Patagonia Lake State Park

Broad-billed Hummingbird

 Fifteen minutes after backing into our camping site this afternoon, not even taking time to hook up the water and electricity, we were out the door and walking to the Visitor's Center were I took this photo of a male Broad-billed Hummingbird.  We had no idea what kind of a hummingbird it was.  Lucky for us a park volunteer came walking by and told us it was a Broad-billed.  Score one more for our Life Lists!  Patagonia Lake State Park is the top birding site in Arizona, and we decided almost spur of the moment while in Yuma a couple of weeks ago, that we would make the effort this year to get to Patagonia Lake. In the past it has seemed too far to travel, but now that we are here, we think it is going to be worth the extra driving.  We have reservations here until Friday the 3rd.  The weather is supposed to take a turn to the worse tomorrow with high winds and a chance of rain, so we made an effort to get in some birding time this afternoon.  You can look at our observation list here. The weather started deteriorating with over cast skies and wind this afternoon, but by Wednesday when the weather turns back to good, we plan on turning in a better list. 

Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area

Whitewater Draw Wildlife Area is primarily about wintering Sandhill Cranes, and we are talking thousands of these large birds. Arizona State Game and Fish Department counted 13,522 on January 6th 2017. Early in the morning flights of cranes take off and leave to fly to nearby corn fields to feed on the left- overs from harvest.  Mid-day they return to the wildlife area to rest and congregate for the night, and this is when the spectacular scene occurs, flight after flight coming in to land in the wetlands.  We arrived here yesterday at 10:00am and birdered for an hour or so, as the number of cranes grew from a few to more than it was possible to count.  By then the crowd of folks who were coming to watch the incoming cranes were starting to fill to full capacity.  All kinds of folks, birders, cowboys, old folks and young folks, walked, ambled, and limped to the pond's edge to point and gawk, and photograph.  It reminded me of the state fair.  We were happy to return to the quietness of our motor home in a parking lot where RVs are allowed to park for up to three days for free. In our ramblings around Arizona this winter several people have recommended Whitewater Draw, and we made time in our schedule to stop here. We love the combination of free camping and bird watching at the same location.  It was interesting and we enjoyed it, but once is probably enough.  The highlight of our stop actually occurred in the evening when friends Dan and Elaine Scott made a stop here for the night.  They are from the Seattle area, and have also been traveling around the south-west this winter, including a short venture across the border into Mexico.  It was great to get got up with them and talk RVs.

Dankworth Pond

Today we had the great good fortune of meeting the top birder in Graham County, Jeff Coker.   We left the campground at Roper Lake, early and traveled a few miles south to Dankworth Pond, a Arizona State Park Day Use Area.  Jeanette and I had a successful hour of birding, around the 15-acre pond and had just returned to the motorhome for a break, when a person came over and asked if he could look at the inside of our motorhome as he was interested in possibly purchasing one in a couple of years.  As we started to talk, he suddenly asked, "Are you Jim and Jeanette Scott"?  He had been watching our input on birding lists in eBird and guessed who we were.  He was here at Dankworth Pond to scout out the birds in preperation to lead a bird walk here tomorrow morning.  He invited us to come along on his morning scouting trip.  For the next two hours we were completely enmeshed in birding in general and the birds of Dankworth Pond in particular.  We have high hopes of keeping in touch as he shops for a van and we continue our birding passion.

More on Roper Lake State Park

We are enjoying our stay at Roper Lake State Park so much.  Everyday we have explored a new area. Of course we love it for the birding.  Yesterday we turned in a list of 41 different species.  But other people appear to come here for an assortment of other reasons, the scenery, fishing, kayaking, biking, or just the camping experience. Below are four photos that I am sharing to try to give you and idea of the beauty of this park.

--and on the last day we found the outdoor hot tub.

Roper Lake State Park

Once again it appears we have fallen into a pot of jam.  We are loving it here at Roper Lake State Park.  While at Gilbert Ray Campground I was shearching for good birding spots where we could camp, when I stumbled on Roper Lake State Park. Not a place I knew anything about, but it did have a good number of observed species birds.  Driving here we learned it is located in the barren desert on the east side of Arizona, at the foot of Graham Mountain (shown in the background), and most importantly for birds and campers, it has the attraction of water--the man-made Roper Lake. The small town of Stafford lies six miles north in the Gila Valley. In campgrounds like this its easy to meet like minded new friends, which is our experience here.  Camping next to us was Doug Boser, who asked if he could tag aloung with us on our morning bird walk.  He was a great addition, a curious person, full of good questions that made our morning a delight. In the photo above, Doug is shown with Jeanette, looking for birds on one of the many trails we took. For our list of birds and photos click here.

Birds of Tucson Mountain Park

Looks like we have survived the storms of rain and wind of the last two days here in the Gilbert Ray Campgound in Tucson Mountain Park. We did bird every day of our four day stay, and although the birds are not numerous, we were able to identify 22 different species.  That's not a very high number for us considering the effort we put into it, but it is after all a desert without any water, and we did get in our daily exercise. The following photos are representive of what we saw.

male Costa's Hummingbird

male Gila Woodpecker

female American Kestrel

Cactus Wren

Northern Mockingbird

female Phaninopepla

Our next destination is Roper Lake State Park, with reservations from 2/21 to 2/24.

Gilbert Ray Campground

This past week I have been worrying about how to avoid the predicted storm of rain and high winds coming this weekend. There seemed to be no place to hide in California or Arizona, however Tuscon looked to have a lower percentage of wind and rain.  Our goal became getting to a campground where we could hunker down for a few days and avoid having to drive during the time of predicted 40 miles gusts. Early yesterday morning we left Yuma and fled across the Arizona desert to the Gilbert Ray Campground, south-west of Tucson.  We spent the whole morning driving with-out stopping to look for any birds.  Arriving at Gilbert Ray at noon we were extremely lucky to get one of the last four remaining camping sites out of 134, site #36 as shown above.  The other sites filled while we were setting up. We have fond memories of camping here ten years ago, so already know we will enjoy hiking and birding here. The campground is well maintained in a natural desert setting and a bargain at 20 dollars a night. We paid for four nights, and can stay an additional three.  The weather is starting to turn today, and the major wind and rain will be tomorrow, Saturday. We are happy to be able to just stay put.