Arizona Trip, Day 4!

This morning was an even earlier one than yesterday. We were up and checked out of our hotel by 5:30am. Our first stop was Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge: Aricava Cienega. This picture shows morning's first light hitting the parking lot.Here are the birds we saw there:
1. White-crowned Sparrow
2. Ruby-crowned Kinglet
3. Vermillion Flycatcher
4. Lark Sparrow *
5. Turkey Vulture
6. Common Raven
7. Wilson's Warbler
8. Lucy's Warbler
9. Common Yellowthroat
10. Yellow-rumped Warbler
11. Red-winged Blackbird
12. Cassin's Kingbird
13. Northern Cardinal
14. Gila Woodpecker
15. Common Ground Dove
16. Mourning Dove
17. Song Sparrow
18. Gray Hawk* (We saw this perched on the roadside just as we left. We immediately pulled over and watched it for a few minutes before it flew away.



Second on the list of stops was Aricava Creek, just a few miles West. We didn't see a ton of birds here, but a few.
I'll continue the "Day List," adding only the ones that we didn't already see at an earlier stop:
19. House Finch
20. Hammond's Flycatcher*
21. Ladder-backed Woodpecker
22. Green-tailed Towhee
23. Lesser Goldfinch
24. Red-tailed Hawk
25. Greater Roadrunner* (Lifer for me; Jonathan has seen these before. We were actually driving away from the Creek when Jonathan spotted this one on the side of the road, stopped and backed up so that I could see it.)


Third, we came to this Roadside Rest. There have been many rare birds that have been seen here during migration. So we stopped here, walked around and had some lunch. The cliffs in this picture had a pair of Peregrine Falcons nesting in them. Jonathan and I have seen this species before, but never like this. We got a perfect look at one while he sat on the edge of the cliff and stayed put for a few minutes.
26. Rock Wren
27. Broad-billed Hummingbird
28. Black Vulture
29. Peregrine Falcon



After lunch at the Roadside Rest, we headed to somebody's backyard. The Paton's, a family in Patagonia, have opened up their yard to those wishing to see cool birds. A steady stream of birders are coming and going from their house all the time. They've got 4 or 5 hummingbird feeders hanging up, as well as several seed feeders and bowls of grapes. Consequently, they attract a wide variety of avian life. Here's what part of the backyard looks like. It's nice of the Paton's to provide chairs and shade for us.
At the Paton's:
30. Lazuli Bunting
31. Black-headed Grosbeak
32. Hooded Oriole
33. Bullock's Oriole
34. Bewick's Wren
35. Abert's Towhee
36. Canyon Towhee
37. Curve-billed Thrasher
38. Chipping Sparrow
39. House Sparrow
40. Anna's Hummingbird
41. Black-chinned Hummingbird
42. Violet-crowned Hummingbird*
43. Acorn Woodpecker
44. Zone-tailed Hawk*
45. Northern Flicker
46. Gambel's Quail
47. American Goldfinch


Our last birding stop was the Patagonia Sonoita Nature Preserve. We didn't get a lot of new species for the day, but two of them were lifers, so that makes up for it!
48. Dusky-capped Flycatcher*
49. Townsend's Solitaire* (This is one that I've wanted to see for a while, because I really like its picture in my book. So that was a really nice one to get.)
50. Mallard
51. White-wing Dove


Then off to Sierra Vista for our new hotel for the next two nights. We arrived at Sierra Suites a little after 4pm. On the way we saw these birds soaring:

52. Ferruginous Hawk*

So that was cool. For dinner we drove to Tombstone. That's a fun town, but we forgot to bring our camera, so we only have the images in our minds to serve as memories. In Tombstone there was a:

53. Great-tailed Grackle


Final count of lifers for the day: 9