After the beautiful snows and not so beautiful cold the Arizona sun and warmth came back leaving snow capped mountains and blue skies.
The Tuesday morning bird walk participants increased about 3 fold or more also but we are starting to see some migrating birds. On March 1st the Hawk watch began and will last for the month. This area is prime for migrating Common Black Hawks and Zone-tailed Hawks and so far there have been a few Black Hawks almost every day.
A birder friend from Massachusetts who bought a house in Tubac 3 years ago decided she wanted me to paint sunflowers on her entry wall so I was busy with that for a few days. She has a lovely patio that gets lots of birds coming over to eat at and next year she wants me to paint all the birds she gets on the patio wall. That should be fun.
Last weekend was the Tucson Festival of Books which is always a great thing. Over 100,000 people come to the University of Arizona to experience it. There are hundreds of authors, booksellers, exhibitors, speakers, panels and more. This year I had a 2 hour shift at the Indie Children’s Book Author’s Booth with the Children’s book I Illustrated. With all the thousands of books around to buy I didn’t sell a lot but I got a lot of interest and gave out lots of business cards so hopefully that will help get the word out. I also picked up some tips about marketing that will help in the future—a definite learning experience. As for the festival itself we got to see Ed Asner on Saturday. He, along with Ed Weinberger, just wrote a book called The Grouchy Historian, an old-time lefty defends our constitution against right-wing hypocrites and nutjobs. At almost 90 and somewhat deaf he was still quite entertaining and played his role as grouch well.
On Sunday we saw a panel called Virtuoso Villains. This had three different crime/suspense writers who each wrote in a very different style from the others— Matthew Quirk, The Night Agent, Jonathan Lethem, The Feral Detective, and T. Jefferson Parker, Swift Vengeance. It was interesting to hear all the different ways they approached the aspect of what a villain meant to them in their writing. We volunteered to help again this year with the take down on Sunday. The middle of the campus is filled with tents, each having banner signs on them. There are also other signs directing people where to go. All of these has to be taken down, rolled up, cleaned and stored. We just did the taking down of signs and rolling up the banners. On Monday they clean and check what will need replacing for next year.
Our friends Elissa and Bernie from our bird club back home came to Tucson for a week and we got together with them Tuesday morning at the bird walk. We went on a tour afterwards of not particularly well known but interesting birding sites in Green Valley. It was a glorious day and we had a picnic at a pavilion looking directly at the Santa Rita mountains. There we were entertained by Gambel’s Quail running in and out of the bushes. Then we went to the Arid Garden where there are of course a lot of different cactuses, all labeled, with paths around them. We found the resident Costa’s Hummingbird there in his regular spot. We’ve been visiting this place for many years now and he’s been there every time—pretty amazing. Then we went up to the Esperanza Estates or EE trail. This runs along a wash with funky rock sculptures along the way that are fun to see. There was a beautiful Harris’s Hawk on the telephone pole as we started. Lots of other birds, too.
On Wednesday we decided to take the long, all day trek to Willcox and Whitewater Draw. In Willcox there are several ponds by the Golf Course that are known to birders and with good reason. There were lots of ducks in the ponds and even an American Avocet but the real show was the thousands of Sandhill Cranes that just kept coming down in large skeins. Every time you looked up you’d see more coming in and hear their strange sounds. It was quite a sight. We knew that the migration had started and most of them had left so it was surprising that we got to see so many. Then we moved on towards Whitewater Draw making a few birding stops and having a picnic in Elfrida along the way. We arrived at Whitewater to find that they too had a few thousand Crane still there. (There were at least 15,000 at their peak).
There were also some Snow Geese still there. The duck population also had mostly migrated but we still saw quite a few. Elissa was a great Snipe spotter and found three of them and some other shorebirds—Greater Yellowlegs, Least Sandpiper and Long-billed Dowitcher. On our way out we stopped at this big pavilion where we saw a Great-horned Owl in the rafters at the far end.
(sorry it’s not a great picture but Denny didn’t have his camera so it’s from the iPhone)
We found out later from eBird that there was another one on a nest at the other end. We kind of felt like pretty stupid birders not to have turned around to look. We did end up with 41 birds for the day though. On the way back we made a quick stop at Tombstone so Elissa and Bernie could see what that was all about.
It was a long day and we got back and it was getting dark but really fun to go there with them.
Their last day here they came down to our place and we walked the Anza trail around the back of the mission
where we ended up for a tour of the Tumacacori Mission. I think we’ve been on that tour 2 or 3 times and learn something new each time.
Then we had a great lunch at a Mexican seafood restaurant and said goodbye till we see them again back home. We always love to have familiar faces come to visit and experience some of our favorite haunts together. (this is a hint to all of you to come visit us sometime)
We have less that two weeks left here before we have to go back to cold New England so Greenfield shape up and get warm! We leave Tumacacori on the 16th and go to Sierra Vista for a few days where we get to see our cousins, Rich and Dallas, who are staying there for a bit. Then we go home on the 20th and the next day go to the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament in Stamford,CT for the weekend. Probably won’t have time to blog till after that. In the meantime stay happy, healthy and warm. Peace, N & D
Couldn’t resist sending more pictures of our neighbors peacock thinking he could attract a chicken or a duck with his fancy feathers!