Last week I guided a Prescott Audubon Society bird walk to Mingus Mountain. We spent time birding along Forest Road 104 and spent time hiking in a draw where Butterfly Springs is located.
We met at the parking lot at the crest of Highway 89A so we could carpool from there. Before we even left the parking lot, we started seeing some really good birds, including several red crossbills that were perched on telephone wires. That is not a sight one sees every day!
Each winter the forest service closes parts of Mingus Mountain, then reopens the forest on May 1st. Well, it was May 1st, and we arrived before the road was opened, so we walked in. Interestingly, there were still patches of snow present, which I suppose justifies the road closure until May 1st!
Our birding along Forest Road 104 was actually pretty productive. We had numerous sightings of house wrens, western bluebirds, chipping sparrows, dark-eyed juncos, yellow-rumped warblers, and even a brown creeper.
However, our best sighting was watching an adult red-tailed hawk as it harassed a juvenile Bald Eagle in flight. It was fascinating to compare the size between the two species, since the hawk was right on the eagle’s tail. The wingspan for red-tailed hawks is less than 50 inches, while the wingspan for Bald Eagles is over 80 inches!
After birding from the road, we headed over to Butterfly Springs. My goal for this habitat was to see warblers—hopefully lots of warblers! Unfortunately, I think we were two weeks too early, as warblers were few and far between! The unique thing about birding is the importance of timing. I suspect if we did this same bird walk mid-May, we would have seen more warblers.
This is one of my favorite places to look for warblers and if you time your visit right, you can potentially see the following warbler species: olive, orange-crowned, Nashville, Virginia’s, MacGillivray’s, yellow-rumped, Grace’s, black-throated gray, Townsend’s, hermit, Wilson’s, red-faced and painted redstart. That’s thirteen different warbler species!
Shortly after starting our hike, we were rewarded with brief views of a painted redstart, which is a very striking bird with a combination of black, white and red plumage. It is gorgeous bird. Continuing on, we slowly added other warblers including yellow-rumped, olive, and red-faced.
We also saw another brown creeper gathering nesting material. The highlight however, was when we literally stumbled across a broad-tailed hummingbird nest. We were on the trail, all looking in one direction, when I heard the whirring sound of a hummingbird’s wings directly behind me. I slowly turned around, and there was a female broad-tailed hummingbird sitting on her nest, not four feet away!
We moved away from the nest to give her space, and she rewarded us with several visits to the nest as she brought in nesting material. Using my Swarovski spotting scope, we were able to get spectacular looks at her as she worked on the nest.
On our hike down, we finally saw a few red-breasted nuthatches, which we’d heard several times earlier but were never able to lay eyes on. Mingus Mountain is a reliable place to see red-breasted nuthatches.
Imagine my surprise, when the very next day as I was hanging up our flags in the front yard, I heard the distinctive “eeeen, eeeen, eeeen” nasal calls of a red-breasted nuthatch! Talk about timing! I was literally outside just for a minute and I got to see the nuthatch in my yard. If I’d gone out a minute earlier, or a minute later, I would have missed it entirely!
Until next week, Happy Birding!
Eric Moore is the owner of The Lookout, in Prescott, where you will find a Hallmark Gold Crown Store, wild bird products, and Swarovski and Vortex optics. Eric has been an avid birder for over 55 years. Eric can be contacted at eric@thelookoutaz.com.
