Birding
Where I've been/What I've seen
For dinner, we all went under the nearby picnic structure where we sketched while waiting for quesadillas. Getting the checklists was quite fun. We waited for a break in the rain before a few of us a run for it and snagged all the ones we could find. We brought them all back and checked off all the birds that we had seen that day. Later that night, Jennie taught us a bit about night vision while we were owling, an attempt that yielded unsuccessful due to yet another oncoming monsoon. We went to bed knowing the next day was going to have a focus on getting to the Chiricahuas and would be another long day.
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As is usual with birding, an early wake-up time seems to always be required. For this first day of camp, I was up and out the door at 5:00, to be at the airport by 5:30, and to then catch my 6:30 flight to Vegas. In Vegas, I had a two-hour layover, where I had to navigate aisles of gambling machines to get to the next flight, a direct to Tucson. I arrived in Tucson at around 10:30, where I soon managed to find Michael O’Brien, one of the tour leaders that I would be with for the next one and a half weeks. I grabbed my surprisingly light duffle bag and found the other campers, several of whom I knew from previous camps, as well as online connections. It took a bit for the final campers to arrive from the east coast, but soon enough we were able to all walk to the vans for a more formal introduction and icebreaker. My first bird of the trip was the ever-common House Sparrow, but that was quickly followed by Verdin, Eurasian Collared-Dove, and a high-soaring Swainson’s Hawk. By now, it was around lunchtime, so we went to the nearby Wendy’s to get some food before heading up Mt. Lemmon. This might have been the most productive parking lot I’ve ever been in, producing birds such as Cactus Wren, Broad-billed Hummingbird, Hooded Oriole, and Cassin’s Kingbird (a lifer for many in the group).
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July 2019
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