Big Year Birding Trip: Day Eight/Nine to Home

5:30 a.m., I awake to a cold, Ponderosa-infested Flagstaff after a week in Arizona’s birding (and literal) hotspots.  At 7,000 feet in elevation, nestled beneath the 12,000+ San Francisco Peaks, Flagstaff is already a world away from the Mojave, Sonoran, and Chihuahuan Deserts.  Technically I am already in the Colorado Plateau country, but the first 25 miles of road feels more like my Idaho Craters of the Moon.  First stop, the junction of US 89 and Coconino National Forest Road 545.  I want to bird the Ponderosa Pine for a bit, and study the maps.  I am torn as to whether I should push on as fast as I can up 89 to the canyon country of Utah, or check out Sunset Crater and Wupatki National Monuments, a significant detour.

The first rule of adventure travel is invoked: create no future regrets.  I turn down the forest road and proceed to Sunset Crater.  Who knows when I will pass this way again; and like the jaunt to Coronado National Memorial a few days ago, I need these sites for my National Parks checklist.  The habitat is vastly different – lava flows and cinder cones, so perhaps the birding will be as well.  No one is attending the entrance station at this hour, so I cruise right in and enjoy the monument.  The cold air refuses to yield to the rising sun, and I can only comfortably bird the Bonita Lava flow for 15 minutes.  No matter, nothing but pine siskins are calling; too cold for birds as well.  Instead, I decide to bird from the jeep with heater on full, cracking the window every mile or so to listen for activity, and snap a few tourist-worthy photos.  A week of 85-90 degree weather ruined me for the 35-40 degree morning.

At the Cinder Hills overlook, I photograph the monument’s east entrance sign for my journaling and try again to bird the volcanic landscape.  The air is slightly warmer and the sun is fully on my face, but the wind has picked up and still no birds are stirring.  Next stop is the Painted Desert Vista, and my last hope to find something new before leaving the cinder-covered highlands.  I throw on a few extra layers of clothing and walk the grounds.  Ah ha!  Something is scooting around the brush not far from the vault toilet.  Spotted Towhee makes a brief appearance and makes the trip list at 110, the first new bird since the Paton’s Feeders over 300 miles to the south.

The road winds its way across the flats to the entrance to Wupatki.  I have no idea what I am in store for, but the landscape is marvelous – and I have it all to myself.  The junction sign reads “Wukoki Ruin – 2 miles.”  That sounds interesting!  The long straight road terminates into a day-use parking lot.  A short trail leads away toward a red sandstone ruin of a pueblo built about 800 years ago.  I bring all the cameras – this is going to be a photographer’s dream.  A desert cottontail leads me down the silent path.  He knows it well.  His “people” have lived hear many thousands of years before mine.  I reach the steps and the base of an elevated rock perched above a dry wash, a perfect place of defense and viewpoint.  What a splendid pueblo – 3-4 rooms, not too big or uppity, not like that 100-room Wupatki pueblo up Deadman’s Wash.  I explore each one and look out the windows to see what they saw.  I imagined their lives, simple, no facebook page to maintain, …cell-phone free.  Must have been hell.

The road continues across the Antelope Prairie, to Pueblo Citadel, Nalakihu, and Lomaki.  A flock of (150) Pinyon Jays cross the road and work their way through a pure stand of Utah Juniper.  I turn the jeep around to return and confirm.  The laughing and scolding – it is classic pinyon jay.  I pause to ponder, the joy of finding bird 150 for the year at this desolate place of perfected solitude.  I am completely content.

US 89 races north to the Navajo Nation beyond Gray Mountain.  US 160 steers me to Tuba City and eventually to Kayenta’s McDonalds, where coffee and Wi-Fi await.  After fuel and refreshment, my eyes are once again fixed and my mind set upon the first sight of the famed Monument Valley, with its East and West Mitten Buttes.  I can still see Clark Grizwold stumbling through the desert, wearing pants on his head and singing deliriously, while looking for a gas station.  Probably not the image the park management wants me to leave with.  Instead, as the jeep crests the rise, and both buttes and entrance sign come into view, I am immediately repulsed by the spectacle before me.  Hundreds, maybe a thousand cars, RV’s and buses all at or headed to the same destination.  I have discovered THE Tourist Mecca east of the Grand Canyon.  I never make it to the parking lot.  I snap a few photos from the entrance road and race for the Utah border, hoping to quickly restore the solace I have savored since Wupatki.

The road leads on (US 163) to Mexican Hat, a community along the banks of the San Juan River, named for a hoodoo which balances a stone table, giving the appearance of its name.  I photographed the geo-oddity before, but this time the sky is a deep blue.  Years ago, my 35 mm slide was all awash from an overcast sky.  I search the perfect and atypical angle – certainly something more than a tourist shot from the pull out.    I find it along the 4×4 road that leads into the plateau.

Valley of the gods to my left and Comb Ridge to my bow, I push upward to Bluff and on to Blanding.  I have yet to form a plan for the afternoon or evening.  I am torn between birding and canyon trekking.  US 191 stretches straight through Monticello and the Dry Valley toward Church Rock, that old familiar monolith I have seen and photographed on many a prior trip.  Church Rock serves as cathedral and landmark for the road to Newspaper Rock and the famed Needles District of Canyonlands National Park – where I first fell in love with sandstone, Salt Creek, sagebrush and solitaires.  But sadly, there is no time to relive those days.  It is a long dead end road that will cheat me of new experiences waiting up the road.

I need a break from driving.  I just need to get out and walk about.  The sign to Hook and Ladder Gulch intrigues.  A large orange butte beckons up road, and I set my destination.  The sandy, deeply-rutted two-track takes me to the base.  The wind is 35 mph, maybe stronger; regardless, I step out and walk the shoulder of the rock, marveling at its similarity, look and feel to my City of Rocks, except for the hue.  The colors of sky, rock, and grass are marvelous.  The camera is happy.  My ball cap is not.  I chase after it for 30 yards.

Soon the dusty-silver jeep finds its way into Moab, the Queen City of canyon adventure.  Sure, it is packed with tourist, but Moab is hip, and probably was long before Edward Abby swept through in the 50′s.  From Arches to uranium mining to Jeep-lover heaven, Moab has been many things to many people.  But ultimately it is an oasis in an otherwise vast and desolate land of rock and little else.  The Colorado frames the northern limits of the city, and it is upstream up-canyon that I now pursue.  For whatever reason, perhaps time most of all, I have never driven upriver to see Castle Valley and Fisher Towers.  The river is angry today, and white caps force their way upstream.  The wind is howling, the campgrounds crowded, it is after all a Saturday and all of the Wasatch Front, and perhaps Grand Junction Colorado have erected tents in this steep-walled corridor.  There will be no solitude, no birding, and no way to keep my hair from parting a dozen ways to Sunday.

The sun is leaving for Nevada, and I still have one more site on my to-do list.  Depending on what I find, it may be my destination for the night – Island in the Sky, Canyonlands National Park.  Highway 313 climbs out of Sevenmile Canyon and plateaus for 25-30 miles across Big Flat, Red Flat, and Gray’s Pasture before abruptly halting at Grandview Point.  I have done it!  The easiest of the three Canyonlands Districts to visit has haunted me for two decades.  I see what all the fuss is about; one truly feels on top of the world, standing indeed, upon an island in the sky.  But now what?

Dusk has settled upon the completely full campgrounds.  I could wander out to the deserts north of Green River and find a place to squat on BLM…or I could push for home – still six hours away.  Harry’s words are still in my head, “You’ll want to get home.”  But I am exhausted; the lack of birding and the extended driving has me unnerved.  Can I really stay awake?  I decide to drive and let the distance chose my fate.  If I am tired, I will pull over.  If I am coherent, I’ll keep going.  The last clouds west are all afire in purple-orange, but soon stars appear and I am alone in the dark, with the music cranked too loud, cool wind in my face, and thoughts of I-hop pancakes in Springville.  At least if I make it there, I can refuel with coffee and sugar.

2:45 a.m., Milepost 3,200-and-something, my eyes too blurry to read, and glasses useless at this incoherent point – the jeep climbs the last hill of the Big Year Trip – my driveway.  Pancakes, omelet, and a carafe of coffee still in my belly, I stumble in the dark for the bedroom door, and then boot the dog out of my spot – who has grown too accustomed these past eight nights.  It is Sunday morning, and there is peace.  As I lay in bed, body still humming from the six-hour beyond healthy drive, I relive the trip in my mind.  Lifetime memories of many places I may never see again, people whose paths I crossed, but shall never cross again.  Photos that will live in my digital folders, to be retrieved over and over to aid in telling stories.  Lifers, to be recorded in the Access database once I am rested.  Calling up dad just to rub it in a bit – I am finally in the lead – a big, big-year lead! Recounting the adventures to Susan, who will have many questions, the first of which will be, “Had enough yet?”

But she knows the answer.  I have always been restless, always traveling and chasing sunsets.  Already, in the waning moments of consciousness, I form the seed of a plan, a trip, a place of birds.  Perhaps a quick trip to Florida, a few days of birding, maybe, just maybe that will be enough.  For now, I am content; the spring migration is starting to hit the Northern Basin and Range.  For a few months I’ll be occupied at home.  The birds are coming to me.

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day Seven to Flagstaff

Friday morning (Day 7 on the road) comes early to Patagonia Lake.  The birds wake me before dawn.  Thank goodness Harry has the hot water boiling and coffee is just a minute or two away.  Other birders are up as well, and I join in with one down at the lake’s edge.  “Did you see that Osprey dive into the lake?” he says with great excitement.  I saw something, but not well enough to list.  I start the day out with a “miss.”  May it be the last.  Shortly after, we both hear what is occasionally described as a bark, and then see (141) Black-crowned Night Heron cruise from west to east a few feet off the lake’s surface.  There is a lot of activity, but after bagging my 100th bird for the trip, there are no other new ones here.

We arrive at the first destination of  the day, Paton’s Feeders in Patagonia, just before eight.  We are first on the scene, but the caretaker tells us he sees at least 30 visitors a day.  The Paton’s are both deceased, but for decades they welcomed birders to their own backyard to enjoy the many species of hummingbirds that came to their dozen or so feeders.  I visited here on May 17, 1992 and recorded my life sighting of Violet-crowned Hummingbird.  I am back almost twenty years later to get the same species for my big year list.  The legacy of the Paton’s continues, and the backyard is still open to birders (donations for seed and hummingbird syrup welcome).  Chairs and benches are set under an awning, field guides are lying on the table, and a register with pen beckons the visitor to leave record of their attendance.

