We arrived here on Feb. 1st and were picked up by Mike and Ellen who are friends from birding. They own a home in Tubac where we are staying. They have an/ extra bedroom with bath that we are renting from them and we share a kitchen. It is a beautiful house with lots of patio space and within walking distance to the town, market, library, Pickleball court and Nature Center where we start our Tuesday morning bird walks. It’s about a mile’s walk to the last 3 places so we are getting lots of exercise just getting around town.

The first few days we were here it was rather chilly but we were busy getting settled in. Lately it’s been much warmer and sunnier although it’s always chilly at night. There’s about a 50 degree change in temps daily so we peel off and on lots of layers. On one of the chilly days we went on a nature walk that Mike was leading and a few days later was our first Tuesday bird walk. Got to see lots of old friends both avian and human.

One of the things we decided to do when we looked into renting a car was to actually buy an inexpensive car to store here for our use now and in the future.  I mentioned this to several friends and our friend Lillian mentioned that another friend, Judy, just got a new car and was selling her old one.  We had gone up to Madera Canyon that day with Lillian and when she told me we called Judy and went to see the car (a 2006 Ford) after we were in the canyon.  It was just what we wanted a small sedan that was well cared for and didn’t have any major issues.  After getting it checked out by everyone’s favorite mechanic here and the one who had been servicing it who gave it a thumbs up we bought the car, got it registered and now we have wheels.  So far it’s much less than renting as those prices skyrocketed.

 As I mentioned we went with Lillian to Madera Canyon for a picnic and a little birdwatching. 

Our favorite place is Kubo but their little store was closed and there weren’t a lot of birds or the usual number of feeders out.  We moved down to the Santa Rita lodge which was very active.  We saw lots of good birds there—a pair of Hepatic Tanagers, an Arizona Woodpecker, a Painted Redstart , Rivoli’s Hummingbird, (formerly called Magnificent Hummingbird) lots of Lesser Goldfinch, White-breasted Nuthatch, Mexican Jay, Acorn Woodpecker and about 30 turkeys.  

Monday, Thursday and Sunday I got to play pickleball.  Played with some people I’d played with before the pandemic.  Fun group but not as fun as at home.  On Thursday we walked around the Tubac Arts Festival which is going on through the weekend.  Tubac is an arts community with lots of galleries and during the Arts Festival they have even more artists set up tents along the streets.  Lots of beautiful things to see.  

One of the things that is very difficult here is finding a rental.  Most places are either already rented a year in advance or they want to rent for 3 to 4 months and we only want 2. One of the first things we do when we get here is start asking around and looking online for a rental for the next year.  This became even more important when we purchased the car.  No sense in having it if we have no place to stay.  But Thursday night I was once again searching online and came across a place in Green Valley in a group of casitas that we had staying in before and liked. The best part is that it was available so we booked it.  Now we are all set for another year.  We keep trying to rent a place that we can go back to but so far that hasn’t worked.  It would be nice if this one did.  

Saturday Lillian, Judy, Denny and I took the long trek to Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area. This picture is along I-10 on our way to Wilcox.

We stopped first at the Wilcox Golf Resort where there are ponds that are noted for their birds.  About  1000 Sandhill Cranes were coming in while we were there.  They certainly make a racket.  There were also lots of ducks on the pond.  From there we drove along the road that is usually full of lots of hawks but didn’t see much more than a few Kestrels.  We stopped briefly at a Dairy we have stopped at before because they have a pond full of ducks and saw 20 Canvasbacks, over 100 Wigeons, a Snow Goose, and a few other ducks.  Then we moved on to Whitewater Draw.  We hadn’t thought about the fact that it was a Saturday as we’d only gone before during the week and didn’t realize how many people show up on the weekend.  A lot of the pond had dried up so this limited the number of waterfowl there but there were plenty of Cranes—about 9000!  They gave us an amazing display moving in large groups from one side to the other crossing over each other right above us. 

It’s incredible they don’t bump into each other.  If you look at the link for Whitewater Draw you can watch the Crane Cam or if you’re on Facebook you can watch the video I posted.  We stopped at the Cafe in Sonoita for dinner and got home about 8:30.  Long day (we left in the morning at 7:00 am) but fun and we even saw a few things other than birds—turtle, Pronghorn and Deer.  

Now on to more adventures.