Madera Canyon: A Birder's Paradise

My parents have always spoken fondly of Madera Canyon, a region in southeast Arizona known as one of the best bird-watching locations in the country and where they made several trips back in the 1970s. Ever since I became a bird watcher, I've been dreaming of making a visit there; more than 250 species have been documented there, and thanks to its proximity to Mexico, for many of them it's one of the only places they can be seen in the United States. When we were talking about where to go when we decided to road trip south this winter, Madera Canyon became a focal point of the trip. Specifically, the Santa Rita Lodge, which for decades has been home to rustic cabins and a host of bird feeders drawing in a whole host of birds for great photo opportunities.

When we arrived, I couldn't even make it from the car to the door of the office to check in before seeing my first life bird: a Mexican jay.

I made it another two steps before noticing the coati roaming the property; I had been tracking recent sightings at the lodge and had read coati were making a daily appearance, and was really hoping to see these bizarre mammals that primarily live in South American but also just cross the border into the United States here.

Also known as coatimundi, or specifically white-nosed coatimundi, it turns out they would be a constant presence during our visit. The owner of the property, who suspects they're coming in during daylight hours because of a lack of food elsewhere, is in the middle of a constant battle trying to outwit these tenacious animals from their attempts to reach the feeders. Like raccoons, to whom they are related, they are wily and don't give up easily!

But they are so darn cute and fun to watch!

After finally succeeding with check in, and already realizing that two nights would not be long enough, we spent the last hour of daylight at the feeders, and I amassed an incredible seven life birds in that time. I haven't experienced birding like this since my early days when I was still seeing common species for the first time: it felt like every other bird I looked at it was completely new to me! Later that night we would go out owling and I would hear my eighth: the whiskered screech-owl. If these species names sound unusual, again, it's because many of them don't occur elsewhere in the United States!

Yellow-eyed junco

Bridled titmouse

We had one full day in the canyon, and it was hard to leave the lodge. We did explore a few other short trails, and while the few birds we did see were also "good" ones, it was hard to beat the constant activity at the lodge feeders.

The hanging bird feeders were suspended from free-standing poles and numbered from 1 to 12 so observers can more easily describe to each other where to look, as in, "An Arizona woodpecker just flew in to #3!"

Arizona woodpecker, one of my most hoped-for species to see in Madera Canyon

Female hepatic tanager

The coati weren't the only innovative feeder visitors - I never thought I would see a wild turkey at a tray feeder, let alone one about 8 feet off the ground!

I was determined on this trip to play closer attention to sparrows. One of the notoriously difficult bird groups to identify, we actually have a pretty low and comparatively easy diversity of sparrows back home. Here, without the extra attention to detail, I easily could have missed another lifer, the rufous-winged sparrow, which is incredibly similar to the chipping sparrow.

Chipping sparrow

Rufous-winged sparrow

Madera Canyon can record up to an astounding 15 different hummingbird species a year; by comparison, we are only likely to see two species on San Juan Island. We were a bit early for hummingbird migration so there weren't many around yet, but they had a couple birds over-winter. Luckily for us, these included two more life birds for me: the Rivoli's (formerly magnificent) and broad-billed hummingbird.

Rivoli's hummingbird: small bird, large hummingbird!

I could have easily spent a few more days at Santa Rita Lodge and Madera Canyon, but all too soon it was time to pack up and head onwards. Before leaving, we made one more hike along another short trail where a rare elegant trogon had been regularly seen. We came across two other birders looking for it, and while they also hadn't found it, they tipped us off to where they had just seen what to me was an equally exciting species: the montezuma quail. If they hadn't told us where to look we never would have spotted these slow-moving, well-camouflaged ground birds among the grass. My dad, who can be credited with getting me into birding, has MANY more specices on his North American life list than I do, but not this one - it's always pretty special to get one he hasn't seen! (Sorry dad!)

Montezuma quail!

All in all I added 11 lifers in our ~36 hours in Madera Canyon which blew my expectations out of the water. I will definitely have to go back, hopefully at a slightly different time of year, and hopefully for a longer visit! While this was the first place I was truly sad to leave, our trip was far from over. Instead, we were heading further south into Mexico to see what other birds we could find!