This is Harry’s kind of birding.  We just kick back, watch the feeders, and visit.  A Cooper’s Hawk soars in and scatters the sparrows and doves, but the hummers don’t notice or care, and soon they are buzzing in: (142) Broad-billed Hummingbird, and then (143) Black-chinned Hummingbird.  All told we list 18 species, sitting in a lawn chair for 35 minutes.  Pretty darn impressive!  The caretaker points one more out for me: (144) Lincoln’s Sparrow.  We thank him kindly, put a “five” in the donation box, and saunter back to the jeep; yet I leave just a little disappointed.  This is the one place, the most likely location, the best hope of adding Violet-crowned Hummingbird to my year list…and I leave empty handed.  There must still be “two in the bush.”

The next destination is just down the dusty road a mile or two.  The Nature Conservancy preserves the last best riparian habitat and biodiversity of Sonoita Creek.  The unassuming floodplain, dissected not only by the creek, but an old railroad bed, contains some of the largest and oldest Fremont Cottonwoods.  Trees, water, grass…in the otherwise deserts of Arizona…..birds love it.  I can sense right away this is a golden spot.  I pay the fee, glance over the T-shirts and check out the sightings board.  Soon we are both off to the creek and in search of new birds for the trip and for the year.

the trail crosses open grassland from the parking lot and visitor center, then reaches the railroad grade where we walk along on top.  A canopy of trees covers us, but the height of the grade allows us to look down into the brush and see our prey like a sharp-shinned hawk.  A few sparrows are flitting around, but there’s not much action.  We can hear woodpeckers out of view.  The morning is heating up otherwise, and we both shed our light jackets.  Harry can see I plan to take my time and really work the brush and streamside.  He’s fine with that, and tells me to take as long as I like, but he will return to the jeep for some trip planning of his own.  I proceed on in hopes of adding a new woodpecker.

Slowly, yet methodically, I walk the trail attuned to any movement.  Off to my right, small sparrows give flight, but a larger bird remains oblivious of me and continues his scratching in the duff.  Although he shows no concern, he remains cautious of other predators and works the ground beneath a pile of brush.  I keep circling one way and then the next.  Alternating between field guide and binoculars, I am vexed, and cannot seem to convince myself of the species!  The bird is robin-sized.  I keep looking for those field marks that prove he is the Rufous-backed Robin that wandered in and was observed here last week.  Finally, he shows enough to rule out rufous-backed and to confirm (145) Canyon Towhee, a resident of the Preserve.

No sooner do I leave the towhee, than a cry is heard about a hundred yards off trail in the cottonwoods.  Cautiously I step into the high brush that flank the trail and descend a small slope to the cottonwoods.  The bird lets out a wheezy high-pitched half-whistle/half scream, perhaps at my approach and I lock in the binoculars: (146) Gray Hawk!  This is a really good bird, and not one I am likely to get once our journey turns north.  Tromping back to the trail, I flush (147) Yellow Warbler.  He flashes his brilliance and lets out a “Sweet, sweet, I’m so sweet!“  Not bad for a one-mile walk.

Because our route takes us right by the Paton’s place again, I ask Harry if he wouldn’t mind me checking to see if the violet-crowned hummer has been seen.  Once we pull away from here, I might as well cross him off the list of birds I’ll not get this year.  I hate to do that.  He understands, and I quickly visit the feeders.  A half dozen other birders are there now, and some are exhibiting zoom lenses that could give football photographers all sorts of envy.  Indeed the violet-crowned has been seen, and so I must stay until he shows again.  In the waiting, the agonizing waiting…(148) Rufous Hummingbird appears.  Just one, but he comes in quickly a time or two, and helps to ease my lack of patience.  And then….out of nowhere!  The crowd goes wild – well as much as birders can go wild with enthusiasm and still remain quietly observant – (149) Violet-crowned Hummingbird arrives!  Snap, Snap, Clickity clickity….three thousand dollar digital cameras burn up the SD cards, and a collective sigh of wonder settles over the group.  The bird is gone, and then so am I.  Check!

Our next stop is to be our last birding destination together.  According to all the books, it should be one of the best.  Madera Canyon, some 40 miles from here faces north in the Santa Rita Mountains.  The approach is miserable.  Either we will have to head south to Nogales and back up I-19 or head through Sonoita and take the mountain road over an unnamed pass into Florida Wash.  Harry does the calculations and says the time is the same, but the mountain pass is definitely shorter by miles.  I was hoping for that.  Soon we are turning off Hwy 83 and headed up Box Canyon Road toward the unknown.  Signs warn us against suspicious behavior, travelers, etc. the canyon is a known illegal immigrant passage to Tucson and Phoenix via the back roads,  a drug trade route.  It’s easy to see why.  The canyon along the road is steep and hidden and there are pockets of water, all the essential ingredients for a clandestine drug run.  The jeep easily navigates the narrow, cliff-hugging road, and soon we are down the other side and watching for our turn up Madera Canyon.

As expected, so close to Tucson and I-19, many other birders are here.  The parking lots and picnic areas (and there are several of them up the steep canyon) are half-filled.  We proceed to the highest point.  Harry’s federal pass allows us to enjoy these facilities for no additional user fee.  This is our last stop, last chance for something new in Southeast Arizona’s birding paradise.  We break out the cheese, bread, V-8 and trail bars for a jolt of energy before wandering off in separate directions.  Our plan is to explore a bit on our own and meet back at the jeep.  Harry chooses the trail up through the picnic area, and I – the creek bed, dry and covered by arching white branches of the Arizona Sycamore.  Ten minutes later our paths converge, and we report nothing exciting was seen on either route.  Harry stays in the creek bed, and I head upstream along the trail in hopes of ….of what?  I don’t even have a species in mind.  Trogon? Red-faced Warbler? Hepatic Tanager?  I’ll take anything.

Up ahead of me is an elderly lady, perhaps 78 or more.  She is a birder, and from all indications, better at it than I, and more fit.  We exchange greetings.  She shares that she is retired (no surprise) and birds year-round, traveling the country in an RV, usually alone, but having the time of her life.  Every year is a big year for her.  I trade the usual info – no good birds, where I am from, and what I yet hope to see.  We walk the trail for a few minutes, but then I become conscious of the time and make my excuses.  She looks at me sadly, and quips, it’s so nice to not have a schedule, to come or go as it pleases.  She is hiking up trail to see the Trogon that was reported.  I am headed back to the jeep to keep my commitments and itinerary and have nothing to show for it.  She will get THE bird, and I will remain a slave to earth’s rotation. But my regrets are overshadowed by my joy for her.  You go girl!

Harry has one last trip request before I drop him off in Tucson – to see Mission San Xavier del Bac.  The mission, located on the southern outskirts of Tucson was built in 1783-1797, is still very much active today.  It is one of Arizona’s busiest attractions south of Grand Canyon.  The architecture and sacred ambiance inside beckons the digital camera to expend all memory.  As we approach its carved wooden doors, a Greater Roadrunner steps lightly across the courtyard – a birder’s welcome.

Driving North of Tucson, I wrestle with my choices.  Soon  I will face the traffic of Phoenix; the sun will be racing left towards an unseen ocean and other worlds.  Shall I keep to the plan and spend the night in Phoenix, positioning myself for an early run at Hassayampa River Preserve and its Arizona specialties, or shall I push on toward darkness and Flagstaff, giving myself more time to bird the Colorado Plateau.  Harry was right, as we said our goodbyes.  “You’ll want to push on for home; I know I would.”  It has been a long journey, and I have tallied a respectable list for the trip.  The canyon country of Utah remains a place of special memories I would gladly indulge, though new birds will likely be few.  The highway stretches onward and up the Mogollon Rim.  Flagstaff or bust; a Super 8 for the super-tired.  Arizona to my back, Utah for my head.

Trip Bird Count = 109; Big Year Count = 149; Life List = 446; Milepost 2,280

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day Six to Patagonia

I am starting to get used to retirement, except I’m not retired and probably shouldn’t for another twenty.  The idea of waking up in a new town or park each morning, traveling to the next with birding hotspots along the way… yep, I’m good with that.  Today’s agenda is packed, and I can’t wait to get to it.

As usual Harry is up first, but I am not far behind.  A quick breakfast from the hotel lobby and on our way we go toward Bisbee and the Queen Mine Tour – the one itinerary stop Harry insisted on months ago when we started hatching plans.  We roll into this mile-high city of the east central Mule Mountains around 8 a.m.  Bisbee was once the largest metropolis between St. Louis and San Francisco, due entirely to the wealth of copper, silver, and lead cached in the mountain’s pot-belly.  We arrive first at the Lavender Pit just shy of the city limits.  The pit, named for Harrison Lavender and not the color, is 4,000  feet wide, 5,000 feet long, and 850 feet deep.  Abandoned since 1974, the gut-ripped mountain is a topographical reminder of what man can do to his environment when in search of nature’s riches.

The pit is “interesting” but not what we came to see.  Prior to open pit mining, this region was known for its miles of underground ore tunnels, and that is the focus of the Queen Mine tour we’ll be taking at 9 a.m.  With time to kill, we drive up the steep narrow Tombstone Canyon Road, and take note of the antique shops, B&B’s, restaurants, etc. reminiscent of Eureka Springs, Arkansas where Susan and I spent our first night of marriage.  On the return descent, we find Bisbee Coffee, and I find time for my necessary third cup of the morning.  Harry wanders off to take pictures.

I lay down $13 for the tour ticket and browse the Queen Mine museum.  The exhibits and murals are as old as the mine – or so it would seem, and are artifacts in themselves.  A video is playing - probably a vintage 1960′s documentary, something I might have watched in second grade.  I find it thoroughly enjoyable, perhaps because the coffee had not yet completely kicked in.  Ticket holders are called to the orientation.  Waivers have been signed, lights, hardhats and raincoats are issued; and we are ready to board the ore cart railroad that will take us 1/4 mile into and 1,500 feet below Bucky O’ Neill Hill.  The miniature train is half full of retirees, wanna-be’s, a young family, and one middle-aged birder who’s not likely to see any for the next hour.

The train squeaks along on a narrow-gauge rail; the cast iron door is shut behind us, and we are in the circulatory system headed for the veins…of ore.  The dank and occasionally dusty passage reaches a cool 47 degrees.  Passing under giant framed timbers used to brace the ceiling, I am transported from preconceptions to the surreal.  Our guide, an authentic (but retired) miner, stops the train three times to lead us down side passages and talk about life underground.  We learn all sort of terms and lingo used by the mostly Eastern European immigrants who worked these mines.  Few of them lived to be 30 after being “dusted” – a term for having breathed too much dust in their lungs.  I cough out of instinct.  “Uh, Harry, I am ready to go birding    …outside.”

