Atascosa Highlands Records Twelve Annual Highs This Year

Nearly all CBC's have finally posted their results to the National Audubon website, so I have been able to determine that our sixty-six hardy souls, birding all day in rugged lands on December 31, 2010, recorded the highest number of individuals for twelve species among all US Christmas Bird Counts this year.

Some are shoo-ins, such as Canyon and Rock Wrens, Rufous-crowned Sparrow; there is simply no other circle that has the quantity and quality of habitat as AZAH (as long as we have enough observers). But we almost missed a couple. Montezuma Quail is perhaps the most noteworthy, as the Davis Mountains CBC recorded 19 this year. And one surprise was Red-naped Sapsucker, usually seen in greatest numbers on the Mogollon Rim, with Prescott being number one – this year they had only 26.

Montezuma Quail - 20
Elegant Trogon - 8 (all-time US high)
Arizona Woodpecker - 23
Red-naped Sapsucker - 50
Hammond's Flycatcher - 21
Gray Flycatcher - 47
Rock Wren - 100
Canyon Wren - 67
Painted Redstart - 9
Canyon Towhee - 175
Rufous-crowned Sparrow - 171
Five-striped Sparrow - 1

2010 Final Numbers

The data has been entered and finalized. Go to "Results: Current Year" at http://christmasbirdcount.org.

Atascosa Highlands Christmas Bird Count
December 31, 2010
Gadwall	30
American Wigeon	121
Mallard	74
Northern Shoveler	2
Northern Pintail	53
Green-winged Teal	107
Canvasback	1
Ring-necked Duck	125
Lesser Scaup	1
Bufflehead	6
Hooded Merganser	1
Ruddy Duck	116
Wild Turkey	1
Montezuma Quail	20
Least Grebe	7
Pied-billed Grebe	17
Eared Grebe	4
Great Blue Heron	7
Great Egret	1
Green Heron	4
Northern Harrier	7
Sharp-shinned Hawk	6
Cooper's Hawk	3
Red-tailed Hawk	36
Golden Eagle	9
American Kestrel	24
Peregrine Falcon	1
Prairie Falcon	2
Sora	3
American Coot	150
Killdeer	15
Spotted Sandpiper	1
Wilson's Snipe	7
California Gull	1
White-winged Dove	3
Mourning Dove	183
Western Screech-Owl	3
Whiskered Screech-Owl	2
Great Horned Owl	5
Northern Pygmy-Owl	1
hummingbird sp.	CW
Elegant Trogon	8
Belted Kingfisher	3
Acorn Woodpecker	42
Gila Woodpecker	66
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker	2
Red-naped Sapsucker	50
Ladder-backed Woodpecker	78
Arizona Woodpecker	23
Northern Flicker	68
Gilded Flicker	1
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet	1
Hammond's Flycatcher	21
Gray Flycatcher	47
Dusky Flycatcher	6
Dusky/Hammond's Flycatcher	2
"Western" Flycatcher	1
Black Phoebe	83
Eastern Phoebe	4
Say's Phoebe	46
Vermilion Flycatcher	3
Ash-throated Flycatcher	5
Loggerhead Shrike	8
Plumbeous Vireo	1
Hutton's Vireo	21
Western Scrub-Jay	3
Mexican Jay	190
Chihuahuan Raven	1
Common Raven	90
raven sp.	13
Bridled Titmouse	165
Verdin	28
Bushtit	142
White-breasted Nuthatch	11
Brown Creeper	3
Cactus Wren	7
Rock Wren	100
Canyon Wren	67
Bewick's Wren	142
House Wren	12
Marsh Wren	7
Sedge Wren	1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet	380
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher	3
Black-tailed Gnatcatcher	4
Eastern Bluebird	4
Western Bluebird	22
Townsend's Solitaire	12
Hermit Thrush	85
Northern Mockingbird	46
Curve-billed Thrasher	1
Crissal Thrasher	1
American Pipit	3
Phainopepla	34
Orange-crowned Warbler	5
Yellow-rumped Warbler "Audubon's"	99
Black-throated Gray Warbler	4
Townsend's Warbler	3
Black-and-white Warbler	1
Common Yellowthroat	3
Painted Redstart	9
Hepatic Tanager	4
Western Tanager	1
Green-tailed Towhee	31
Spotted Towhee	21
Canyon Towhee	175
Abert's Towhee	5
Rufous-winged Sparrow	24
Cassin's Sparrow	2
Rufous-crowned Sparrow	171
Five-striped Sparrow	1
Chipping Sparrow	935
Brewer's Sparrow	55
Black-chinned Sparrow	9
Vesper Sparrow	76
Lark Sparrow	108
Black-throated Sparrow	28
Lark Bunting	4
Savannah Sparrow	6
Grasshopper Sparrow	2
Song Sparrow	10
Lincoln's Sparrow	46
White-throated Sparrow	CW
White-crowned Sparrow "Gambel's"	343
White-crowned Sparrow "Mountain"	10
Dark-eyed Junco (unknown)	34
Dark-eyed Junco "Gray-headed"	12
Dark-eyed Junco "Oregon"	21
Dark-eyed Junco "Pink-sided"	25
Northern Cardinal	52
Pyrrhuloxia	19
Red-winged Blackbird	24
Eastern Meadowlark	25
Western Meadowlark	25
meadowlark sp.	26
Cassin's Finch	6
House Finch	158
Pine Siskin	82
Lesser Goldfinch	297
TOTAL INDIVIDUALS	6324
TOTAL SPECIES	130

