May 7-16, 2025 with Chris Benesh & Alex Sundvall
Southeast Arizona is well known as one of the best birding locations in the entire country, and for good reason! There are dozens of birds that are either only found or best found only here in the US, so birders have been coming here for decades trying to add a few of these unique birds to their lists. The scenery is quite nice and varied too, with everything from high elevation pine-oak forests in the mountain sky islands to saguaro forests in the arid desert scrub and everything in between. With this vast range of habitats, we managed to see over 200 species of birds in our short amount of time here. Highlighted in this were 11 species of Hummingbirds, 6 species of Owls, 19 species of Flycatchers, and again 19 species of Sparrows. Within those groups, a few birds stood out in my mind as real memorable experiences on the trip. Flammulated Owls were having a really strong showing in Portal this spring, and we were able to see one roosting at eye level in a cottonwood right on the side of a driveway. Five-striped Sparrows are a southeast Arizona specialty and aren’t always the easiest, so getting to see one right on the side of the road was absolutely incredible! And maybe the crown jewel of all of Arizona birding, the Elegant Trogon. It certainly made us work for it this spring, with sharply declining numbers due to the ongoing drought in the region, but that made finally spotting one all the more sweeter!
From Chris and I and everyone at Field Guides, we thank you for taking this journey through southeast Arizona with us. You were a small group, but were very understanding of the challenges we were presented with and went with the flow of things which really helped! We hope you had a lovely time on this adventure and we hope to see you again soon somewhere down the birding trail soon! Here is a brief day by day account of the tour.
Day 1: We started our first afternoon with the best laid plans, but you all know how the rest of that quote goes. We started out at the Tucson Mountain Park, where within minutes we had amazing looks at a handsome male Black-tailed Gnatcatcher and a pair of displaying Gilded Flickers! This was all with the marvelous backdrop of mature saguaro forest, a staple of the Sonoran Desert and a wonderful first taste of Arizona birding. From there we headed to the small Desert Meadows Park in Green Valley with the hopes of spotting a male Costa’s Hummingbird. While the males didn’t want to cooperate, we did have great views of a female bird amongst some of the more expected birds, including Barbara’s milestone Gambel’s Quail! After spending some time at the park, we drove a short distance (I swear) down our first of many terribly bumpy roads down to Box Canyon. This canyon has become famous for its Five-striped Sparrows, which we were hoping to see! While we were waiting for the sparrows, we were treated to many other lovely birds including Hooded Orioles, Golden Eagles, Rock and Canyon Wrens, and Western Tanagers. Just as we were about to leave empty handed, we heard the sparrow vocalizing and soon it was perched right on the side of the road by us! We were all on cloud nine and surely nothing could stop us now! Well, as we were just getting up to speed on our first paved road in hours, we got an alert that one of our tires had a sudden loss of pressure and was going flat. We pulled over on the side of the road and were stuck waiting for a repair. Thankfully we called a taxi to take everyone back to the hotel so only Chris and I were on the side of the road until the wee hours of the night. A rocky ending to what was an otherwise wonderful first day!
Day 2: Our goal for the morning was to explore the famous Madera Canyon. We started out with a quick stop along Proctor Road hoping for an early Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher or Varied Bunting. Hearing none, we headed up the canyon to the Kubo B&B where we hoped to see the continuing Berylline Hummingbird. We didn’t have to wait too long before we saw this glittering hummingbird visiting one of the many feeders. We also got to see a continuing hybrid Berylline x Broad-billed Hummingbird. This is the only known hybrid between these two! We also had experiences with the more normal hummingbirds like Broad-billed, Black-chinned, and Rivoli’s; along with our first of many Swainson’s Thrushes, when we were still excited to see one! Next we headed even further up the canyon with the hopes of seeing an Elegant Trogon. While we didn’t end up with a trogon this time, the incredibly cooperative Red-faced Warblers more than made up for it! On our way out, we made a brief stop again at the Desert Meadows Park in the hopes of a male Costa’s, but they just didn’t want to play! After a lunch stop, we headed eastward towards the Chiricahuas. Our final birding stop of the day was the famed Lake Cochise outside of Willcox. This little salt pool in the middle of the desert attracts migrating shorebirds and in particular is attractive to Wilson’s Phalaropes, of which we saw hundreds! Also of note was our flock of over 100 Bank Swallows we saw gathered along the powerlines and foraging over the lake. Unfortunately, we couldn’t spend too much time here and we had to make our way down to Portal. We did however briefly stop on the side of the road to see a pair of Harris’s Hawks, which would be our only ones for the trip. We made it to Portal just in time for dinner and settled in for the night for an early and full day of birding the next morning!
