Dermot Breen's Blog: Arizona 8th February 2015

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

Arizona 8th February 2015

We headed into the San Rafael Ranch State Park early in the morning. The main aim here was Baird's Sparrow, a scarce wintering grassland species which is found on a high grassland plateau in the park. Temperature dipped below freezing on the way up to the plateau but quickly warmed up. We saw several Baird's along with numerous Savannah Sparrows. Most were only seen in flight as we walked across the open landscape but one did show rather well but it still wasn't the easiest to photograph. After trying a few other sites in the State Park we headed down into the small town of Patagonia for lunch. A quick look in some pine trees along the main street failed to produce a wintering Yellow-throated Warbler and Red-breasted Nuthatch. We also tried Paton's Hummingbird Haven on the outskirts of the town. While it wasn't exactly coming down with hummingbirds there was an excellent selection of garden birds attracted to the many feeders.
Our last site of the day was Patagonia Lake State Park. This is a well known site for wintering rarities. It's also a good site for Elegant Trogon. A young birding couple that we had met at the last site had seen one here only the previous day. On the lake there was a good selection of duck including our first Mexican Mallards. These are split by the IOC and apparently as genetically distinct as Mottled Duck are from Mallard. There were some quality passerines in the surrounding wooded areas such as Grey Flycatcher, Black-throated Grey Warbler and Cassin's Vireo. We failed in our trogon quest which was a bit of a pity since they look like great birds.