An Account From Lower Sycamore and Tonto Canyons

I'm still crunching numbers from the Dec 31, 2010 CBC, but I'll have a summary soon. In the meantime, here's a great account from Philip Kline from his area.


"I spent a chilly day in stunning scenery yesterday with three intrepid birders and one game non-birder covering lower California Gulch and Sycamore Canyon down to the Mexican border for the Atascosa Mountains CBC.  The day vacillated between cold, colder, and freezing, with occasional snow and sleet showers and a windy afternoon, but we persevered and ended up with 48 species, although numbers were quite low.  Lower Sycamore Canyon usually has roving bands of Bridled Titmice, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, with the odd Hutton's Vireo, Bewick's Wren, and occasionally something else mixed in, but the afternoon produced mostly isolated individuals of these species.

"We started the day at Border Tank, which can be accessed by a decent (thanks to the Border Patrol) 4WD road continuing south from the lower end of California Gulch.  Border Tank and Hidden Tank in this area can be dry, but often have waterfowl when full.  Today we were lucky and Hidden Tank had good numbers of American Wigeon and Green-winged Teal, with a few Mallard, Gadwall, and a Pintail mixed in.  From Border Tank it is possible to find decent trails that head generally southeast and over a saddle and into Sycamore Canyon.  We only encountered a couple of flocks, one containing an Ash-throated Flycatcher.  A couple of Rufous-winged Sparrows were down by Hidden Tank.

"Crossing over into Sycamore Canyon amid snow flurries, we decided to hop over another low saddle and check out lower Tonto Canyon.  This Canyon runs along the Mexican border on the Arizona side then runs into Sycamore Canyon on the Mexican side.  We didn't have long to spend in there, but it's a picturesque little canyon that I might have to go back and explore some more.  Five-striped Sparrows also breed in this Canyon, as well as in lower Sycamore Canyon.  We didn't see anything special, but it was quite birdy and we found another Ash-throated Flycatcher calling over on the Mexican side of the border.

"By the time we started to head up Sycamore Canyon proper, the wind really started to pick up and birds were few and far between.  But what we lacked in quantity, we made up for in quality.  After three years of trying, I finally managed to call in a Five-striped Sparrow about 3/4 mile upstream from the border.  [See photo at top.] They're pretty tough to track down in winter.  As we continued up Canyon, we had brief encounters with two different Elegant Trogons.  Farther up still, there were two
very vocal Painted Redstarts.  Empid challenges were plentiful in the Canyon too.  Fortunately, all but one bird called and we ended up with one Gray, one Dusky, and two Hammond's.  The usual winter denizens were also present in the Canyon in low numbers.  We bushwhacked through dense thornscrub up and over another saddle to get back over into California Gulch, but were rewarded for our scratches with fabulous views of the Canyon as the evening sun finally peeped out from under the cloud deck lighting up the clifftops and a belated Golden Eagle soaring over the opposite ridgeline.

