In southeastern Arizona, there are mountain ranges known as "sky islands", which rise above their lowland grounds and exceed 9,000'. These spectacular areas host habitats that range from desert to mixed coniferous forests. For most birders, the mountain ranges that come to mind are the Santa Catalina, Santa Rita, Huachuca, and Chiricahua Mountains. While each range has their share of different habitats, the more limited habitats are the habitats that exceed 8-9,000' that have mixed conifer and aspen forest, and even local spruce. Even though this habitat expands for good lengths in parts of these ranges, it certainly isn't the dominant habitat within the ranges. Most birders forget about the under-birded Pinaleno Mountains in Graham County, which are represented in their highest elevation at the 10,700' Mt. Graham. Aside from Mt. Graham, miles and miles of forested country above 8,000' and more commonly above 9,500' can be explored in abundance within the Pinaleno Mountains. Compared to the others, the Mt. Graham area is strange and while birding it I don't feel like I'm in a sky island. It seems as if I'm in Colorado somewhere or even in the White Mountains of Apache County in east-central Arizona. The only regular reminder is that the eyes of a Junco here are not dark, but yellow.
The Pinaleno Mountains are epic, and from late May 18th through the morning of May 20th, Caleb Strand and I set out to explore the range. We were both pumped. For Caleb, it was his first time ever of exploring the Mt. Graham area, and it was only my second. Prior to our trip, Arizona had seen three mega rarities: the second state record of Black Turnstone, the second state record of Clay-colored Thrush, and the seventh state record of Arctic Tern. These birds were all seen in less than a week, and Caleb had seen all of them. I didn't care to chase them at first, and Caleb and I headed for the Mt. Graham area and would get there after a lengthy drive well after dark. In elevations of just under 3000', the Swift Trail, also known as Highway 366, starts south of the town of Safford. From the start, it climbs up rapidly for 25 miles from desert to mixed coniferous forest. After the 25 miles, the road turns to dirt and continues to rise in elevation in abundant spruce, fir, and pine forest. It is truly remarkable to think of this range as a sky island, even though it is one. Caleb and I camped just above 7,000' to avoid really cold night temperatures further up in elevation. We heard several Mexican Whip-poor-wills on the surrounding slopes where we camped, as well as a pair of Spotted Owls. In the early morning on May 18th, both night species called a few times when the dawn songbird chorus went into effect. As they announced their departure until the next nightfall, the songbirds announced a long day ahead. Luckily, the Spotted Owl's last calls of it's shift came right in midst of our camping spot.
The Spotted Owls were a perfect way to start the day off. From there, we climbed up in elevation from 7,000 to over 9,000'. Once over 9,000, we made many stops in pine, fir, and spruce forest and had habitat to bird in that was near or over 10,000'. The Pinalenos are truly remarkable, and as I said earlier, it was easy to forget that we were in a sky island. Parts of the upper elevations remind me of the Mt. Baldy Wilderness Area in Apache County's White Mountains in east-central Arizona.
An abundance of birds were present in the Pinalenos that favor high elevations. Red-faced Warbler, Western Tanager, and Yellow-eyed Junco were some of them. The abundance of Red-faced Warblers as well as Yellow-eyed Junco made it clear that we were in a southeastern Arizona location.
The high elevations had Short-tailed Hawk written all over Caleb's mind. Before our trip, several reports of Short-tailed Hawk had been made from the mountain range, especially in the higher elevations. Caleb speculated that we would have a really good chance at finding a Short-tailed Hawk. At one point in the day, I had decided to take a nap under a stand of trees, and I woke up to Caleb screaming my name. I looked and saw him looking high up into the sky, and I knew that he had that hawk. What was cool about it was that it was a dark-morph bird, when all of our previous individual sightings in Arizona have been of light-morph birds. Several dark-morph birds have been found by others in the past.
We also got a neat mammal lifer when we encountered a Mt. Graham Red Squirrel, an isolated and endangered subspecies of Red Squirrel that can only be found in the Pinaleno Mountains.
