Near-urban Birding in the Santa Catalina Mountains

We should delight in the pockets of wildness in our urban areas.

But once in a while you have to escape. Brian Nicholas and I recently birded an urban-adjacent resource--the Santa Catalina Mountains. They are much bigger than a "pocket," but most parts of these mountains are within a 20-mile radius of central Tucson--an informal limit I've put on birding defined as in or near Tucson. Brian and I, and Janine McCabe, form a Tucson Audubon Birdathon team that may use that "limit" to designate the area in which we will do our Birdathon fundraiser in April. Stand by to support OUR TEAM!

Loggerhead shrike

From Brian's neighborhood on the east side of Tucson we drove five miles up the gently-rising alluvial fan. We passed through diverse, high desert vegetation dominated by mesquites and saguaros till we reached the base of the mountains, and then continued up through more rugged cactus-filled low mountain slopes.

Bridled titmouse

At Molino Basin you are arriving in a high grassland environment with a smattering of oaks. You don't necessarily think of the side of a mountain as loggerhead shrike habitat, but if there are open grasslands with perches from which to hunt, I guess the topography doesn't matter so much.

Black-chinned sparrow

The Arizona Trail east from the Molino Basin parking lot takes you into the oaks. I hadn't gone been in there much in the winter so I didn't know what to expect. But scrub jays were a pleasant find, and I realized that I hadn't seen a bridled titmouse for quite some time. Three wrens (rock, canyon and Bewick's) were around, with the canyon wren always winning for best singer with its downward cascading whistles.

Brian sussed out what he thought was a black-chinned sparrow. There are not a lot of these around the Tucson area and the grasslands around Molino Basin are one of the possible places to find them.

We stalked it for quite a while trying to get a good look at it--and a good photo. The photo to the right was the best I could do.

Pipevine swallowtail

There were a remarkable number of pipevine swallowtails, and some other butterflies, flitting around. We chased one of them as well for a while, trying to get a photo. What a brilliant thing to see on a winter day.

Of course it hasn't been a typical winter. We've had weeks upon weeks of temperatures significantly above normal. It makes me wonder if seeing that many of any butterfly is normal for February. One can't help think that the weather has had something to do with it.

Yellow-eyed junco

In fact Brian was in shorts! (See the last photo below.) There are certainly some winters when a trip that eventually takes you to nearly 9,000 feet elevation would force even Brian into long pants. But this wasn't one of those days and this isn't one of those winters.

Red-breasted nuthatch

At Bear Canyon, straight out of the car, there was a yellow-eyed junco on the ground. Brian noticed that it had been banded with metal and colored plastic leg bands. This one had two green bands on its left leg and a silver metal band over a red band on its right leg. Bird banders use combinations of bands like this so that people with binoculars, like us, can see a combination of bands that distinctly identifies an individual.

Further on at the ski area near Summerhaven we watched some more birds on the ground. I don't think I had ever seen a red-breasted nuthatch on the ground, so I got a photo of that! There was also a mountain chickadee foraging nearby.

It's wonderful to have resources like the Santa Catalina Mountains so close to Tucson. Within a 20-mile radius of Tucson one wonders at the avian diversity that can be seen.

Brian Nicholas, shorts, snow!