"If anyone is interested in covering this area with me next year, let me know.  Tonto Canyon could certainly use further exploration.  The area is rugged and remote, but well worth the time and effort."

Area Assignments 2010

Updated 12/30/2010

1. Bear Grass Tank and Murphy Canyon

Brian McKnight

Jim Hays

Sally Johnsen

Peggy Wang

2. Jalisco and Apache Canyons

Dave Powell

Michael Hawk

3. Arivaca Lake

Paul Sheppard

Gavin Bieber

Steve Holmes

Diana Holmes

4. Oro Blanco Wash

Roger Tess

Tim Helentjaris

Doug Munson

5. Warsaw and Holden Canyons

Keith Graves

Mary Graves

6. Bartolo Canyon

Michael Hilchey

Raymond Vanbuskirk

Christopher Rustay

7. Ruby and Papago Tanks

Greg Greene
Cat Greene

Gary Settje

Barbara Johnson

8. California Gulch

Reid Freeman

Richard Wilt

9. Corral Nuevo

John Yerger

Morgan Jackson

Sarah Humphrey

10. Upper Sycamore and Yanks Canyons

Richard Fray

Jenise Porter

Carol Tepper

Joe Corcoran

11. Middle Sycamore and Peñasco Canyons

Brian Gibbons

Meaghan Conway

Mich Coker

12. Lower Sycamore and Tonto Canyons

Philip Kline

Steven Foldi
Amanda Propst

John Reuland
Max Li

13. Pine Canyon to Hells Gate

Rich Hoyer

Bill Talbot

14. Atascosa Lookout and Upper Ramanote Canyon

Art Schaub

Malcolm Chesworth

15. Bear Valley Ranch

Denny Hodsdon

Mark Sharon

Farrish Sharon

16. Rock Corral and Tinaja Canyons

Chris McCreedy

17. Peck Canyon Complex

Jake Mohlmann

Brooks Hart

Marc Dragiewicz
Laurens Halsey
Joe Hammond

18. Wise Mesa and Lower Ramanote Canyon

Dave Porter

Matt Brown

19. Bellota Canyon

Erika Wilson

Karen Nickey

Sharon Overstreet

20. Peña Blanca Lake and Canyon

Ken Kertell

Fred Heath

Alan Schmierer
Chris Benesh
Jeff Kingery
Becky Alsup-Kingery

21. Ruby Road East

Molly Pollock

Mark Stevenson

Diana Davis

22. Alamo Canyon

Randy Moore

John Saba

Downloading USGS Topographic Maps

I have prepared topo maps for each area, but the resolution ends up being a little low to make the file sizes manageable for emailing and downloading. If you would like to have your own, unedited map, you can download the 7.5-minute maps for free on the USGS website. They range in size from 4.7 mb to 7.4 mb.

The simplest URL is http://store.usgs.gov. Then to actually download the map you want, follow these directions:

1. Click on the Map Locator link (center right)
2. Type "atascosa peak, az" in the search field and click on Go
3. If you click on the red pushpin on the map, a window will pop up with a link to download the 7.5X7.5 map for the Ruby quadrangle.
4. If you click anywhere else on the map, a new red pushpin with appear, which you click on to again download that 7.5X7.5-minute map. It will be a different map only if you click in a different quad (outlined in black and names are highlighted in yellow)

The AZAH Circle straddles eight different quads: Arivaca, Murphy Peak, Tubac, Bartlett Mountain, Ruby, Pena Blanca Lake, Alamo Spring, and Pajarito Peak. I created the maps by downloading all 8, making one giant map on Photoshop Elements, then drawing the circle using the drawing tools. I then cropped out each area and resized them.

2010 Countdown at Longhorn Grill

Photo copyright Dave Rankin with permission under Creative Commons Licence

As in the previous two years we'll be having the countdown and no-host dinner at the Longhorn Grill in Amado. We'll start the species countdown around 6:30, so try your hardest to be there by then. You can also show up anytime before that to have your dinner or just drop off your list.

Longhorn Grill
28851 South Nogales Highway
Amado, AZ
520-398-3955

This is the restaurant with the façade shaped like a giant cow skull. The entrance to the restaurant is around to the left, on the north side of the building. Please let me know if you are having dinner here so I can warn them how many people to expect.

