built-in bird feeder, and a couple of campers had hummingbird feeders out. Folks were friendly, and the view was great.



We camped higher up Cave Creek, at Herb Martyr Campground. A small dam was built here in 1935, and the unfortunately named Mr. Martyr was a worker who was killed during construction.


Left: We're not in Humboldt anymore: a pine-oak woodland with the occasional yucca. Right: A parasitic flower, Conopholis mexicana, growing on the roots of a Mexican oak


Left: (Greater?) Short-horned lizard. Right: Striped plateau lizard.

Did I mention that Portal exists solely for the sake of birders? Everyone living there is a birder or in a business that caters to birders. Any visitor without binoculars is suspected of being a drug smuggler or illegal immigrant.

Each day we did a lot of driving up and down the canyon, going to different birding spots and grabbing a sixer of beer for the evening at the Portal Store. Bendire's thrasher and Chihuahuan raven near Highway 80.

Most of our second day was spent strolling along South Fork Cave Creek Road. "Some birders actually walk the entire 1.3 miles!" we paraphrased from one of our bird guides. Kristin saw an Arizona woodpecker, but the rest of us missed out. A canyon wren called and bobbed. Northern pygmy owls taunted us with their calls. Dave stroked trees : / White-breasted nuthatch, Mexican brown creeper, hermit thrush, yellow-eyed junco, red-naped sapsucker, lots of acorn woodpeckers, Apache fox squirrel.

Below: Several views in Cave Creek Canyon.



We never did find an elegant trogon, the prize bird of the Chiricahuas. It is reported to keep quiet and still for long periods of time, and can thus be difficult to spot. Dave told us that there were only three juvenile males in the area at that time, so we knew that our chances were slim.


Left: Trogon territory: Sasquatch is easier to find. Right: Mexican jays, were also much easier to spot. This is one who was cooperatively nesting in a family unit, and pretty mellow about us watching.

We drove up to Paradise that afternoon, and visited the George Walker House, which is birder-friendly. We talked for quite a while with Jackie, the owner, and her dog Tundra, and watched the birds at the feeders. Sadly, the juniper titmice were in hiding. Jackie told us about a blue mockingbird sighting in Douglas, just on this side of the US-Mexico border. Only the sixth reported sighting in the US. Oh, for an extra day of birding!


On our last day we drove on Pinery Canyon Road, over the summit to the west side of the mountains. A road which Flatlanders think is bowel-loosening. They should drive Hwy 36 during timber harvest. The wind was howling so much that most birds, like the Mexican chickadees, were hunkered down. We did get good looks at a zone-tailed hawk, a prairie falcon and the biggest American kestrel we'd ever seen. The Chiricahua National Monument (last stronghold of Cochese) wanted $5/person to get in, so we turned around and came home. Someday we'll return when we have time to get our money's worth.

Sadly, we had to return home after only three days of birding. Before leaving Portal, we made sure to check the hummingbird feeders at the cafe one more time, and visit the post office. We hope to return before too many trogons have bred, and have plans to buy a cabin and hide out there.

Another visit to the Audubon society for shwag. Tucson: Why close 5 consecutive exits in the middle of town at the same time??? Kristin sees a roadrunner! Pia racked her brains for more mysteries. ...Oh, it's just another turkey vulture. Hold your noses, it's Kettleman City! Lots of story time. "A man eats albatross at a restaurant, then kills himself". Finally home before the bars close. *sigh*


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