Bye bye Bisbee, and off we GO to Coronad-O  [National Memorial]. I am sure there is song there.   I planned a visit here, not so much for the birds, but to check this NPS unit off my life list. Here, or near (perhaps following the San Pedro River), 30-year old  Francisco Vasquez de Coronado entered present-day United States in 1540.  He, an army of Spaniards, and 1,300 friendly natives embarked on a quest to find the seven cities of gold, Cibola and Quivira. Their travels took them to five modern-day states and as far east as Quivira, Kansas – site of an excellent wildlife refuge and birding hotspot.  If only Coronado had realized this, he would have given up his lust for gold and picked up a Peterson Field Guide and binoculars and started a Big Trip List.  Of course that gold would help fund the next birding expedition, perhaps to Florida.  But now I have thoroughly digressed.

Coronado National Memorial also suffered from devastating wildfires, and much of the park has been burned.  The mountain scenery is nice, but the birds are not around.  On the way out, we photograph the “wall” once more, knowing this is as close to Mexico as we will get for the remainder of the trip.  Next stop, the famed Ramsey Canyon Preserve nestled in the Huachuca Mountains, southwest of Sierra Vista.

The better section of Ramsey Canyon is a preserve owned and managed by the Nature Conservancy, one of the most respected conservation organizations in the country and protector of those rich and rare habitats left unguarded by state or federal conservation agencies.  Ramsey is to birders like Nashville is to country music fans, or Daytona to NASCAR nuts, or even Cooperstown to baseball.  Just look at the cars in the parking lot, and the states represented on the license plates.  And why?  The Preserve’s own words say it best:

Ramsey Canyon Preserve is renowned for its outstanding scenic beauty and the diversity of its plant and animal life. This diversity is the result of the interplay of geology, biogeography, topography, and climate. Fifteen species of hummingbirds are known from the Huachucas as well as dozens of species whose geographical ranges lie mostly in Mexico.

Southeastern Arizona is an ecological crossroads, where the Sierra Madre of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts all come together. The abrupt rise of mountains like the Huachucas from the surrounding arid grasslands creates “sky islands” that harbor tremendous habitat diversity and form stepping stones to the tropics. This combination of factors gives Ramsey Canyon Preserve its notable variety of plant and animal life, including such southwestern specialties as Apache and Chihuahua pines, ridge-nosed rattlesnake, lesser long-nosed bat, elegant trogon, and berylline and violet-crowned hummingbirds.

Harry and I choke down a quick snack in the parking lot and bag (134) Acorn Woodpecker perched on a power pole.  Still chewing and brushing trail bar crumbs from my shirt, we quickly head to the visitor center and check in.  All visitors must pay a $5 fee, and walk through the gift shop before beginning the trail up the canyon.  Although the Preserve protects far more than birds, it is predominantly the birders who flock to this paradise.  Dry erase boards allow birders to list their most recent sightings, and I take note.  Harry is in the gift shop looking for bat shirts and something for his wife.  I wait for him at the hummingbird feeders.

Soon we are trekking ever upward along an unnamed stream, sourced from the slopes of 8,300-foot Granite Mountain.  The well-worn trail leads us beneath towering Arizona Sycamores and oaks.  It is painfully quiet.  We have arrived in the heat of the day, but still expect more activity than this.  A few of the familiar birds call now and then, but there’s not much for a birder to do.  So we hike.  We decide to get our money’s worth, and use up the full measure of time allotted by the itinerary.  The trail steepens.  We set our own pace, using whatever we can as an excuse to stop and catch our breath.  “Is that a Mexican Chickadee I hear?”  Five minutes later, after listening for what was never there, I am able to get my panting under control and press on.

One of the best features of Ramsey Canyon is the birders.  Harry and I stop and chat with each one as they descend the trail.  As a Wisconsin-bred Yankee, Harry can pick out the accent of every snow-birder we meet.  I half expect him to tell me what town in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Michigan they are from.  Birders always begin with, “So have you seen anything good?”  We all know what that means.  “Have you seen any species worth driving all the way down from the Canadian border?”  We all know what we need for our trip list, life list, or what we lust after.  “Have you seen an Elegant Trogon lately?”  Nothing but Bridled Titmice.

We reach the Miller Peak Wilderness boundary.  My second designated wilderness of the trip; Harry’s first.  Now we’re serious.  Anything can happen – black bears, mountain lions, a fall from a sheer cliff.  I have to laugh whenever I reach a wilderness boundary sign.  Don’t get me wrong.  Wilderness is a place I long for; but the trail is wide and well worn; people are common; and I can see the big city from here.  Take me to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness Area of Idaho, or the Death Valley Wilderness of California; let me get lost and scared there.  Here, it feels like home – like City of Rocks.  It’s wild enough for birders, but too crowded for loners.  We reach a cliff edge.  Harry wanders off again to take photos, and I hunker down in the gale-force wind to watch a hummingbird clinging for dear life on the tip of a dead snag.  Anna’s.  Got her already, but always a pleasure.

With little to show for the money and the hype, I ask Harry to humor me for another ten minutes while I sit at the feeders outside the visitor center.  I simply must see a new species.  Harry needs more shopping time and obliges.  I sit one bench down from a retired couple, who are completely focused on the hummers that dart in and out.  Blue-throated, Anna’s, black-chinned…yada, yada.  But just as I am about to call it quits, (135) Magnificent Hummingbird swoops in!  Woohoo!  OK, time to get the T-shirt.  I buy three.  One for Susan.

On the short drive down the mountain into Sierra Vista, we debate as to whether to take the Charleston Road across the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area towards Tombstone, or take Highway 90 east.  The guidebooks say this is an overlooked hotspot.  Harry votes for 90.  What-the-heck, coin-toss, ok.  Six miles later, Harry’s choice is the obvious one.  Operated by the BLM, we reach the parking area at San Pedro House.  There are a lot of birders here – BUT, they are outnumbered by birds 50 to 1.  The motherlode!  Reminiscent of my first visit to the Southwestern Research Station back in ’92, there are too many species to list; and I haven’t even gotten out of the vehicle!

The trail out to the cottonwoods is wide and well-traveled, but I have it to myself for the moment.  A brown-looking flycatcher flits up to investigate me, shortly, her husband appears and I am convinced: (136) Vermillion Flycatcher – possibly the most beautiful bird of the trip.  Pishing ever so slightly, I stir up (137) Green-tailed Towhee – a bird I could easily get next month in City of Rocks …back home.  But, I will take it now, thank you very much.  Back at the visitor center, I rest on the porch and match my findings to others recorded for the day.  (138) White-winged Dove comes up to the feeder, and I take a moment to help the center’s volunteer learn the field marks.  There is so much activity; I don’t know where to focus.  (139) Curve-billed Thrasher is scratching around the scrub and in last autumn’s leaves. Nearby, (140) Pyrrhuloxia begins chipping, and now I can clearly see the bill-color.  Other birders wander around, assist each other, and talk of good signtings and great hotspots.  One gentleman and his wife are as enthused as I.  We simultaneously agree – this is the best of the best Southeast Arizona hotspots so far.

On the way back to Sierra Vista, Harry blurts out a tempting offer.  “If you’ll stop at a fastfood restaurant, I’ll buy the hamburgers.”  I have managed for days to eat only fruits, vegetables, whole grains and one really tasty Mexican dish.  Now a greasy, choke-the-arteries slab of beef sounds really good…. but I just can’t.  While driving around looking for some respectable chain burger-joint for Harry, we stumble onto the paradise of fast sandwiches – Schlotzsky’s!  I have never been able to resist “The Original” with salt and vinegar chips and a large Dr. Pepper.  The untimely and complimentary stop allows me opportunity to study what looks to be a Chihuahuan Raven perching on the light post.

Highway 82 stretches west into the setting sun.  I would like to do some evening birding, but we will be lucky to make Patogoina Lake State Park by dusk.  We pass Sonoita and follow the creek of the same name through the village of Patagonia and finally the state park.  The sun has set, yet still casts an orange reflection upon the lake.  We find our campsite, and then I hurry off to bird the last light, photograph the sunset, and send it off to Facebook Friends before the one bar of coverage disconnects me.  An owl is calling, waterfowl are quacking.  Birding will be good here at first light of dawn.

By flashlight, I catch up the journals at the picnic table, attracting scores of mosquitos.  The stars are brilliant; the campground is crowded but quiet.  Harry’s bat detector is crackling.  All seems right with the world, at least tonight, …at least for birds and birders.  I am mentally retired.

Trip Bird Count = 99; Big Year Count = 140; Life List = 446; Milepost 1,915

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day Five to Douglas

Harry is stirring long before me.  I can hear him out at the picnic table heating up water for breakfast.  Now if I can just find the courage to crawl out of this warm sleeping bag and quickly acquire some of that hot water for coffee, I will be able to find the energy to break camp.  The Mexican Jays are up too, which may have roused our neighbors one site up.  Everyone else is still fast asleep, even the baby across the way that cried me to sleep last night.

With a mug of caffeine consumed and working magic, and with the thought that this should be the day I take a commanding lead in the Big Year birding contest with my father, I pack the last of the gear.  As we depart the park entrance, the sun is just starting to break the ridge of the Chiricahua Mountains.  I photograph the park sign for my travel log, and we proceed up Pinery Canyon Road (aka) National Forest Road #42 toward Onion Saddle, Rustler Park, and the Southwestern Research Station.  As the jeep reaches maximum speed on the gravel road, a dozen or more mule deer are keeping pace on a parallel trajectory to my left.  There are at least five large bucks in the herd, and oddly they stay with us for several hundred yards – a fascinating start to the day.

As the canyon steepens, civilization is left behind.  We stop to bird the last dry water crossing, but nothing is stirring.  The habitat changes to standing burned pine.  In places, last year’s forest fire was so hot it licked up all the vegetation and soil, leaving only tall blackened skeletons.  Still, this habitat has the potential for good birding.  Death brings insects, and insects attract birds, especially woodpeckers.  We stop again high in the canyon to look and listen. (125) Red-naped Sapsucker instantly announces his presence…or disgust that there is no longer any sap to suck.  I stretch back to enjoy the deep blue sky above the flat-black snags.  I see what appears to be an ordinary Turkey Vulture, but then recall that Arizona hosts a species of hawk that mimics the vulture’s flight pattern.  I consult the field guide, and then inspect the soaring raptor.  Sure enough, I am looking at (126) Zone-tailed Hawk.