Please keep in mind that it takes a while to get out of the circle. Google Maps says that from the Sycamore Canyon trailhead to Amado is 1 hour 11 minutes.

Another Party-Miles Tutorial

I know most people have this issue already figured out, but I also know that some find it confusing. In addition to what I wrote in a previous post, I thought I would give a simpler example.

So let's say there's a party of two birders covering an area. They bird for one hour and walk one mile together. Easy: That's one party-mile by foot, and one party-hour. Then they split up (out of earshot at least) for one hour. They each walk one mile during that hour and meet up again back at the car. Since they are separate, each birder is a "party." So during this time, for their CBC area, they racked up two party-miles by foot and two party-hours. Adding that to the previous total comes to 3 party-miles and 3 party-hours. Then they get in their car and drive to the compilation dinner. For 1/2 hour and 3 miles of driving they are still in their area of the circle and spot one bird flying over. Their total for the day is:

party-miles by foot: 3
party-hours by foot: 3
party-miles by car: 3
party-hours by car: 0.5

This being a simple example, these birders vastly uncovered their area. The area that Art Schaub and I covered last year, Pine Canyon, has no roads, and we didn't split up. So it was merely a matter of zeroing the trip odometer on my GPS receiver when we started hiking. By the end of the day we logged 9.65 party-miles and 8.2 party-hours, all by foot. But since we had camped there and got up at 4:30 to some owling, I also kept track of the 2.25 miles and 2.5 hours of owling.

Photo at top: Habitat at Peña Blanca Lake, which has hosted several rarities in the past, including the state's first record of Sedge Wren this winter.

Photo at bottom: Gopher Snake crossing the road at Peña Blanca lake on December 11. If it's warm enough, this species can be found even in mid-winter.

Safety in the Atascosa Highlands

There has been a lot of publicity surrounding safety in the border region. Most of it is hype, in my opinion. There are certain neighborhoods in Tucson that are more dangerous. Here are some of my recommendations for saftey:

1. Act like you're birding. That shouldn't be too hard.

2. Don't chase anyone with a backpack or a gun.

3. Don't carry a gun or wear a mask.

4. Don't act like a vigilante and go after any groups or try to make a cell phone call just because you see something suspicious.

5. Stay within voice contact of another teammate or at least make for a rendezvous point within a reasonable amount of time. A twisted ankle or an unfortunate encounter with an agave is enough reason to not be all alone out there, though I have hiked alone there several times and not had any trouble.

Here's snippet from a recent article in the Tucson Weekly, quoting a birder, CBC participant, and former district ranger for the USFS:

But Keith Graves says he's worked the area, often alone, for 12 years with no problem, and that the Coronado has had no complaints from people who've been accosted. "As long as you're not stupid, it's safe to go in there," says Graves. "But take precautions. It's like camping out in Montana without managing for grizzly bears."

He says if you see backpacks or packages wrapped in burlap, leave them alone. If you see a group that doesn't fit the surroundings and doesn't look like a hiking club, go the other way.

Graves' biggest fear is vigilantes announcing they're going into an area to stop drug-smugglers, putting hunters in danger. "A bandit won't know if I'm a deer hunter or if I'm out to find him," says Graves.

Otherwise the article glossed over his testimony and opinion, being rather sensationalistic and sounding more like a propaganda tool of the current state governor's office. It did list nine recent reports of violence from the region and all have involved border patrol agents, undocumented immigrants, and drug smugglers. There don't seem to be any reports involving hunters, hikers, and birders, despite their being all over this area year-round.

Don't forget to read through the old archives of this blog, using the links on the right. All the info is still current and useful.

Online Registration Now Available

You can now register online for Christmas Bird Counts at http://www.christmasbirdcount.org/. Once there, click on the link "Get Involved" on the right. If you sign up for 4 CBC's this way and pay online, each additional CBC is free. The catch is that the compiler has to have registered his or her CBC for online sign-ups, and not all of them know how to do this. Let your compiler know that you want to register online if that count isn't available.

Links for Other CBCs

Thanks to the volunteer time of several people who compile CBC schedules (such as Walter Thurber for Arizona and the amazing map created by Kurt Radamaker), we now have no reason for not planning our time carefully from Dec 14 to January 5 to do at least 8 counts each. Of course AZAH should be your priority.