Day 3: Our first morning birding in the mighty Chiricahuas! We started dark and early with a picnic breakfast before working our way into the upper elevations of the sky islands. This was a morning of bumpy winding roads climbing up into the mountains. The scenery was breathtaking, and the birds were incredible! Our first stop on the side of the road we were shocked to hear the songs of singing Black-chinned Sparrows! One of the few species seemingly doing well with the prolonged drought, this is often a pretty rare sparrow for the tour! After a bit of time, we eventually tracked them down for some good looks at this handsome sparrow. Next, we came upon our first feeding flock, which can be crucial to tracking down some of the harder songbirds. Sure enough, one of the big targets of the morning was there! Mexican Chickadee is a wide-ranging Mexican species (hence the name) but is essentially only found in the Chiricahuas in the US, save for a usually off limits range in New Mexico. We had great looks at this rare songbird in no time! A little farther up the road, we encountered another of our big targets of the morning: a pair of Olive Warblers! These birds, while not being Olive and not being Warblers, can be tricky to track down in these high elevation pine forests, so we were very thankful to see them without much trouble! We also ran into a pair of Grace’s Warblers, both Cassin’s and Plumbeous Vireos, and a flighty Virginia’s Warbler. Our main stop for the morning was a nice walk around the Pinery Canyon Campground. The upper parts of this canyon still have some remnant old growth conifers from before the big fire over a decade ago. The main target here was Buff-breasted Flycatcher, another tricky songbird. Thankfully again, they did not keep us waiting long and we got outstanding views of this hard-to-find bird, some of my best ever. We also had our first of many Hammond’s Flycatchers and Swainson’s and Hermit Thrushes. Normally you’re lucky if you see one of each of those species on an Arizona tour, but for whatever reason they were everywhere this spring! Also of note, we had a Western Warbling-Vireo, which since the tour has been officially split from the Eastern Warbling-Vireo! Hopefully an armchair tick for some of you. Before heading back down the mountain, we went up to Rustler Park where we caught up with some Yellow-eyed Juncos, adorable Pygmy Nuthatches, and some Steller’s Jays. We would have stayed longer, but we were chased down the mountain by an impending thunderstorm! Up on top of a mountain is not the best place to be during a thunderstorm… so we headed all the way back down to Portal for lunch. After lunch, we attempted to do some birding between the rain showers at Bob Rodrigues’s feeders. They were incredibly birdy, with the best bird being a Crissal Thrasher that came into his water feature! We also had our first Rufous-winged Sparrow, Rose-breasted Grosbeak (an uncommon eastern migrant), Abert’s Towhee, Lazuli Bunting, and Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay! Just up the road at Dave Jasper’s feeders we saw our first Blue-throated Mountain-gem and Bronzed Cowbird, and had a trifecta of western orioles: Hooded, Bullock’s, and Scott’s! Just before dinner as the sun was setting, we drove by Cathedral Rock and saw the now regular nesting Thick-billed Kingbird in the area. This was the bird of Patagonia Picnic Table fame back in the day! After dinner, we attempted owling the best we could. Unfortunately the drought made things challenging as most of the birds were very quiet. After straining and trying, we eventually got decent views of an Elf Owl and poor views of some flyby Mexican Whip-poor-wills. Unfortunately, the Whiskered Screech-Owls remained heard only, but it was still fun to hear their morse code calls back and forth to each other!
Day 4: This morning was our scenic walk through the south fork of the famous Cave Creek Canyon. This canyon can be a great place to find Elegant Trogons, however with the continuing drought in southern Arizona and northern Mexico, there are very few of these birds coming north to the US anymore. There just isn’t enough food to support them in their migration. A typical year would see well over 100 trogons in Southeast Arizona, but this year that number plummeted to just 31. We really had our work cut out for us if we were to find this emblematic species of the region! Unfortunately for us, today was not that day and we went the entire 3+ miles of walking without even a whiff of a Trogon. We did however have plenty of other birds to keep us occupied! There were still thrushes and Hammond’s Flycatchers everywhere, along with roving flocks of Mexican Jays and Acorn Woodpeckers. We even managed to find a lingering Gray-headed Dark-eyed Junco, a rarity for this time of year! Painted Redstarts were everywhere with a MacGillivray’s Warbler joining them up the canyon. As we were leaving the canyon, defeated in our search for Trogons, we got a tip from Dave Jasper about a roosting Flammulated Owl at the Four Bar Cottages. Eager for a win this morning, we raced over before lunch and sure enough, getting tossed around in the wind was a tiny Flammulated Owl roosting low in a cottonwood. This certainly made us feel better after missing our main quarry in the morning! While we were there, we also tracked down one of the resident Bendire’s Thrashers that nest on the property. After lunch, we visited the historic George Walker House in Paradise. Here we had 5 different species of hummingbirds coming to the feeders (Rivoli’s, Black-chinned, Broad-tailed, Broad-billed, and the Mountain-gem) as well as a couple lovely pairs of Bridled and Juniper Titmice. A nice and relaxing end to a great day of birding!
