I attended the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival at Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, Arizona this past week. We drove over Wednesday afternoon to set up our vendor booth. I can describe the weather in one word—windy!!
For four days we endured gale force winds, which wreaked havoc with our vendor booth and the products we brought. Our booth was set up on the east end of the park between the two lagoons, and there was no shelter or protection from the winds.
On Thursday morning, I taught a beginning birding class which included both in-class instruction as well as a short bird walk. On our bird walk, we watched adult Say’s phoebes feeding a nest full of fledglings. Our best bird of the day was a pair of common black hawks circling directly over us. What a thrill to share this experience with new birders.
I had the opportunity to lead the armchair birding bird walk on Friday and Saturday, and thoroughly enjoyed the variety of birds we observed. On Friday we had twenty-seven species, and on Saturday we had twenty-six, which I thought was great, considering we just sat in one spot and identified and counted the birds that came to the armchair birding area.
One interesting observation was seeing crows in Cottonwood. In the fifteen plus years I have been attending the festival, I have never seen a crow in Cottonwood before. It makes me wonder whether they are expanding their range, or if this is just seasonal migration movement going on. I honestly do not know the answer.
There were specifically two “wow” bird species at the armchair birding area—lazuli buntings and summer tanagers. There were times when we could see at least fifteen lazuli buntings at the same time! The tanagers put on a real show. There were several times when both the male and female were feeding on separate suet feeders, approximately twenty feet from where we were sitting.
The armchair birding area had an interesting mix of both permanent, year-round bird species as well as migratory birds. Some of the year-round species included Gila and ladder-backed woodpeckers, bridled titmice, white-breasted nuthatches and one northern cardinal. Some of the migratory bird species included both Cassin’s and plumbeous vireos, a green-tailed towhee, brown-headed cowbirds, black-chinned hummingbirds, and a black-headed grosbeak.
On Saturday, just as we were wrapping up our two-hour bird walk in the armchair birding area, we had an adult Cooper’s hawk swoop in—and successfully catch a mourning dove. It was quite a thrill for the group to witness nature in action.
Our vendor booth backed right up to the edge of pond #2 on the far east end of the park. From this location, without any effort on our part, we could casually scan over to some large cottonwood trees on the west side of the Lagoon and see a pair of Bald Eagles perched in some open, exposed branches.
We did not need to leave our booth to go birding. With the lagoon behind us and a cottonwood forest in front of us, we were surrounded by birds all day long! Between these two habitats we saw many different bird species, including osprey, belted kingfisher, great blue and black-crowned night herons, white-faced ibis and uncounted numbers of red-winged blackbirds and great-tailed grackles.
Birding tip of the week: Be on the lookout for flocks of cedar waxwings this week. Waxwings do not eat birdseed, but they frequently will visit backyard bird feeding areas to take advantage of water sources such as bird baths, ponds, and fountains.
Until next week, Happy Birding!
Eric Moore is the owner of Jay’s Bird Barn in Prescott, Arizona. Eric has been an avid birder for over 50 years. If you have questions about wild birds that you would like discussed in future articles, email him at eric@jaysbirdbarn.com.