Arizona: http://www.azfo.org/CBC/cbc2010_2011.html

New Mexico: http://nm.audubon.org/CBC/cbc_schedule.htm

California: http://www.natureali.org/cbcs.htm

Utah: http://www.utahbirds.org/cbc/index.htm

Oregon: http://oregonbirds.org/calendar2.html


Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Nevada has anyone compiling such information.

Where is the Atascosa Highlands CBC Circle?

This is a very common question. I'll post a map of the circle below to make it easy.

Bill Harrison created this circle with apparent much thought and planning in 1960 – a circle in this region could not have been placed in a better position. And unlike almost all nearby circles it hasn't been moved by any of the subsequent compilers.

It's best features are:
• maximum coverage of public lands, minimal private lands
• nearly bisected by a single good road with access roads off of it
• minimal overlap into Mexico
• just barely including three important bodies of water – Arivaca Lake in the NW, Bear Grass Tank in the N, and Peña Blanca Lake in the SE.
• completely encompassing all of the Sycamore Canyon-California Gulch southward-flowing drainages
• and, completely unbeknownst to Bill, incorporating the entire US range of Five-striped Sparrow (the species wasn't discovered here until a few years later)

And Bill did this all without Google Earth. (He may have even used a slide rule...)

The coordinates of the center are N31.47006°, W111.17278°

Click on the image for a larger version.

Date Set for Friday December 31, 2010

I've already started recruiting for AZAH, the Atasoscosa Highlands Christmas Bird Count, set for Friday, December 31, 2010. I assign area leaders and their teams well in advance, so please contact me as soon as you know you can commit.

Here's a view from near the unassuming center of the circle – with almost countless canyons and rocky ridges for 7 1/2 miles in all directions. Click on the image to open a window with a larger size.

Leading the Nation in National Highs for 110th CBC!

I just received my issue of American Birds summarizing the 110th Christmas Bird Count and was surprised to find that Atascosa Highlands led the nation with highest tallies for 17 species on our January 3, 2010 count. In my last blog post I listed the 15 that I found, but Brent Ortego in his article found a couple more – Elegant Trogon (we had one, tying with three other AZ counts) and Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a silly oversight on my part – AZAH always has the high count for that one. The next closest count was Weslaco, TX, which had 15 highs.

Brent also compiled the all-time highs for all 110 years of the BC, and AZAH ranks 13th nationally with 10. Our neighbor, the Nogales CBC (which actually illegally overlaps the older AZAH circle, something that should be addressed at some point) ranks 9th, and AZAH stands a good chance of eventually topping most of those, with the exception of the exotic Elegant Quail and the 1997 Nutting's Flycatcher counted in their total.

At top: The Atascosa Highlands CBC tallied 4 Elegant Trogons in 2008, setting a new all-time high for this species. A 5th was found a few weeks late in remote Ramanote Canyon, which hadn't been covered on the CBC.

High Species Counts for 2009-2010

One of the things that makes the Atascosa Highlands CBC special is the number of species for which it gets the national high each year. This year we had fifteen national highs. Last year we had 14, and only three CBCs (out of 1673 counts) had 15 or more. So we'll probably be in the top 5 again this year.
Even though three Arizona CBCs still haven't entered their data yet (Sedona, Sierra Pinta-Cabeza Prieta NWR, and Timber Mesa), I went ahead and compared our totals across the state. We had an additional highs for 11 species and one form. Great job, everyone!

Mark your calendars for Friday, December 31, 2010 for the next event. 