Day 5: We spent our final morning in the Chiricahuas attempting to chase down a report of a Crescent-chested Warbler. While we were unsuccessful there, we did have great looks at a pair of Hermit Warblers, one of which was a shiny adult male! We also had our best looks yet at a stunning male Hepatic Tanager. We spent the rest of the morning in East Whitetail Canyon at Rick Taylor’s feeders, which were by far our birdiest feeders! He had both Gambel’s and Montezuma Quails scraping for seeds and a pair of Lucifer Hummingbirds visiting the nectar. As Rick regaled us with stories from bygone eras, we watched Townsend’s Warblers and Lazuli Buntings bathing in his water feature, Scott’s Orioles coming to his jelly, and the local Gould’s subspecies of Wild Turkeys displaying in his yard. We had such a nice time here, we decided to come back after lunch with the hope of seeing the Montezuma Quail a little better, which we did! As we left Portal and the Chiricahuas behind for our next Sky Islands, we stopped briefly on the side of the road for a better look at a pair of Chihuahuan Ravens before heading back towards Lake Cochise. Earlier that day, a handful of really good birds were found on the lake and we decided to make a quick pitstop on our way to the Huachucas. It paid off as everything was still where they left it earlier that day! Out on the sand spit in the middle of the lake was a near adult Laughing Gull, a great bird for Arizona! There were also a pair of good plovers, a young American Golden-Plover and an adult Snowy Plover also sharing the spit! We also got much better views of Bendire’s Thrasher and Scaled Quail this time around, along with our only Gray Flycatcher and a flock of Lark Buntings. To cap off another excellent day, on our way into Sierra Vista we watched a pair of Lesser Nighthawks catching bugs in the streetlights.
Day 6: Our first day in the Huachucas was a fairly simple one exploring two of the more famous canyons in the range. First, a quick stop in some grasslands where we hoped a few sparrows might be singing. While there weren’t any of the birds we were hoping for, there was a nice push of migrants in the acacia to keep us occupied, with Brewer’s Sparrow, Ash-throated Flycatcher, Western Warbling-Vireo, Green-tailed Towhee, and both Townsend’s and Hermit Warblers. The rest of the morning was spent walking around Ramsey Canyon Preserve, a lovely tract of land that is preserved by The Nature Conservancy. Hoping again for a Trogon, we slowly made our way up the canyon. While again the Trogons evaded us, we had our first push of Western Flycatchers in the canyon joining the Hammond’s Flycatchers that were still everywhere we looked. We also had by far our best looks at some incredibly cooperative Painted Redstarts foraging along what little water remained in the creek. Two good birds were heard onlies here unfortunately: Northern Pygmy-Owl hooting away in a hole somewhere, and a distant Greater Pewee. That afternoon, we visited the famous Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary, known for its Lucifer Hummingbirds. While we had already had a sneak peak of these at Rick’s place near Portal, who could say no to another look? Joining the Lucifer was our best look at Anna’s Hummingbirds and a brief showing of a Calliope Hummingbird, along with the standard troop of Hummingbird species.
Day 7: An unfortunately windy morning for our trip to Miller Canyon! This really cut bird activity unfortunately, and we didn’t hear a peep from the nesting pair of Flame-colored Tanagers, an unfortunate miss in what had until this point been a near perfect trip! There were still plenty of good birds around, including finally getting a look at the Greater Pewee we only heard the day prior! Flycatchers continued to have a good showing with Hammond’s, Western, and Dusky-capped all posing nicely for us, while Black-throated Gray Warblers and Red-faced Warblers were a little farther up the trail. After walking the trail, we made a brief stop at the hummingbird feeders at Beatty’s Guest Ranch, but the wind just kept most of the birds away unfortunately. In the afternoon we made our way to Patagonia, where thankfully the wind had let up a little. Right in town we had wonderful looks at a gorgeous Mississippi Kite perched right over the road! We finished our day birding at the famous Paton’s Center for Hummingbirds, where we enjoyed watching their Violet-crowned Hummingbirds, Green-tailed Towhees, and Yellow-breasted Chats. We even had a Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet and a flyover Zone-tailed Hawk! To close the day in Nogales, we visited the local Cliff Swallow colony and had a super cooperative Greater Roadrunner right in the parking lot!