The jeep strains to achieve the elevation gained at each hairpin curve.  The wheels make a strange sound.  Dust in the rotor? Failing brakes?  Harry thinks the jeep might be imitating the mating call of the Elegant Trogon, and before long we’ll have to beat them off with windshield wipers.  The Trogon is of course the one single species that all birders come to SE Arizona to see, and which most leave disappointed for not having seen it.  There’s not much we can do about the sound or potential mechanical failure, except press on.  We reach 7,600-foot Onion Saddle, and I impose on Harry to give me 15 minutes with the birds.  “No problem, take your time,” he says.  I leave the jeep and head up a side hill toward the sound of something unrecognizable.  A large flock of mourning doves rise from the scorched earth, leaving a vapor cloud of fine-grained ash swirling behind.  But they are not what lure me.  One sounds like a warbler and another exhibit the sound like a finger sweeping quickly across a comb. Pine Siskin.

Both Harry and I chase woodpeckers all around Onion Saddle before giving up hope of getting a good look.  The road descends steeply toward South Fork and the sunny side of the Chiricahuas.  A few miles down, Harry and I get a sense that we have somehow missed the turn to Rustler Park.  Finding a safe turn around on the cliff-hanging road is not easy, but we manage, and retrace our path up the mountain.  And there at Onion Saddle, a road we had dismissed as simply a dead end, is the route to Rustler Park.  The campground is a well-known birding hotspot and one of the destinations on the itinerary.  The road climbs high into the towering and unburned pine.  We find a level spot beside the road where the forest understory is void of most vegetation due to the thick needled duff.  I wander off under the pines and hear ruby-crowned kinglets, but do not see them.

Rustler Park gate is opened to the picnic area, but closed to the campground, which the forest website stated would open on April 1.  No matter, I step across the low gate and explore the campground for birds.  (127) Steller’s Jay appears.  It seems, finally, we have reached the elevation where Mexican Jays yield to Steller’s.  On the way back down the mountain, there is another fork in the road, and we take it to Barfoot Park.  “Park” in the traditional sense is an open, typically grassy area in the middle of the forest.  The road hugs the north side of the mountain and harbors snow, ice and deep muddy ruts.  I tell Harry that if we proceed, this may in fact be our first bad decision of the trip.  …and so we proceed.  Once we navigate these hazards, the road descends, so much so that I worry about all of the elevation we will have to make up and whether we are headed the wrong way.

Just as I begin looking for a place to turn around, Barfoot Park opens before us like a heavenly oasis.  Tall pines guard a two-acre, grassy, sunny….well….”park.”  It’s the only way to describe it.  We both head separate directions – Harry to read the National Natural Landmark monument and I to chase birds on the far side.  Black Phoebe appears and fly-catches from a naked branch at the park’s edge.  We both get a little camera happy and inwardly celebrate the finding of such a quaint and quiet place.  Thoreau could have written a book here; Emerson and Frost – a poem or two.  On the return to Onion Saddle, we stop once more, and I chase down that woodpecker that has haunted me for an hour – (128) Williamson’s Sapsucker.

Before we know it, the forest road dumps us off at the American Museum of Natural History’s Southwestern Research Station.  It comes upon us so quickly that I have to back up to make the entrance.  The Southwestern station forever sold me on birding southeastern Arizona.  It was here on May 13-15, 1992 that I found 16 Lifers under the tutelage of the late great Bob Jennings, former Director of the Oxley Nature Center in Tulsa.  I remembered stepping out of the vehicle and seeing one new bird after another – too fast to even write them all down.  Ol’ Bob just chuckled as he clenched a pipe in his teeth and said, “calm down Wallace…we’ll get ‘em all.  Bob had arranged for our group to stay in the cabins for a couple of days.  I have returned twenty years later with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia.  Harry too, recalls his visit a year or two after mine.  The Friends of Devil’s Den State Park had financed his trip to the research station to study bats.  It was, and still is a cool place to be.  And it has hardly changed – except for the new book store.

I had arranged for us to have lunch with the visiting researchers, station staff, and college students.  The meal is served at noon, so Harry and I wander the grounds for forty minutes and stake out the hummingbird feeders.  (129) Blue-throated Hummingbirds come and go – a half dozen of them, and now and then a black-chinned.  Other birds are here, but nothing else new for the trip.  The bell clangs and we take our meal in the cafeteria.  There is about twenty of us, and the kitchen is serving leftovers.  It all looks tasty after camp food, and so we fill our plates and sit down with the staff.  One moved here from Germany, and another from the east coast.  The college students are on a spring break field trip for the week.  We swap stories, and 30 minutes later the cafeteria is quiet.  Harry and I are the last to leave.

Next stop is the popular birding area known as South Fork, Cave Creek.  Other birders are here, some enjoying lunch in the picnic area, and another couple straining to the sky with binoculars.  Harry stays with the jeep and I take off up the trail a fair piece.  The creek is flowing, the first one I have encountered since the Colorado River.  Beneath the towering and arching branches of an Arizona Sycamore, I shed both binoculars and shirt and splash the cold water to my face and body.  I am alone in the Chiricahua Wilderness Area.  The sun beams through the branches and illuminates the creek, creating the illusion of gold nuggets.  The rays are warm, and I desperately want to lay down and take a nap.  I suspect Harry is doing exactly that back in the jeep parked in the shade.  Instead, I gather my things and set out across the woods in hope of hearing birds away from the music of the creek.  I do encounter sparrows and yellow-eyed Juncos, and even a Bridled Titmouse or two, but nothing new….that is until I reach the parking lot.  I join in with another birding couple who locate for me (130) Hairy Woodpecker, who is being chased off by (131) Arizona Woodpecker.  It turns out that the Arizona Woodpecker is life bird 446.  I have several opportunities to view 2-3 birds as they circulate through the picnic area.  Finally, a (132) Painted Redstart makes his appearance.  I had heard them up the trail, but could not locate one.

The Itinerary, that task master that demands my allegiance, announces that it is time to push on toward the border town of Douglas.  I hate to leave the Chiricahua Mountains.  For it is here that I stand the best chance of seeing a Mexican Chickadee – but did not.  It is here that I am most likely to see an Elegant Trogon – but did not.  It was here, May 14, 1992 along this very creek that I indeed did see one – Life bird 275.  Typical of basin and range topography, we leave the steep-sided mountains of the Chiricahuas for the wide flat San Simon Valley, passing through Portal and entering New Mexico north of Rodeo.

Highway 80 reenters Arizona and stretches straight as an arrow toward the village of Apache, near where Geronimo finally surrendered to the US Army on September 4, 1886. Upon reaching Douglas, we find it a town of some size and speculate as to its population.  It is not so large that we need to consult a map to find our hotel, and what self-respecting pathfinder would.  We drive down one road and then the next until we reach….the Wall.  Suddenly we found ourselves face to face with Mexico.  Through the steel fence we can see a whole other city – a much larger one at that.  I could toss a stone into the busy streets of Agua Prieta – but don’t.  …Just the idea that we are that close to another world, functioning under different laws and language.  I had been to old Mexico before – long before 9/11.   Harry and I had crossed the Rio Grande to Boquillos back on December 7, 1990 – the same day I saw my first Vermillion Flycatcher (#240).  Borders and crossings will never be the same.

We locate the Best Western, secure the room for the night and get directions to the San Bernardino Wildlife Refuge from a rangeland ecologist we meet in the hotel lobby.  One right turn, a left, then another right, and soon we are on open road to the refuge.  Within just a mile of town the landscape is vast, harsh, and void of inhabitants.  Off to our right a mile or so is the “wall.”  Every half mile we pass a border patrol vehicle.  The road is rough and dusty.  (133) Greater Roadrunner darts across the road in front of us.

Shortly we are at the refuge entrance, and close enough to read the sign: Refuge open during daylight hours every day to walk-in traffic only.  Harry and I look at each other dumbfounded.  The road on the other side of the gate stretches for miles across a barren landscape of creosote bush, ocotillo, prickly pear, and a half dozen other species of plants designed to rip, snag, and tear.  We opt out and begin the drive back.  It wasn’t far from here, we were told that rancher Robert Krentz had been murdered on his own land by an illegal alien or member of the drug cartel exactly two years ago.  Such stories only heighten our sense of awareness.

Since we could not bird the refuge, I tell Harry I’d like to check out the dry washes on the way back.  We poke along in the jeep, periodically stopping, stepping out, and raising binoculars to the southern skies.  We are being watched.  Within minutes a border patrol truck passes us, then quickly turns around and begins to follow.  We break no rules except those that govern common sense.  Idaho plates, two grungy-looking guys, binoculars pointed south.  Yep, we made the drug smuggling profile, and the BP’s could stand it no longer.  Lights flashing, we are pulled over.  The officer approaches with great caution and keeps his hand on his gun at all times.  The greeting is friendly enough.  “Are you fella’s US Citizens?”  Yep!  “What are you doing in these parts?”  Birdwatching….. (dead silence).  I offer more information.  We were just out to the refuge.  “What refuge?”, he asks.  You know, the San Bernardino.  He acts like he has never heard of it, so I show him a photo from my digital camera.  He inspects it, and then says, “You fellas have a nice day.”  I am not sure his heart is in that statement as  his hand never leaves the gun.  Before we pull away, 3 more BP vehicles pass.  I had no concept of the DMZ until this very moment.  America – land of the free, and home of the very suspicious; but I suspect for good reason.

Back in Douglas, we find an authentic Mexican restaurant to enjoy the best of our southern neighbor’s cuisine.  Despite the cartels, the Transnational Criminal Organizations, and the illegal immigration, Mexico is a fascinating culture, language, and landscape.  Someday I would love to visit the deserts of Baja, the Sierra Madras, and the depths of Copper Canyon, but I wonder if it would ever be safe in my lifetime.  The US State Department travel warnings advise otherwise.

Apparently we are at the right restaurant; a black SUV with Sonora plates pulls up and two wealthy couples step out.  Coincidentally, we meet the rangeland ecologist again, and he slides over to our table to ask us about our trip to the refuge.  The ecologist, I learn is from Dillon, Montana and is just finishing a month of field work.  I speak Latin, so he and I immediately engage in a conversation about what cool plants he has located along the Black and Cottonwood Draws.  he is full of information and glad to be talking to two naturalists after days alone in the scrublands.