Atascosa CBC Highlights

National High for 2009-2010
Montezuma Quail – 73
Arizona Woodpecker – 37
Hammond's Flycatcher - 18
Gray Flycatcher – 45
Dusky Flycatcher – 11
Bridled Titmouse – 219
Rock Wren – 119 (next closest was Salt-Verde River with 62)
Canyon Wren – 133 (next closest was Salt-Verde River with 56)
Black-throated Gray Warbler – 9
Hepatic Tanager – 3 (back to normal, after last year's mind-blowing 27, which wasn't believed by the national editor at first)
Green-tailed Towhee – 19 (must be one of the lowest national highs ever)
Canyon Towhee – 229
Rufous-winged Sparrow – 90 (previous high was 12 last year)
Chipping Sparrow – 3931 (next closest count was Boerne, TX with 1673)
Black-chinned Sparrow – 54 (next closest was Nogales, with 12)

State High for 2009-2010
Golden Eagle – 15
Northern Pygmy-Owl – 4
Spotted Owl – 1 (only one in Arizona)
Common Poorwill – 2
Northern Beardless-Tyrannulet – 1 (only one in Arizona)
Hutton's Vireo - 33
Bewick's Wren – 210
House Wren – 22
Hermit Thrush – 61
Vesper Sparrow – 230
Grasshopper Sparrow – 18
"Pink-sided" Junco – 193

Party-Miles and Party-Hours

I know it's a pain, but keeping track of party-miles and party-hours is one way we can at least partially control for one of the factors that makes CBC data so unreliable – observer effort. If you have a watch, a GPS, and an odometer on your car, you can come up with pretty exact numbers. If all you have is a watch, you can at least estimate the miles.

For miles and hours driven by car, set your odometer to zero when you enter your area (not when you leave home). Anywhere you drive within your area counts, as you are theoretically able to spot birds and count them as you drive between birding spots. Keep a note of the time you enter your area of the CBC circle. Then write down the time every time you hop into your car and the moment you hop out of your car. At the end of the day, you can add up these times to get your party-hours by car. The odometer reading when you leave your area is the party-miles by car. Let's say you entered your area of the circle at 7:30 a.m. and departed for the countdown at 5:00. That's a total of 9.5 hours. If you add up the times you spent in the car and it comes to 1.5 hours total, then you have 1.5 hours by car.

Hours and miles on foot are a bit more difficult, because this is when groups split up into multiple parties. If you never split up, then using the example above, you logged 8 party-hours on foot. But if you split up into different groups (parties), then you have more. If you were apart for just an hour of the day, you'd have 9 party-hours. It's that simple. And a party is one to several people birding together within earshot.

As another example, say your group is 4 people. You split up, with one person hiking up one canyon, another person hiking up another, and two people hiking down yet a third. You all meet back up 2 hours later. Using the example above, the base is 8 party-hours, You have to add two more hours for each of the extra parties, so that makes a total of 12 party-hours by foot for the day.

All clear?

Keeping an Eye on the Weather

It's looking good for Sunday, January 3. The morning low will be right around freezing and the high from the upper 60's to the low 70's.

My favorite source of weather info is the NOAA Western Regional Headquarters site. This link HERE will take you to the exact center of the AZAH Circle forecast.

Tips On Finding Montezuma Quail

Last year we made no special efforts to get Montezuma Quail, but we still set an all-time national high with 268. It must have been a year of spectacular breeding success.

I think Sara and I were the only team to not actually see a live Montezuma Quail, though we did hear a covey early in the morning in Peck Canyon. But in Pine Canyon a Cooper's Hawk dropped this at our feet as it flew right by us, startled at the first humans it must have seen in weeks.

There have been reports from birders in recent weeks to indicate that the population is still pretty high, but I'd be surprised if we saw as many as last year. The monsoon was not very good in most of Southeastern Arizona and plants (and the animals that eat them) have suffered.

So I thought a couple tips on finding them might be in order. Their preferred microhabitat seems to be open oak woodland with a grassy understory, especially on the slopes within 50-100 yards of the canyon bottoms. So walking along the slope parallel with a wash, but a 25-50 yards upslope will increase your chances of flushing a group.

Better yet, when you are near such likely looking habitat, whistle for them. The whistle to use is a series of 4-8 pure, downslurred whistles, which is the female's call. Interestingly, the males will respond to this with their single downslurred, buzzy whistle better than to their own song. A recording of this female call can be heard on the Keller SE Arizona CD. It's the first sound on the cut, the first time simultaneously with a male's song, the second time on its own. I usually hear the individual notes more spaced out, rather than in a stuttered pattern as on the CD.

We may do a quick count of numbers at the countdown of this and other target species to see if we've come close to previous highs.

