My Life’s Birds: #292-295

July 6, 1994 – Chiricahua National Monument, Az – The incredible birding is not all of what makes the southeast corner of Arizona so special. It’s a common theme running through so many of the places we consider “hotspots”. Birds are only one expression of the region’s ecological richness, an expression that we as birders are highly attuned to, but a plant-lover will find something, a butterfly enthusiast will no doubt feel giddy, and a geologist will at least, appreciate the novelty and often stand slack-jawed at the awesomeness, the true biblical awesomeness, of the surroundings.

It’s the gestalt of the “hotspot”, all the little things that the consummate naturalist can take in and appreciate. Now I’m certainly not so bold as to label myself, certainly not my 14 year old self, as anything like this mythical consummate naturalist. I was far too head over heels for birds to notice much else, but even that addle-brained teenager had to marvel at the vistas and rock formations at the Chiricahua National Monument. Pillars and arches of stone, lifted from deep within the earth by tectonic shifting, molded by millions of years of wind, and acting as a skyway to truly tropical species of pla… wait, is that a Zone-tailed Hawk? So it is. I almost forgot why I was there. Back to the topic at hand.

The trails at the Monument were hardly as birdy as the ones at Rustler Park, our original destination made inaccessible by raging forest fires, would have been, but over the course of the morning the sharp eyes of our leaders, and those of a hoard of precocious young birders, netted us Hutton’s Vireo and Mexican Chickadee. Sadly, however, our detailed study of each and every Gnatcatcher that crossed our path failed to turn up the desired Black-tailed from the masses of Blue-grays.

Our morning over, we returned to our campsite and the Mexican Jays and Yellow-eyed Juncos that came around begging for a handout to find that our tent city had been invaded by a small army of Collared Peccary. None of us wanted to be the one to incur the wrath of the wild pigs by shooing them off, so we waited. As it turned out, we didn’t have to wait too long, the food stuffs had been secured before we left and the Peccaries were mostly interested in turning up leftovers in the firepits. They ambled on shortly, and we went back to the business of checking our new lifers against the trip checklist and other terribly dorky endeavors. Though a night walk around the camping area held a surprise, and one of the Louisiana campers who had an excellent Barred Owl call, made the necessary dialect shift to call in a nearby Spotted Owl. And we watched it as it sat only 15 feet away in the flashlight’s glow until it had finally had enough, and turned back to the pine woods.

A sharp way to end another beautiful day in Arizona.

SPOW from wikipedia