Day 8: Today was our main day to bird the Patagonian lowlands. We started out with a quick stop at Kino Springs where we had some small groups of Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks, Mexican Ducks, and Common Ground Doves. Most of our morning however was spent at Patagonia Lake State Park. Our first stop at the State Park was briefly right in the campground where it felt like some morning flight was just finishing up. Phainapeplas were actively migrating with Western Tanagers all around us, and even a few flyover Vaux’s Swifts! Eager to see what might be down on the lake itself, we headed to the spillway. There was nothing too earth-shattering today on what can be an incredible vagrant trap, but there was a Western Grebe out in the middle of the lake and both a Zone-tailed Hawk and a Common Black Hawk made passes overhead! After the spillway we headed back towards the campground to take a short walk down the birding trail hoping to get eyes on a Bell’s Vireo and see what else might be around. Not only did we get great views of this skulky vireo, but also more looks at Western Warbling-Vireo, MacGillivray’s Warbler, another Mississippi Kite, and Swainson’s Thrushes and Hammond’s Flycatchers continued to be everywhere. On our way out of the park, we spotted another Greater Roadrunner, this time carrying a lizard! As we watched it, it even hopped up onto a branch just off the side of the road and started singing a bit. Before we went off to lunch, we made a quick journey down into Harshaw Canyon for a few of our potentially missing species. First up was a Gray Hawk, which up until now we had only heard calling. Thankfully, this is a good area for them and we found an active nest without too much trouble! Along the road just past the nest in the drier rocky crags, a Rufous-crowned Sparrow popped up quietly and watched us for a while. A little farther up the road we stopped at a creek crossing hoping that the Becard pair that was around last year would have come back. We were unfortunately a couple weeks early as they did show up this year, just not by the time we were in the area. We did however have a Canyon Wren serenading us and by far our best looks at Vermilion Flycatchers. That afternoon we enjoyed some easy birding along the Santa Cruz River and around Peña Blanca Lake. Along the river were the local subspecies of Song Sparrows, singing Northern Yellow Warblers, chatty Bewick’s Wrens, and a gorgeous migrating Swainson’s Hawk. Peña Blanca didn’t have much new for us, but we did enjoy seeing Cinnamon Teals, Ruddy Ducks, Violet-green Swallows, Bushtits, and a Green Heron all at pretty close range. After dinner, we had an optional owling session where we hoped we might finally run into some Western Screech-Owls! Thankfully, our first stop was successful and we even managed to spot one! We tried another spot farther up the road for Common Poorwills, but unfortunately they were just too far away to pick up.
Day 9: The final birding day! We again started out checking along the Santa Cruz River looking for Tropical Kingbirds, which had so far evaded us at their normal haunts. Along Santa Gertrudis Lane we had more migrating Vaux’s Swifts with even a few lingering Purple Martins flying by too! One of the other big targets along the lane are Rufous-winged Sparrows, a southwest specialty. While we had already seen one when we were in Portal, we were hoping for a better and longer view of one. We got just that with a bird that sat out on an electrical wire that just sat and sang for us! Since the Tropical Kingbird still wouldn’t come out to play, we made a quick stop at the De Anza trailhead, where thankfully one was sitting on the fence as we drove up! The rest of the morning was devoted to spending some more time in Madera Canyon looking for some of the later migrants, hoping they might have arrived by now. Proctor Road might not have had the Varied Bunting or Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers we were hoping for, but we did get another fantastic look at both Hermit and Townsend’s Warblers, Painted Redstart, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Gray Hawks, and of course our omnipresent Hammond’s Flycatchers and Swainson’s Thrushes! Next, we headed up the Carrie Nation Trail for our final last ditch effort to see a Trogon. As we started walking up the trail, it seemed like we had encountered the kiss of death. Everyone was headed the opposite direction saying that they had already seen one and it was amazing! As we passed person after person, they all shared where they had seen it and how long ago. As we made our way further and further up the trail, the distances and times people were saying kept getting shorter! Then around the final bend, larger than life, a stunning male Elegant Trogon flies right up to us! He just wanted to make sure we didn’t officially miss him on the tour! He showed off all his best angles for us before he decided enough was enough and flew back up the canyon far out of sight. What a fantastic bird! Bathing in the glow of our success, we made a short stop at the Santa Rita Lodge to just sit and take in the birds one final time. That evening at our final dinner, we sat out on the patio overlooking the golf course and watched a handful of Lesser Nighthawks hawking insects over the water features and greens as the sun set. A great way to cap off a great day and an even better tour!
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/425492
You can download a combined PDF of this page and the eBird report at this link: https://fieldguides.com/triplists/arz25aTRIPLIST.pdf
-- Chris and Alex