Finding those Cassin's Sparrows

We missed Cassin's Sparrow last year. That was something of a surprise, given that we had a large number of prepared participants thoroughly birding areas known to have Cassin's Sparrows in the winter. Even with so many years of suboptimal coverage and weather, the species was seen on just over half of all Atascosa Highlands CBC's. This circle even had 108 one year, which was the all-time national high until Ramsey Canyon got 193 in 1982.

Well, one reason we missed it was that it was just a bad year for many sparrows. We also missed Grasshopper Sparrow and had only 7 Brewer's Sparrows, after all. But there was one thing we didn't do.

In the wake of last year's CBC, I had some interesting e-mail conversations with Scott Mills, who was the compiler of this count through the late 70's, 80's, and early 90's.

Says Scott, "They respond really well to playbacks of taped songs in winter - they apparently hold territories and chip like crazy (and often come to the tape) when a song is played. The first year I tried it I got something like 45 birds with tape in an area where I had flushed only two simply by walking through the grass."

He mentions Wise Mesa and the steep upper edge of Atascosa Canyon (in area 10. Bear Valley Ranch) as being especially good areas. One winter I flushed a few in the open, scrubby mesquite slopes on the east side of Arivaca Lake. I suspect there are some in every area of the circle in the right habitats. The grassiest areas with very scattered mesquite are the best. And although I'd like to have a calm, warm, sunny day, he reminded me that in snow, many of the skulking sparrows (including Grasshopper and Baird's) are seen perched in shrubs.

So, now in addition to your GPS and digital camera, don't forget your iPod and external speaker.

Document Those Rarities

On last year's CBC, Andrew Core was able to get these simple and more-than-adequate shots of a Greater Scaup that he and Jeff Gilligan flushed from Papago Tanks, a pair of obscure ponds north of Ruby.

So, along with your binoculars, food and water, don't forget your point-and-shoot digital camera.

January 3, 2010 Area Assignments

These are not set in stone and will be updated as needed. This information is intended to be helpful in case neighboring area leaders would like to work out logistics in transportation. If you need contact information for anyone, please let me know.

1. Bear Grass Tank and Murphy Canyon
Brian McKnight
Jim Hays
Sally Johnsen

2. Jalisco and Apache Canyons
Dennis Wall
Marley Wall
Brooks Hart

3. Arivaca Lake
Paul Sheppard
Will Russell
Mark Sharon
Farrish Sharon

4. Oro Blanco Wash
Roger Tess
Eng Li Green
Paul Green

5. Warsaw and Holden Canyons
Ethan Beasley
Malcolm Chesworth
Robert Payne

6. Bartolo Canyon
Tim Helentjaris
Leah Latura

7. Ruby and Papago Tanks
Greg Greene
Andrew Core
Mary Klinkel
Fred Heath

8. California Gulch
Dick Palmer
Reid Freeman
Richard Wilt

9. Corral Nuevo
Rob Klotz
Bob Beatson
Suzy Ehret

10. Upper Sycamore and Yanks Canyons
Richard Fray
Alan Mueller
Karen Holliday
Jenise Porter

11. Middle Sycamore and Peñasco Canyons
Dave Stejskal
Parth Nagarkar
Grant Loomis
Tyler Loomis

12. Lower Sycamore and Tonto Canyons
Jherime Kellermann
Philip Kline
Nigel Crook

13. Pine Canyon to Hells Gate
Rich Hoyer
Art Schaub

14. Atascosa Lookout and Upper Ramanote Canyon
Laurens Halsey
Janine McCabe

15. Bear Valley Ranch
Denny Hodsdon
Paul Kaestle
Larry Liese

16. Rock Corral and Tinaja Canyons
John Yerger
Greg Corman
Richard Peterson

17. Peck Canyon Complex
Jake Mohlmann
Lucy Snyder
Steven Foldi
Tom Hildebrandt
Kristan Hildebrandt

18. Wise Mesa and Lower Ramanote Canyon
Matt Brown
Josh Stewart

19. Bellota Canyon
Matt Brooks
Erika Wilson

20. Peña Blanca Lake and Canyon
Ken Kertell
Pamela Elia

21. Ruby Road East
Mark Stevenson
Molly Pollock

Kathe Anderson
Lois Lorenz

22. Alamo Canyon
Rick Romea
Joe Woodley
Bob Behrstock