Fantastic Birding Along Highway 97

Location: Prince George, British Columbia
Population: 70,971

These first days are supposed to be filled with lots of driving, but so far they are ending up filled with lots of wildlife viewing as well. We're making a lot of short stops at viewpoints or points of interest, and today took two short hikes as well. With all the varying habitats we've traveled through, from semi-arid high plateau to farmland to pine forest, nearly every stop puts us in a different habitat which means there are different birds about. Today turned up an astounding 60+ species! A bucket load of them ended up being species for the year list as well, many of them birds I had down as potential but not guaranteed finds for the year, so it was an exciting day.

The day started out with a bang as from the breakfast table this morning we spotted a Lewis' woodpecker. I've only seen this species once before - I sought it out in January as a new life bird - so this was a spectacular find! Then, while loading the car, a western tanager (165) flew down out of the trees right into the grass in the parking lot - yet another good omen of things to come.

I hoping to maybe turn up some boreal chickadees on this trip as they would be a life bird for me, so when we stopped to look at an impressive geological formation showing various lava flows my years perked up when I heard an odd-sounded chickadee. It wasn't a boreal, but was a mountain chickadee (166)! Nearby I also saw mountain bluebirds and chipping sparrows.

Next we stopped at a series of lakes near 70 Mile House and 100 Mile House (towns named for their distance along the original gold rush trail which started in Lillooet). We saw a pair of barrow's goldeneyes, several spotted sandpipers (167), both red-winged and yellow-headed blackbirds (pictured below), and the normal array of ducks. In addition to the usuals like wigeon, shovelers, gadwall, and mallards there were also a couple of redhead (168) and blue-winged teal (169).

At one point we had to loop back to check out what looked like a sandpiper standing on top of a telephone pole - never seen anything like that before! It turned out to be a Wilson's snipe. It seemed like kind of an unusual perch for a bird that's usually camouflaged among the grasses, but there was another one a little further along doing the same thing. Maybe it was a male, who is described as calling from a perch during the breeding season?

William's Lake turned out to be a birding hot spot. As soon as we reached the lake we spotted some American white pelicans (170) and a leucistic red-tailed hawk - the first of it's kind I've ever seen. Several species of swallows were flying over the lake, and our picnic stop at Scout Island turned up some singing yellow warblers and an abundance of Wilson's warblers (171):

After lunch we hiked some of the boardwalk trails through the marsh at Scout Island were we saw a common loon on its nest, a couple of red-necked grebes, and a pair of evening grosbeaks (172). I also heard a couple of soras (173) calling - a great find as I knew the spring was my only chance to pick up this otherwise silent and always elusive bird! The other impressive sight were all of the Canada goose goslings. There were families with young of different ages all over the marsh. The most ridiculous spot was this little area on the bank where it looked like, as one person described it, "an anthill of goslings". There were only 2-4 sets of parents in the area, but these dozens of goslings from multiple families were all mixed together into one big flock:

A hike near Quesnel turned up both warbling and Hutton's vireos, and the last bird species added today was a long-billed curlew (174) just a few miles out of town from our stopping place for the night. As amazing as the birding was today - a whopping ten year birds were added, leaving me just one species shy of my original goal of 175 - it wasn't all about the birds.

The coolest insect sighting of the day was definitely not the mosquitos (which weren't that bad yet but are only going to get worse), but rather this butterfly which I was later able to identify as a common alpine (Erebia epipsodea):

There were also two mammal highlights today. The first was a colony of about 15 yellow-bellied marmots near Clinton. These animals are also known as the rock chuck or the whistle pig:

And, I could hardly believe it, just day two of the trip but I already had my first bear sighting! We spotted this black bear thinking about crossing the highway, but it thought better of it and headed back to the hills, stopping only to take a bite out of the nearby shrubbery and take one look back behind it before disappearing into the trees:

Our stopping place for the night is in Prince George, home of the Western Hockey League's Prince George Cougars. I'm a fan of the Portland Winterhawks, which are also in the same league, and I have seen them play in 13 of the league's 22 cities. Needless to say, Prince George is not one of those 13, and after arriving here myself I cannot believe they travel this far by bus from Portland to play hockey! Not only that, but they're not doing it in the spring like I am, but in the dead of winter....quite a trek! Now I fully understand why teams play two games back-to-back while they're here, so they don't have to travel here as often.

One of the Hawks' announcers once said that Prince George isn't the end of the Earth, but you can see it from here. Well, I hope not! Tomorrow we press on a few hundred miles further to the north and will see the official beginning of the Alaska Highway.