During the trip, I had 16 Graham County lifers and Caleb had over 40, and it was awesome because Caleb hit the 200 mark in Graham County. After spending most of the day in the higher elevations over 9,500', we went to lower elevations between 6-7,000' to scout for the next day. The scouting was fun and we had a few highlights that included Arizona Woodpecker, Greater Pewee, and Dusky-capped Flycatcher. We waited until it got dark out and we hoped that between camp and some of the places we would owl at would give us Northern Pygmy-Owl, Flammulated Owl, and Common Poorwill for trip additions. Northern Saw-whet Owl was one we also wanted to get, but we figured that we would have to go all the way back to the higher elevations to get it. Once dusk hit the mountains, Mexican Whip-poor-wills started to call. The Common Poorwill we thought would call oddly didn't call. When it got a bit darker, a Northern Saw-whet Owl began to call incessantly. It was awesome and we weren't expecting to get a Saw below 7,000'. A pair of Spotted Owls then joined the Saw-whet. Caleb and I searched for both species, and luckily, we had great looks at both species! Something neat that Caleb mentioned about the Spotted Owls was that we started the day with a pair of them and ended the day with a pair of them. It's been awhile since I've enjoyed forest owling, this was overdue. We also heard a Flammulated Owl calling near camp. The base of the pine tree where the Flam was was easy to find, but getting a look at the bird was a story unheard of!
The next day, May 20th, we birded the Arcadia Trail near the Arcadia Campground, and we also went a little lower in elevation to the 6,100' Wet Canyon. There were many birds. We found a nest being constructed by Red-faced Warbers, found a Canyon Wren nest that had some recently fledged birds and also a fledgling who was waiting to emerge, and more.
During mid-morning, we decided to chase rarities. On May 18th, the Arctic Tern was found and surprisingly on the 19th, it stayed in Pima County at Columbus Park. I wasn't taken away by the bird on the 18th, but when I found out it was present all day on the 19th, I decided we would chase it if it was still present on the 20th. The reports stopped coming in for the tern, and I decided we would still chase and look for rarities. One mega rarity that was still present was the Clay-colored Thrush, which was discovered on May 15th at Arivaca Cienega National Wildlife Refuge.
After a short stop to close out Graham County at Roper Lake State Park for a migrant check, we decided to head for Willcox to search for migrants of both land and waterbirds. Right before we decided to head there, we got word that a Glossy Ibis had been found at Willcox by Dave Stejskal. We read that the bird flew off and were going to search a location close to where they suspected it might have flown off to. When we got to Willcox, we also saw that Dave reported a Whimbrel. We quickly found the Whimbrel and then Caleb quickly re-found the Glossy Ibis who had returned to the lake. And just like that, we had two awesome rarities for Cochise County!
Our last stop of the day came at Arivaca Cienega. Over the first five days that the Clay-colored Thrush was present, it would show up at a pond that was surrounded by a small stand of willows and a few cottonwoods. Typically, it would be present very early in the morning at this spot, would venture off to unknown grounds for most of the day before returning to the pond and it's thick surrounding habitat after 4 P.M. and after. Caleb and I got to Arivaca just after 3 P.M. We were soon after joined by our fellow Maricopa County buddy Ryan O'Donnell. After waiting for what seemed to be a short amount of time, the Clay-colored Thrush flew in giving it's flight calls, and then it proceeded to sing out of sight for over twenty minutes. The three of us stood on an observation deck that overlooked the small pond. With the tall cottonwoods above, the density of the small willow stand along the pond, and the loud and pleasant song of the Thrush made the small immediate area seem much bigger than it actually was.
After twenty minutes, the thrush appeared and put on a show for us. It stayed close to the ground or on the ground, and foraged in brush and sticks right over the lake. This is a bird that many have enjoyed and that many have gotten to see over this last week.
The Clay-colored Thrush may be the second state record of the species. The first one showed up near Portal in 2015, and wasn't accepted by the Arizona Bird Committee due to provenance questions. With this bird showing up, it shows a trend that the species continues to probably expand it's range as it's been found outside of the Rio Grande Valley at Big Bend State Park in Texas and in New Mexico. Speaking of the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, it's awesome, and when I went there last year, I saw plenty of Clay-colored Thrushes. Getting one in Arizona is awesome, and it was one I wasn't expecting to get. With this second first state record showing up, maybe the actual first one will be reevaluated and accepted.
Arivaca Cienega is an awesome place that I hadn't been to previously. When we got back to the car to head back to Phoenix, we could still hear the thrush singing in the distance.
This trip was an awesome one to take, thanks Caleb for the fun time!
