Arizona Two

California Gulch is an out of the way little canyon near the Mexican border in Arizona. That a road makes it out there at all is a bit of a miracle -- attributable to old mining and current ranching claims in the area, and it's no surprise that this same road is not a well graded and maintained one. This road's poor quality is the reason we rented a car to begin with for our trip, and despite hearing that the road is in better condition that it has ever been in, we were happy that we had. That's because the unfortunate truth is that, for a half-mile or so, the road runs right down a stream bed.

We were up early on Sunday morning to hit the road, rising while the local Whiskered Screech-Owls and Great Horned Owls were still calling, and the sun hadn't yet visited. As we made our way down paved roads for over an hour before hitting the dirt tracks, crowds of Lesser Nighthawks were hawking insects over the monsoon dampened desert grassland, and the rosy fingers of dawn where reaching through the tattered remains of the previous night's unrest.

Thankfully, the washes were dry, and we were able to make it to California Gulch without any real difficulty. The purpose of our visit was to find one of the most localized breeding species of birds in North America - the Five-striped Sparrow. California Gulch is one of the only breeding sites to which one can drive, and is therefore the most accessible in the mercilessly hot areas where they breed.

Anyway, we made the trek. And we found the sparrows, with interest. As we got out of the car, I heard a mewing gnatcatcher that smacked strongly of a Black-capped Gnatcatcher. We played our I-Pod back to it and got a strong verbal response that was an exact match, but the bird didn't come in. It just kept going toward the Oro Blanco mine. That was a little frustrating, as we've only had poor views of this species in the winter when they didn't have their black caps. We also learned, in pursuing the bird, that Bell's Vireos have a fairly similar scolding call. Which was interesting!

As we hiked down the short, blocked off, road into the gulch, we could hear a Five-striped Sparrow singing on the hill across the way. Despite our best efforts, however, we just could not see it. That continued to be the case after we reached the bottom of the gulch, but with effort and time we finally saw, poorly, a single bird singing far away up the hill.

In the meantime we found many other wonders to ooh and ah over, like many Varied Buntings, a Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet, a Canyon Tree Frog, and a grasshopper that looked just like a few pieces of dried grass. As we walked down canyon we came across two more pairs of Five-striped Sparrows. These birds were actually down in the canyon and gave much better views. It's immensely satisfying to have such a successful expedition, and so we made our way up and out of the canyon with glee.

Our next project was to drive the scenic route back to highway 19 via Ruby Road. This lonely road winds through oak dotted grasslands, flat-topped mesas, and picturesque rolling hills. It's quite nice, but I was disappointed to not come across any Montezuma Quail on the road. These quail are reportedly more likely along this road than just about anywhere, but we didn't have any luck this time, despite constant vigilance.

We stopped for lunch at Pena Blanca lake near the eastern end of the road, where we did not see a pair of Least Grebes that were found two days later, despite looking in the exact area where they were to be found. I really kicked myself over that, but they're secretive little birds, and we didn't see any birds at all on the lake. Still, we did enjoy the Black Phoebes. Unfortunately, in this area Libby got stung by some kind of fire ant, which hurt like the dickens. She bore up as well as she could before we could get to Green Valley for some sting-eeze on our way back to Madera Canyon.

Once up in the relative coolness of the canyon, we took a visit to the feeders, and walked up the Agua Caliente trail in case of Trogons. Nothing happening except the ordinary, which is quite nice in Madera Canyon, and we returned to our camp for dinner. That evening we heard Elf Owls and I saw something fly away when we pursued the sound, but we didn't have satisfying views. We did see a Whiskered Screech-Owl quite well back at camp, which was nice, before retiring for the evening.

Pictures from the day on Flickr: Arizona Day 2.