The Best Western sits nearly on the border.  We are both amazed at the line of traffic – not entering the US, but entering Mexico as dusk hurries on.  Many a song has been written about life in a border town, and here we are a part of it.  It is a world away from the tourist destinations of Cancun, Acapulco, or Puerto Vallarta.  Douglas|Prieta Agua is a place where people live, love, work, and dream for better.  From what I see, the Haves live south of here, and the Have Not’s do most of the dreaming.  I’ll be dreaming tonight as well.  For tomorrow brings the promise of a dozen new birds in Coronado National Monument, Ramsey Canyon, San Pedro Conservation Area, and Patagonia. It is time to fold the maps, close the field guides, and put down the pen.  It’s time to enjoy a rare night in a hotel bed.

Trip Bird Count = 91; Big Year Count = 133; Life List edges up slightly to 446; Milepost 1,745

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day Four to Chiricahua

Although spending the night in Organ Pipe Cactus was absolutely the right decision, its geographic position did put a strain on day four’s itinerary.  Today I meet Harry in Tucson at 9 a.m.  and I am still 140 miles away.  My internal clock wakes me at 3:09 a.m.  Still too early to leave, I lay wrapped in the sleeping bag until my cell phone clock reaches 3:50.  Ok, enough!  Time to roll out, take down, and shove off toward Tucson.

The stars continue their brilliant display, and border patrol agents their round-the-clock vigilance.  We are the only one’s stirring.  That fact makes me a bit nervous.  No doubt a jeep from Idaho at 4 a.m. on the Mexican border looks suspicious.  Every road headed south is guarded by the patrol.  It’s uncanny, unnerving, yet comforting….  It also keeps me honest to the speed limit.  Somewhere west of San Vicente, two state patrols approach in both lanes of the highway – lights blazing.  A pick-up some distance ahead meets them first and pulls off the road.  They keep coming.  On closer inspection I see it is not two, but four police vehicles.  I am stopped and the officer motions for me to get off the road.  Seconds later, I see why.  A giant wide load is headed straight for me.  From all indications it is some secret military weapon of mass destruction, or so I imagine.

As the sun rises, the excitement and apprehension fades.  I reach the McDonalds on the Ajo Highway, just west of Tucson.  Time to reorganize the jeep, buy some milk for my cereal and get ready for Harry to ride along for a few days.  The stop proves to be productive for birds as well.  (116) Gambel’s Quail perches and calls from the scrub in the vacant parking lot adjacent to the golden arches.  Phainopepla and Cactus Wren are also there.  After a repack and breakfast, I give Harry a call and seek additional directions to find his friend’s house in upscale Tucson near the base of Golden Gate Mountain.  Within minutes, I arrive and the repacking continues.

Harry and I worked together as interpreters (naturalists) from 1988 into the spring of ’94 at Devil’s Den State Park in Arkansas.  His love for geography, the west, the Colorado Plateau, and bats matches my unquenchable desire for mountains, canyons, sagebrush, and of course birds.  We had made several trips west back in the day, and since my permanent relocation to the west, we have met up every few years or so to explore new country.  My type-A planning fits well with his laid-back, no agenda, retired, “whatever” philosophy.  It easily rubs off, and I quickly lose any allegiance to my itinerary.

Soon enough we are rolling down I-10 toward the CCC-built Pima County Park known as Colossal Cave.  Harry wants to check out the cave, and I am perfectly content to remain on the surface with the birds. I drop him off and head for the historic ranch.  The heat of the day is approaching, but the burning sun feels good.  Still, I find myself chasing birds deep into the shady cottonwoods.  A number of them are grubbing around in the leaves and tangled brush.  I find a park bench and wait them out.  Twenty minutes later I am laughing for having spent so much time trying to convince myself that the bird in view is a Pyrruloxia, when in fact it is a common female (117) Northern Cardinal.  I have been west too long, and forgot the differences (beak color being the most obvious).  Worse, I spend equal angst over (118) Lark Sparrows, and (119) Northern Mockingbird – Arkansas’ State Bird!  I should know better.  But being out of my geographical element, and expecting to find so many new and strange birds, even the easy/common one’s suddenly mascaraed as would-be lifers.

With a few additions to the Big Year List, I am ready to meet Harry at the cave entrance and head to the next hotspot – the Twin Lakes of Wilcox, where the guidebooks tell me I am sure to pick up waterfowl on the ponds near the golf course.  The sign asks visitors to register upon arrival so that the chamber of commerce can prove that birders are good for business.  We dropped at least $75 in fuel and food in Wilcox so I am guessing we proved their point.  The ponds are indeed harboring waterfowl, mostly shovelers and coots; but I do add three birds to the trip list, and one for the Big Year – (120) Ruddy Duck.  Harry manages to show great interest in the birds for all of 15 minutes, and then declares, “OK, Chiricahua!”  And in the words of Captain William Clark (May 14th 1804) “[we] proceeded on under a jentle brease.”

The nice thing about traveling with a retiree is getting into federal parks for free and half price on camping.  I gladly chip in the other $6 for the campsite at Chiricahua National Monument.  It’s not long before we are inspected (not by rangers), but (121) Mexican Jays.  The Chiricahua ”sky island” of the Mexican Highlands is one of the few places in the US to find them.  Even so, they are numerous and obnoxious.

We turn our attention to sightseeing, driving to the high point, taking photos, and hoping for a little wildlife action.  Disappointment creeps in as we see the devastation the fires of the previous year have had, both on forest and birds.  It just feels dead.  The sun is in our eyes, the wind is raging, and the birds are nowhere.  The geology, mind you, is odd and inspiring, but I had planned for dense green forests teaming with life as the last of winter snow swell the streams.  My itinerary did not prepare me for this.

As the sun continues its descent, we decide to check out the historic Faraway Ranch.  The structure is colorful and perfectly placed in the canyon.  The wayside exhibits reveal the building’s history, and how Neil and Emma Erickson settled here in Bonita Canyon in the late 1880′s.  The house served as The Coronado National Forest ranger station for a time.  Harry and I both see more than an historic house, but a plethora of photographic opportunities, from the windmill to the old glass knobs on the barn door.  we spend 30 minutes checking it all out.  That is until (122) Chipping Sparrow and (123) Bridled Titmouse begin to distract me back to the real reason I came here.

The last light fades and Harry and I begin the evening chores: supper, journaling, reading a good book, and chasing down a white-breasted nuthatch that is working the canopy directly above the tent.  The night closes in, and the 3 a.m. wake-up call this previous morning is now catching up to me.  I will sleep well tonight.

Trip Count = 79; Big Year Count = 123; Life List holding steady at 445.  Milepost 1,605.

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day Three to Organ Pipe Cactus

Monday, March 26; 5:15 a.m.  Quick shower, pack the jeep and check out by 6.  On the road again, in the dark.  I really want to be somewhere spectacular when the sunrises and the birds wake up.  Leaving Parker, Arizona, I continue southbound on Hwy 95.  I would love to be at my first planned destination (Palm Canyon in the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge) by sun-up, but  I fear it’s just out of reach.

Racing along I can sense the dawn.  I drive faster, the earth spins faster.  Nope, there is no beating the sunrise, so I begin to look for some cool photo opportunity.  The Plomosa Mountains are too far to the east to make an interesting foreground for the sunrise, but I snap a few images anyway.  Suddenly, in the distance I can make out a few scraggly saguaro cacti.  Now that would be neat…but these are poor excuses for a saguaro – no arms or anything.  Far to the east many more stand tall and typical; but the sun is rising fast.  The sign says Plomosa Road and it runs east toward the mountains and cactus.  I spin in and race to the best of them.  Hundreds of yards off the road (either side) are dry-camping RV snowbirds.  This is BLM country and free camping abounds.  Soon enough I find my own quiet place and perfectly posed saguaro for a sunrise backdrop.  Snap, snap, and that’s that.

In the cool morning air, in the quiet of the desert, I find peace.  No need to hurry now, just relax, look around and smell the cactus flowers.  But wait, there’s a new bird cranking up!  I would recognize that voice any day, the best sound effect of any Hollywood western.  It’s (111) Cactus Wren.  Usually this sound is heard when the cowboy is riding under a scorching noon-day sun, all sweaty, horse giving out, and only one drop of water left in the canteen.  Then the Red-tailed hawk cries; camera fades to circling vultures.  The cowboy’s doom is near.  But not on this cool morning, down Plomosa Road.

I roll into to the RV town of Quartzite.  Never in my life have I seen so many RV’s in one place; and I am in the campground business!  It would not be a stretch to say there were at least a thousand, many migrating north to the cool mountains states of Idaho, Montana, or Colorado.  I stop into McDonalds for a coffee refill and a chance to send a photo home with the free Wi-Fi.  Next stop, Kofa National Wildlife Refuge.  Kofa….such a strange name.  I just have to look that one up. (NOTE: The Kofa Mountains are named for the rich King of Arizona gold mine, discovered in King Valley in 1896. The mine used to stamp its property “K of A” and is commonly known as the Kofa Mine.)

I reach Kofa and milepost 975 via the Palm Canyon Road, which takes me within a 1/4 mile of my intended destination - the California fan palms (Washingtonia filifera) of Palm Canyon, perched high in the cliffs of the volcanic Kofa Mountains.  I am the first to the parking lot, but soon a family of four from Oregon arrives.  The canyon is cool and shady, as the sun will not reach this place for at least another hour.  I begin the steep and ankle-twisting hike wearing shorts and a T-shirt.  burr.  keep moving!  Birds are singing, and I finally locate the source: (112) Lesser Goldfinch.  Many other species are hear, previously recorded, like canyon wren, black-throated sparrows and house finches…and some small hummingbird that defies all attempts to be identified.

I share my findings with the family from Oregon that have caught up to me.  They live in Bend, and the father states they are on spring break and getting their desert “fix.”  Apparently a visit to southern Arizona has become their family tradition.  He says they plan to be in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument later today.  I reveal my scheduled destination tonight is Tucson Mountain Park, but that I might add the monument to my tour.  We photograph the palms, and then I leave them high and dry in the canyon.  I have many birding hotspots planned.  Back in the parking lot, I decide this is as good a place as any for breakfast, and munch down a bowl of granola.  The sun reaches the parking lot, and the chill dissipates.

The landscape levels and plants become scarce as the highway enters the Yuma Proving Grounds.  I pass through my first border patrol check station without incident.  The only thing these drug-sniffing German shepherds are going to smell is the pee-stained tires courtesy of my yellow lab back home.  A right on Fishers Landing Road and I am on my way to Imperial National Wildlife Refuge, which hugs the banks of the lower Colorado River.  Of the previous two wildlife refuges I have visited, this one has a visitor center and encourages the tourist to wander in.  Feeders at the building’s entrance attracts hummingbirds, and offer my first close-up look of (113) Gila Woodpecker.  The volunteer behind the desk is friendly and helpful, and soon the conversation turns to “where are you from and what brought you here?”  It turns out the lady and I have something in common – we both lived in Arkansas at the same time.  She was the manager at one of my favorite restaurants in Little Rock.  Small world.

