A bird in the field tells a story forever

We spent two days visiting hotspots throughout the southern Sulphur Springs Valley between Douglas and Elfrida. This agricultural area is a haven for hawks and eagles throughout the year, but winter is when the valley is at its finest. After a week of snow and rain, the weather was sunny and warm and the raptors were out in hordes. “It’s that karma you’ve built up working with the birds,” Sheri said when volunteer Wendy Bozzi discovered the 15th and 16th great horned owls around the valley to go along with nine barn owls found at the Whitewater Draw Wildlife Management Area. “We’ve never seen this many owls on a weekend before.”		The normally reclusive common yellowthroat allowed everyone some terrific views on the shore at whitewater draw.
Local farm fields produced dozens of northern harriers and more than 30 ferruginous hawks. Kestrels were everywhere, but Tom’s sharp eye was able to find merlins and sharp-shinned hawks hidden away while driving on the dirt roads. A sudden lift-off of elegant sandhill cranes alerted Sheri to the presence of a predator and soon a bald eagle came flying through.
SABO's Sheri Williamson (center) was finding the Sulphur Springs Valley raptors for Liberty Wildlife team members Laura Irving, Claudia Kirschner and Peggy Cole.		Sheri examines a deceased whiskered screech-owl and gives a lesson in the natural history of this Southeastern Arizona specialty to the homeowners and Liberty volunteers.
Even more impressive were the sheer numbers of red-tailed hawks and all the different variations this species offers: western, southwestern, rufous-morph, dark morph and some intergrades. “The red-tail is the default hawk in the valley,” Sheri said. “If there’s a hawk you can’t identify, there’s an 80 percent chance it’s a red-tail.” Ever quick, volunteer Terry Stevens coined these birds “RUPeRTs”: Raptor Unidentified, Probably Red-Tails.” Altogether, we saw more than 200 raptors, including more than 80 red-tails. But they were far outnumbered by the thousands and thousands of lark buntings and other sparrows wintering in the fields. Overall, Sheri and Tom logged more than 80 species, including the endangered mountain plover spotted by Anne. The Liberty volunteers also gave Tom and Sheri a sample of our business when team member Peggy Cole received a rescue call for a screech owl trapped in a guesthouse. Unfortunately, the owl had expired by the time we arrived, but Sheri explained to the home owners and volunteers that this was a whiskered screech-owl which frequents the higher elevations, and that it was probably pretty sick to begin with, based on its lack of body fat and other external signs. While the wildlife watching was terrific, we also received an education in the ecology of several species. One particular lesson involved the harriers. As Sheri explained, harriers were hard to find in the valley and throughout the west two years ago, probably as a result of West Nile virus. Last year the harriers returned, but there were very few males to be observed. This year, the silver males were nearly equal in number with the larger, darker females. “What that tells us is the males were there last year, but they were youngsters that hadn’t molted into their beautiful silver plumage,” she said. “That says a lot for the health of this species that it can bounce back in just a couple years. But we’ll have to keep track of these number impressions over the next few years and compare them with surveys of other wintering locations to see how the species is doing overall.” Teaching people about birds and the world we share takes a commitment to learning on our part, which is why we ventured on this trip. “I couldn’t sleep the night we returned, I was still so excited. A week later I still can’t get over everything we saw and learned on this trip,” said Laura Irving. “I’ve been talking about my previous trips for the past year; now I have a whole new set of experiences to share.” The Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory offers several educational programs for the general public each year, from Hawk Stalks and Sulphur Springs Valley day trips in the winter to Owl Prowls in the spring and Hummingbird Banding in the summer. To learn more about SABO, please visit www.SABO.org.		Could you spot this sharp-shinned hawk while driving at 40 mph? What a bird sees... A vermilion flycatcher used this reed as a "stable" platform while hunting for insects.