The jeep bounces down the dusty road that takes me deeper into the refuge.  The only woodlands here are tightly held by the river bank.  I explore a section of them and scare up a small flock of (114) Verdins.  The road continues to a series of overlooks.  Perched high above the marshes, I locate Pied-billed Grebe and a few Bufflehead but nothing else.  Time for a hike.  The 1.3-mile painted desert trail winds through the remains of an ancient volcano.  The brochure advises that I “…wear sunscreen and carry plenty of water.  The Sonoran Desert can be dangerously hot and dry.  Watch out for wildlife, avoid disturbing rattlesnakes, scorpions, tarantulas and spiders…” I strike out with only camera and binoculars.  The trail features are attractive, the sun is intense, and the birds are quiet.  I see nothing but a lizard.  I hear nothing but my own heartbeat and panting…..water…water…. (cut to scene of vultures circling).  Is that a cactus wren I hear?

As wonderful a place as Imperial is, birding here at high noon is unproductive.  Down the road to Yuma and I-8 East.  Upon reaching the fuel stop at Gila Bend, I wrestle with my choices.  Press on and reach the scheduled Tucson Mountain Park in time to set up camp and bird the Saguaro cactus forest, or…..make the drive south to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument – voted by rangers as the most dangerous unit of the National Park System.  I literally sit paralyzed with the choices….   3:26 p.m.  It is at this point that I remember a line from Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken”

Two roads diverged…, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked….

…Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back….
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged…, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

The choice also leads to Keck’s first rule of cross-country travel: Itineraries are more like guidelines anyway; create no future regrets.  Turning right onto Hwy 85 South…toward the border towns of Lukeville (USA) and Sonoyta (Mexico), I embrace the adrenalin and euphoria that comes with meeting the unknown head-on.  Two border check stations later, I arrive at the visitor center after closing.  I take a moment to stretch my legs and visit the quiet and unassuming monument for Ranger Kris Eggle, who gave his life protecting visitors from drug traffickers on August 9, 2002.  I feel I owe it to Kris to spend the night in this incredible place, to say thanks.  Your efforts were not in vain.  Hundreds of border patrol agents roam the highways and low-ways now.  This may in fact be the safest national park to visit.

Quickly the tent is set, and I am off in the last light of evening to wander among the Saguaro, Ocotillo, and the park’s name sake – Organ Pipe Cactus.  This species grows wild nowhere else in the country.  I am impressed.  No, I am awe-struck by the pristine beauty of this Biosphere Reserve.  Deserts are biologically diverse, and thankfully, this one was set aside in 1937 to preserve it for future generations.  I am one of those generations.  Places like this make me proud and thankful to be living in the United States.  National Parks are still one of America’s best contributions to the world.  I am camera happy.  My travels may never take me back here again.

Vincent van Gogh could not have painted a more impressive Starry Starry Night than the fingernail moon and Venus that are on display above my tent.  I sit at the table under a dim light and scribble notes in the journal, record the few birds I have seen, and sip a V8.  Down the road, a few sites over, my friends from Oregon have arrived and are setting up camp.  A (115) Common Poorwill sings, then flies overhead.  Lagging behind him, I make out the silhouette of a bat.  Crickets chirp.  …I have no regrets.

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day Two to Parker, Arizona

Snow Canyon…what a peaceful place.  I awake at 5:13 a.m., break camp and leave in the dark for Vegas, Needles, Lake Havasu and the promise of a great day of birding.  Not a single soul is stirring as I depart the park toward downtown St. George, and what I hope will be at least one open Starbucks.  A venti breakfast blend and blueberry scone later, I am pedal down and southbound I-15.  Dawn is breaking off to my left.  With each passing minute grows a promising and dramatic sunrise.  I can’t help but take the first exit, drive up a 4×4 trail straight up the mountain and wait for the perfect photo.

My original itinerary demands that I bird Snow Canyon, leave the park at 8 a.m. and be in Vegas for fuel by 10:00.  The rebel inside told my type A twin, “whatever!”  for the first three hours of the morning, nothing had gone according to plan, and I was better for it.  Now suddenly up ahead was a sign reading “Virgin River Canyon Recreation Area” – a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) site that I neither observed on the map nor had planned to visit.  The rebel takes the wheel and we pull off the Interstate for a look.

OK, I need to be birding this early part of the morning, and I can always drive through the heat and quiet of the day.  I pay the day use fee, switch the tennis shoes for boots, load up the gear and head down the trail into the canyon.  The Virgin River happens to be one of my favorites.  As early as 1984, I hiked its source up the narrows of Zion Canyon.  Since then, Zion has always ranked in the top three of my favorite national park sites.  Here I am in the mystic NW corner of Arizona, following the river through yet another canyon.  And it proves to be exactly the right place to be.  I add trip list birds immediately – House Finch and Rock Wren.  But this is where it really gets good.

The smallest of wood warblers is playing hide and seek with me.  I recognize right away that this is going to be a “good” bird.  Finally, with a little coaxing, I spy the needed field marks to confirm (96) Lucy’s Warbler.  Better yet, my records indicate that I have never seen this bird before!  Life bird #442, the first one of the trip.

No sooner had my celebration abated than I was revved up again for a Towhee that began calling in the nearby brush.  We danced, bobbed, and weaved, until he revealed a dark patch around the eyes and beak and rufous undertail coverts, proving him to be (97) Abert’s Towhee, and Life Bird #443.  And to think I did not plan to stop here.  I am particularly fond of this bird, remembering that the name commemorates James William Abert who was both an American Ornithologist and member of John C Fremont’s third expedition.   Fremont, (for whom my middle name is derived) remains to this day one of my greatest mentors – in spirit anyway.  No doubt he mentored a young lieutenant Abert on that expedition as well.  Another factoid occurs to me.  I am standing on the very spot where Fremont’s second expedition would have traveled in early May of 1844.

A vireo is now calling in the trees next to the river.  I leave the Towhee to investigate.  The rhythm of the song is typical vireo.  I must see him to be sure of the species.  None of the vireos have yet made either the trip list or big year list, so the effort to find him is time well spent.  Every look, whether it is well lit or dim, reveals a small gray bird.  Most vireos have some white or yellow, an eye stripe or eye ring, but this one wants to defy easy identification.  There is a faint eye ring, but nothing else.  I consult the field guide and discover that (98) Gray Vireo matches all descriptions and voice.  The range is perfect.  I had not considered Gray Vireo because (drum roll), I had never seen this species before!  Life Bird #444.  I am not worthy.

To stay along the river another minute might have meant spending a half day.  The place is incredible, and perhaps too incredible.  I simply must get to the well-known birding hotspots along the Colorado River – Havasu National Wildlife Refuge.  8:15 a.m.; reluctantly I drive toward the chaos of Las Vegas, realizing that my next birding stop is hours and nearly 250 miles away.

Rolling into Las Vegas on a Sunday morning is much easier than one might expect.  The saints are in church, and the sinners are trying to sober up from last night’s “don’t-ask-don’t-tell” party on the strip.  The highway is open to big-year birders, and I cruise right through to the “Do it Again” lyrics of Steely Dan.  “Now you swear and kick and beg us that you’re not a gambling man; then you find you’re back in Vegas with a handle in your hand….”  Neither the slots, smoke-filled all-you-can-eat buffets, nor the promised odds can ever entice a big year birder from his quest.  I reach Searchlight, Nevada by 11:18 a.m. and Needles, California by noon.

Just across the Colorado River lies the green oasis of Mohave Valley and Pintail Slough – Havasu National wildlife Refuge.  The refuge gate is locked, so I park and walk in.  Clouds of ash and saline dust rise at my feet.  The whole place has recently burned, whether by intent or accident is unclear.  I am all alone – no other birders at high noon in the desert.  But there are birds.  I see a raft of ducks in the far reach of the slough.  Shorebirds are near me, and some sort of flycatcher is perching from a post.  I work the flycatcher first and easily identify him as (99) Black Phoebe.  Next up, I add (100) Snowy Egret.  The ducks are all shovelers, so I move in on the four shorebirds probing the mud flat.  I give them a full 15 minutes until I am convinced they can be none other than (101) Long-billed Dowitchers.  A pair of (102) Great Egrets fly in near the snowy, and the size difference is immediately evident.

Havasu NWR is long, linear and filled with many recommended hotspots.  I proceed on to the next – Five-mile Landing.  An old Hispanic man stands on the dock and fishes.  He finds me strangely out of place with my white knobby knees and dangling binoculars.  Another group of men are launching a bass boat into the white caps.  An obnoxious (103) Great-tailed Grackle squawks from a snag half submerged in the lake.  The wind is howling here, and it blows in a flock of (104) Northern Rough-winged Swallows.  behind the protective shrubs along the shoreline, the wind is silent, and I stalk (105) Eastern Phoebe, rarely seen this far west.  (106) Ladder-backed Woodpecker gives a shout and simultaneously gives away his hiding spot in a dead willow.  Finally, with one last series of pishes a pair of (107) Black-tailed Gnatcatchers come forth to be counted.  Furthermore, they bring my life list to #445.

A half hour later, I find myself in the thick of spring break – Lake Havasu City.  I must navigate this tourist mecca and find my way to the Bill Williams National Wildlife Refuge south of town.  Since I need to stop for fuel, I might as well drive down to the London Bridge and see about all the fuss.  The parking lot is full; a bungee-flicking carnival ride is jettisoning a pair of screaming teens hundreds of feet into the air.  Foreign languages are common place, and loud reggae music is blasting from the boat docks.  Scantily-clad college girls giggle and flirt with dark-skinned men.  Hot dogs and trinkets all around.  And yet in the midst of wind and noise and festivities a group of coots swim in the shade of the bridge abutment.  No one even notices, but me.

20 miles south, the Bill Williams arm of the lake is being fed by a river of the same name.  Its source is the McCloud Mountains and mesas just west of Prescott; and yet here it is just a trickle, a few inches deep.  Such is the life of a river in the Sonoran Desert.  The refuge, I learn, is named for mountain man Old Bill Williams, a missionary turned trapper in the early 1800′s.  Fremont also walked these hills.  I feel right at home.  The refuge is overlooked by nearly everyone but hunters in season and the occasional birder.  Right away, I realize I am somewhere special.  A Saguaro cactus grows beneath the shade of a cottonwood – very strange.  I am on the edge of the great Sonoran Desert.  I have left the Mohave.  Life clings to the narrow ribbon of Rio Colorado.

A trail leads me deep beneath the tangled salt cedar and towering Fremont cottonwoods.  One would expect the habitat to scream with bird activity, but there is only silence.  a group of young teens and their dog have found the sandy river crossing and have come for a swim.  We exchange pleasantries.  I quickly depart for quieter paths.  Once out of the riparian zone, the hills quickly rise and become nearly void of vegetation; yet here I am able to sit atop the cliff and peer into the forest.  Soon enough, Big Year birds are added: (108) Phainopepla , an all-black-looking cardinal, (109) Black-throated Sparrow, and (110) Western Kingbird.

The evening approaches, I am exhausted, and decide the count is as good as it gets under the conditions.  My goal, my task-master itinerary states that I am to spend the night at Buckskin Mountain State Park.  The place is packed with RV’s, bustling activity and little feeling of wildness.  I can’t bear to camp here; so I proceed down the road to Parker and find a quiet, unassuming room in Motel 6.  Dusty, trail-weary birders just need a bed and bath.  It’s been a good day, and by the numbers Day Two Trip count = 60; Big Year List = 110.  Life list = 445.  Milepost 903.

The Big Year Birding Trip: Day One to Snow Canyon

The Jeep is packed and waiting….waiting to back out of the garage and gear forward ultimately to the Mexican Border on the Big Year birding trip.  But first I need a little shut-eye, to wait until the appointed time on my meticulously planned itinerary to arrive.

Saturday, March 24, Day One and dark-thirty: my eyes mysteriously open of their own volition.  The moment has arrived.  A quick hose-down in the shower, a fresh pot of coffee stowed away, a last goodbye kiss to the wife and I am off.  Mile zero, 5:45 a.m.  The destination today is Snow Canyon State Park, about 530 miles south of Almo, at the bottom of Utah.

The jeep rumbles down the 34 miles of dirt road prior to pavement, dodging and surprising mule deer, blacktail jackrabbits and mountain cottontails.  O Lord, don’t let me run over a rabbit on my quest to see birds!  Up over Rattlesnake Pass in the dark, down to the first lights of Tremonton and Brigham City.  Most folks are still fast asleep.  I pass very few cars.

I arrive at the Bear River refuge visitor center in the dark.  The lights of Brigham City twinkle to the east against the high Wasatch Mountains, and I attempt a photo.  A cool breeze settles into the valley.  I close my eyes and wait.  Wait for a sound, a bird, for first light.  Frogs are calling in the small marsh below – but they don’t count. So, who will be first?  Who will be bird number one for the trip list?  6:36 a.m.  two killdeer argue over something in the parking lot.  I can’t see them yet, but no matter, the call is loud and familiar.  The pen comes out and the list begins.

Details, details.  I will have much to record over the next eight days: my personal journal, the gas log book, the trip list of birds, the big year list, and of course the most important and shortest list – the Life List – birds I have never seen before.  Killdeer was already recorded on the Big Year list as #81 on March 10.  He made my life list on January 10, 1987, at DeGray Lake Resort State Park in Arkansas where I served as park naturalist and interpreter.  But no one cares about such details – except for me.  Birders love to list.  They keep life lists, year lists, state lists, county list, backyard lists, and even lists of birds they have seen or heard while keeping one foot inside a hula-hoop randomly thrown on the ground in a given area on a given day.  Birding at this level is one step from insanity.  I am almost there.

Back at the refuge, critters are cranking up. Sandhill crane and song sparrow are quickly added by sound alone; then coot and meadowlark.  The first bird seen at first light is northern shoveler.  Not until I leave the parking lot and begin the auto tour around the loop road do I actually record the first new bird for the Big Year list – (87) Cinnamon Teal.  Flying over the marsh is the rarely encountered (88) Short-eared owl, who hunts at dawn and dusk.  A group of (89) American Avocets have just arrived from Mexico – such an elegant bird.  Along the roadside reeds I keep an eye out for and find a flock of (90) Yellow-headed Blackbirds.  Near the half-way point on the far side of the loop, I encounter a mating pair of (91) Clark’s Grebes, and just as quickly locate an equally engaged pair of Western Grebes.  The two species easily told apart simply by the amount of white on the side of the face.  Clark’s having white above the eye, and Western’s mostly black.

A flock of swallows are buzzing the small inlet bridge between two large marshes.  I better stop and identify.  In the low light it is frustrating to pick out color.  The lack of it might mean Northern Rough-winged Swallow, but my money is on someone else.  One keeps lighting on a fence post, then does a quick loop and back.  If she will just turn her back a little, maybe I will see some color.  Yes! (92) Violet-green Swallow.  Good girl.

All told, I pick up 32 birds at this first stop, 6 of which are new for the Big Year.  A good start.  The itinerary cries out, “your behind!”  I should be driving through Ogden by now.  I snap a few photos of a flock of pelicans and depart the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge for Snow Canyon.  The schedule only allows for fuel stops until I reach the state park, but still, birding at 80 miles per hour is possible.  I add Rock Dove, glancing toward the grain silos of Ogden.

Snow Canyon State Park, on the short-skirt of St. George, is a first for me.  In my travels, (so much as it is feasible) I try to visit every state and national park.  I should tally them someday, but I am sure to have seen over three quarters of the national parks in the country, and a few hundred state parks.  The dates and places are all recorded in one of the 30 years of journals on the shelf back home.  Snow Canyon, I discover, has nothing to do with snow or the gleaming white sandstone walls, but is named after Lorenzo and Erastus Snow, prominent pioneering Utah leaders.  The canyon has been featured in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, The Electric Horseman, and Jeremiah Johnson – three excellent films.  The state park ranger greets me at the entrance station.  Fortunately I made a reservation for the last campsite a week ago.  There aren’t many sites, and the park is crowded.

It’s difficult to set up camp, when birds are calling all around.  Forget the tent; I need to figure out what hummingbird is perched on the snag above the picnic table!  Again, the light is deceiving, but I can clearly see that the red extends from the throat to the crown.  Anna’s!  Bummer, she is already on the big year list, but a nice addition for the trip.  Tiny sparrows dash in and out of the brush next to the tent pad.  I will never get this tent erected if these birds won’t stop distracting.  An apple, a V8, and piece of sourdough bread later, I am off to bird.

I ask the lady at the front desk where she thinks the best place to go birding might be, and where a natural course of water may yet persist; birds love water, riparian areas tucked away in the desert.  She informs me the place is completely dry, but I might want to try the West Canyon road (closed to vehicles).  I take the advice and begin my hike in the cool of the evening.  Most day-users are packing up and headed for home.  I have the trail to myself.  But the birds are not on the trail.  Up a side canyon I depart the path and find a rocky perch from which to pish.  Soon bushtits are answering back.

Back on the trail for only a few hundred yards, I cannot resist the desire to strike off trail down a sandy creosote-choked wash.  My bushwhacking alerts (93) Bewick’s Wren.  That’s a good one!  I don’t even remember the last one of those I saw.  Say’s Phoebe pops up as well.  A flock of (94) White-crowned Sparrows show annoyance at my intrusion – first at the campsite, and now here in the outback.  In the silence between pishes, (95) White-throated Swifts cry out as they dive bomb from canyon cliffs.  The wash gives way to walls of red sandstone on the north and black basalt on the right – very colorful and geologically odd.  A lone Canyon Wren sings a descending and depressive song.  It’s time for supper, time to catch up the trip journal, and collapse alone in the middle of my spacious two-person tent.

In the echoing silence of Snow Canyon, I can hear the campers one site over talking about conservation, rock climbing, and adventures past.  How I would love to join into that conversation.  No sooner had I formed that thought, than my memory goes blank, and I am surely fast asleep.

Post Script: Day One Trip count = 41; Big Year List = 95.  Life list remains steady at 441.  Milepost 526.

Many are the Plans

I came across this truth the other morning while struggling between reading my daily devotional and spending more time planning my next big birding trip: Many are the plans in a man’s heart,  but it is the LORD’s purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21).  By now I am sure that everyone who knows me, as well as a few strangers in sporting goods stores, on the streets of Burley and Twin Falls, and even out there on the web knows that I am planning a trip to Southeast Arizona to see birds.  I have sold the second car to finance the junket.  I have planned it so thoroughly that I can live and relive the trip I have not yet taken in my mind.  I know every road, every pond, dry wash, mountain peak and desert canyon I will explore in search of species I will see nowhere else this year.  O yes, there are many, many plans in my heart……but it is the Lord’s purposes that will prevail.

And what will He show me?  Elegant Trogons?  Flame-color Tanagers? Yellow-eyed Juncos?  Yes!  This and more I am sure.  But to what end?  To win the big year contest with dad of course, …but also to find Him.  Though He is within me and everywhere present, it is often only in the change of season and change of scenery do I see Him anew…and I find myself again in Him.  The places I plan to go are not typical vacation destinations, but the very landscapes man has tried to avoid for centuries – hot, desolate, desert canyons and dry creekbeds lined with plants that poke, and critters that sting, strike and bite.  How can one find God there, and how can one find themselves in lost places?

I am reminded that Jesus was led into the desert by the Spirit; the Lord found Hagar in the desert; Moses found God there; Elijah fled to the desert as did David; and John the Baptist called it home.  I am like a desert owl, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof.  (Psalm 102:6-7).  I could use a new perspective, one which becomes clearer on the other side of this trip.  Yes, I will find more birds for the Big Year list, perhaps more than at any other time or place this year; but I will also find Him….who cuts a torrent of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no man lives, a desert with no one in it, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass. (Job 38:25-37).  And yet, God put so many of his birds there.  Why?  For me. …and I intend to find them.

Though I have planned my escape to the deserts of Chihuahuan, Mojave, and Sonoran, God has also been good to me in the Basin and Range, and the Snake.  In recent weeks, I have edged my list up to 86 – a little here, a little there.  While in search of the season’s first wildflower (Widewing Spring Parsley) on March 9, I also came into a small flock of (79) Bushtit.  The following day I added (80) Marsh Wren and (81) Killdeer out to Lake Walcott. (82) Sandhill Cranes came calling on the 13th, and posed for the long lens.  (83) Say’s Phoebe stopped by the office a few days later.  This week (84) Turkey Vulture, (85) California Gull, and (86) American White Pelican have returned.  These are all good birds for the list, but mere child’s play for the bounty that awaits me in the western wastelands.  Soon, my father’s lead will crumble as well his plans for victory, never to rise again.

The bags are packed, and have been for days; the route and schedules are complete, and soon I will be headed south to meet the birds head on – headed north for the season.  I have made my plans, now May he give [me] the desire of [my] heart and make all [my] plans succeed.

…the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands. Isaiah 32:8

Seek the LORD while he may be found (in the desert Southwest); call on him while he is near. Isaiah 55:6

Are you coming?  You are invited.

The Meaning of Snowy Owls

It dawned on me this evening….Snowy Owls don’t travel 200 miles just to see people.  So who’s the bird-brain now?  Since late last December through the end of February, several Snowy Owls have been hanging around Roosevelt Road, near the 8th Ward of the LDS Church in Nampa, Idaho. Birders have flocked to see them. I’ve done my homework, Google-earthed the area, read the list-serve reports, emailed a few birders in-the-know, and even called the Deer Flat NWR biologist and begged for the latest beta.  Most of my birding buds have seen the owls.  It is my turn to log the sighting before this irruption year is over.  Otherwise, it could be years or an expensive trip to Alaska before I have another opportunity to see this ghostly raptor, life bird four hundred-something, and sweet addition to the Big Year List.  Furthermore, dad is not likely to see this one, and I need a few species to match his tally of Florida birds I will not see.

Susan and I were all primed to make the trip last Saturday…and then the blizzard came.  Never mind that its exhausting to drive 3-4 hours in a white-out, it’s also difficult to see “snowy” owls.  We put the trip off until this morning, Saturday, March 3.  The weatherman promises warm weather, and mostly sunny skies.  It’s gray and windy, but we are committed. She wants me to get this owl; I want her to get the new purse she has been talking about since we passed it up in the Layton Mall last month.  We both have our agendas, and remain transparent about the definition of today’s success.

In route, I mention to Susan that I plan to make a slight detour off I-84 and check out Bruneau Dunes State Park.  I seem to recall that California Quail were easy to flush there.  Below the dunes and hugging the shoreline of the lake is a thin strip of shrubs.  Migrating waterfowl might have moved this far north already, and the habitat is perfect; the Snake River is also nearby.  She and I last visited Bruneau together on September 13, 1990, during a trip that took us from Arkansas to Glacier National Park and back.  I have visited this special place at least once every year since moving to Southern Idaho.  The Dunes tower up to 470 feet against a basalt canyon rim.  On most winter days the gray sand blends with a gray sky and photographs just don’t do it justice.  But then, on those early summer sunrises against a perfectly blue horizon, the dunes come alive like a newly discovered, National Geographic destination.

At road’s end, the dunes rise up almost immediately from the parking lot and picnic area.  “I’m just going over there to check for quail,” I say as I strap on the camera and binocs.  She glances up, smiles and then returns to her Kindle and volume two of The Hunger Games.  I fumble with the gear, and barely notice that the first tree I reach is hosting a flock of thrush-like birds.  The dune is striking a reflective pose on the far side of the lake, just as a coot breaks the glass-like scene with its wake.  Perfect photo.  I glance back to the tree, and sense that these are not robins.  Blue back on orange belly immediately registers as (77) Western Bluebird.  I can’t even remember the last time I saw one.  Idaho’s state bird – the mountain bluebird - is common in the Albion Mountains, but a “western” has not been reported there in decades.

Delighted at my quick addition to the Big Year List, I proceed across the edge of the dune toward the brush and lake’s edge.  Juncos flit from the ground as I approach, and robins are scolding from safe perches above.  At water’s edge, coots nervously paddle to open water.  It’s a beautiful morning, and already I am wishing I had an hour or two to walk around the east side of the lake.  So many species are singing that it is difficult to single them out.  I sense that spring is having contractions – pushing its way out of winter.  Soon, new life will arrive, and the chill will be a distant memory.

A single yellow-rumped warbler pops up from the entanglement and becomes species #16 for the day.  Suddenly she is joined by a small flock of (78) Cedar Waxwings.  I check intently for the white wing stripe and extra yellow markings on primary feathers that indicate Bohemian Waxwing.  None are present, and so I remain convinced of my identification.  To be sure, I take a few photos for examination later, back at the “lab.”  The dune steepens and my boots create miniature landslides, carving them in slow motion as spittles of sand cascade down.  A guy could lose ten pounds just trying to hike to the top of this dune.  I am headed to the base and the web of Russian Olive branches that surely hide my quail.

For weeks, I have imagined stopping here just to add California Quail, as if it would be as easy as seeing Starlings on my way to work.  I suppose I have nurtured this thought because it was right here, during that 1990 trip, that I observed my life bird of this species.  I saw it once nearly 22 years ago, so naturally it should be easy to see it here again.  Perhaps nostalgia breeds dimentia.  I enter the lair of the quail, the entanglement of unforgiving and non-bending branches, ducking ever lower to avoid a poke in the eye.  There are too many branches to steer clear of, and one that has escaped my attention plucks my ball cap from off my head like a gust of wind.  Eventually the branches force me to a knee-crawl; It is only then that I realize, the brush will not give up its quail today.  Time is running out, and I need to return to my abandoned wife, patiently waiting in the jeep.  Moments later, I find her still contently reading The Hunger Games, and feasting on a bag of Sun Chips.  There’s something so wrong about that.

We proceed on toward the goals: Snowy Owls and the purse.  Nampa, Exit 33A (Highway 55 South), I remind myself silently.  A sheet of paper with a scribbled map is clutched in my left hand, and the right cautiously steers through more traffic than I have seen in months – including the trip to Ogden.  Susan looks over, and I can see what she is thinking….”The desolation of Almo is looking pretty good right about now.”  Traffic jams in southern Cassia County are defined by whether you are driving into or behind a herd of cattle.  The former is more preferred, as the cows part like the Red Sea before Moses’ staff.  Drivers in Nampa look at me like Pharaoh must have to Moses when he first showed up and said “Let my people go!”  Yeah, right.  Get in line and wait your turn.

West Karcher Road, passing Midland Boulevard, passing North Middleton, turning south on Midway…..who names consecutive roads Midland, Middleton, and Midway?  Who can keep them straight?  Whatever happened to First Street, Second Street, etc.?  I am looking for owls, not trying to navigate an urban maze.  Finally, we arrive at the southern edge of the city where subdivisions give way to plowed fields and horse pastures.  “OK, Start looking!”, I command my copilot with great anticipation.  A giant white bird in a brown field should be easy to spot.  Turning left on Roosevelt, anticipation builds; this is ground zero.

We navigate into the subdivision south of the road where the last report has a single owl lurking in a plowed field just behind the newly constructed row of homes.  In the gaps between houses, I scope the fields, wondering if housewives are peering through their second story windows and worrying about what this strange man with binoculars is looking at, or looking for.  “It’s ok,” I tell them silently, “my wife is here.”  Little children are playing ball in the side yard.  “Nope, I am not some stranger looking to offer candy.”  I am a birder!  Perfectly harmless.  I hate birding in the city.

Next, I navigate to the LDS Church parking lot, hoping they will not detect that I am a card-carrying Baptist, and run me off the property (Note to my LDS friends: we don’t actually issue membership cards or get them punched when we are saved). From here I can scan the fields to the west and north. My heart leaps as I spy a white object near the irrigation ditches two hundred yards away.  Yes!  This must be the object of my affection.  Blood pulses through my heart and rushes to my head; I turn the focus wheel and lock in the Snowy Five Gallon Bucket.  Dang.

We cruise the neighborhood one more time, observing every single white plastic Wal-Mart bag dancing in the wind.  But I am not ready to give up. The Deer Flat National Wildlife Refuge is just south a few miles.  If anyone knows where the owls are still, it would be them; and besides, I have heard that Snow Geese are flocked in a cove of the lake.  I need that one for the year.

At the visitor center, we are warmly greeted by the volunteer, an elderly woman who is anxious to tell us what great things there are to see and do at the refuge.  I appreciate the enthusiasm, but a nesting bald eagle holds no charm for Big Year Birder focused on life birds.  I interrupt her politely and mention that I have two items on my agenda – Snow Geese and Snowy Owls.  She scratches her head, “The snow geese have not been seen for a few days,” she says disappointingly.  “Oh, I hope you see the Snowly Owl; It is truly beautiful!”  She is mentally recalling her own sighting and experience a few weeks ago.  She informs me that there have not been any recent reports.  After the hype of the last few months, Snowly owls no longer dominate the conversation around the refuge.

Armed with no new information, we return to Roosevelt Road and continue the search. Pass after pass, left hand turn after left hand turn, we hope against all hope to see the object of our destination.  Susan feels my disappointment.  “Let’s make one more pass,” she says supportively.  I imagine writing the blog post tomorrow, and telling the dramatic story of how we finally see the owl after I was ready to give up, but spurred on by Susan’s encouragement, we finally see it perched high and majestically in a cottonwood at the edge of a field.

Instead, I am writing a different post, one more reflective of the meaning of Snowly Owls.  As we drive away from Nampa and towards the Boise Mall, I think to myself; what if I had seen it?  What would the sighting become?  Lifebird 441, Big Year Bird 79….a good story?  I slipped ever deeper into reflection.  What does it all mean, and what will have been the take-away message on January 1, 2013, after the Big Year is behind me?  Is this contest just about misdirected testosterone?  Am I somehow a more fulfilled person for having bagged yet one more bird?

I begin to see the Snowy Owl as both a magnificent creature and a metaphor for deeper meaning.  His purpose is both unrelated to me, and yet directly for me.  The Snowy Owl is not discontented, even in an irruption year when he is far from home.  He does not question his purpose and meaning, but knows it as surely as he knows the Maker of all birds.  He is a work of art, unique among the avifauna.  Was he made this way for himself?  He has been formed in such a way as to attract my attention, not for game’s sake, but for His sake – the Maker’s.  “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…” (Romans 1:20).  The Owl was made for me.

Yes, birding is far more than a game or mere entertainment; and the search for birds is as much about divine discovery, as it is about pursuing the passerine.  We are all looking for meaning.  The runner runs until their body runs out.  The hunter is never satisfied with the last kill, or the fisherman with the previous catch.  The traveler is never finished touring, nor the biker with the last hill.  We are all pursuing the eternal, and some come to understand that the pursuit only ends in the fellowship of the Eternal One, where conversations about birds are just the beginning.

I missed the Snowy Owl, but I got the meaning.  Hours later, exhausted from walking the halls of a two-story mall, we both long for the quiet roads of home.  Susan could not find THE purse. Although there were many ”species” that caught her eye, they were only “starlings” compared to the one she had her heart set upon.  Her pursuit is not over, and will surely continue on future Saturdays.  Likewise, I will be birding, and the search for the Bird Maker ever deepens.  Return, O Snowy Owl, to the open tundra of arctic places.