Scraping off the Rust

Organ Pipe National Monument...for years it has been a pristine fortress of unspoiled Sonoran Desert habitat. For years it has also stood as a hot, desolate monument to an ongoing failure of B's Bs as an Arizona operation, and a nemesis saga.
On six different occasions spanning all times of day and even part of the night, I had traipsed through the trail and canyons of OPNM waiting to see the tawny flush or hear the metronomic tooting of the highly coveted and highly difficult Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl.
It went on for years. I knew where I was. I knew where they should be. Other people found them and seemingly did so easily. And yet, disappointment and sunburn alone persisted.
My drive was recently reignited when I saw photos of the desert owl dynamo posted by AZ birder Walker Noe, who was a great sport in sharing his information, confirming that the Owls were there, albeit just a little farther from where I had been searching.



With Walker's updated and much-appreciated information, I arrived at the OPNM trails with Pops before sun-up and began the short hike to the FEPO's purlieu, having to make peace with the notion that the owl was so close to where I had spent hours and hours searching other times, and thereby had probably just barely been missing it (or else there really is a conspiracy--probably that too).
Maybe in the past my timing was always a little off. Maybe in the past the canyon really had been deserted. Maybe in the past I had beeswax over my ears and scales over my eyes. Past shortcomings not withstanding, on this momentous day and within 10 minutes of beginning, I hard the diminutive tooting of one of Arizona's more desirable little rusty-brown blobs (and AZ does have a few).
One might worry that approaching a FEPO for photos is difficult business, given the extra set of eyes they have in the back of their heads.

Truth be told, they (or, at least, this bird) are pretty accommodating. The bird was first calling down in a wash running parallel to the trail but then moved prominently to the less-tangled flatland on the opposite side.
Although the sun had not yet crested the canyon ridge, disallowing close-detail lighting, the FEPO moved from perch to perch, overseeing his arid domain. The bird seemed especially to favor ironwood perches (though it also perched on mesquite), which I had to admit was something lacking from my previous excursions--the ironwoods only seem to grow on one side of the wash, not really in it, and in times before I was usually on the opposite side or in the wash itself.

Cathartic pronouncements and the peaceful calm of closure echoed and permeated through the cool shady canyons of the OPNM. The FEPO called intermittently but consistently, vocalizing 5-7 times in about 5 minutes periods before moving to a new perch in a cyclical fashion. I stuck with the bird waiting for the sunlight to crest the eastern ridge, realizing not long before the moment of truth that I had forgotten to switch out camera batteries beforehand. 

The subsequent blinking red lights and mad dash back to the car resulted in substantial and not necessarily un-boastworthy lacerations, and thankfully the FEPO stayed local with Pops maintaining the stakeout, moving to a larger palo verde tree as the sun finally flooded the little valley.
After my many previous high intensity and high energy excursions for this bird, he just sat, super chill, and compelled me to do the same.

Perhaps there was a lesson here. Be cool. Relax. Take in the surroundings and abide. Well the FEPO didn't have to worry about time, heat, and gas prices in the same way, even if he is also keeping a list of birds he has seen and/or eaten, so don't get too lecture-y there FEPO, but the point is taken.
Sweet, sweet release.

With a little extra time to kill, I also stopped by the Avondale/PIR bridge for Barn Owl, where there were also hundreds of Cliff Swallows building nests and foraging with impressive coordination.

 

Neighborhood Great Horned Owls and a briefly calling WESO made for a four-owl day, which is a very good day by various and sundry standards. With FEPO falling, that leaves Five-striped as the only AZ resident species I have yet to see. So look out California Gulch; I am feeling sassy.

Organ Pipe National Monument (More like Organ Grinder)

It's a beautiful site, hosting some of the most pristine Sonoran Desert habitat and rock formations in Arizona. Being two hours away from Phoenix, it's also not quite as demanding a trek as some other natural destinations for those originating in the middle of the state. 

Organ Pipe is reputed to be one of the better spots in AZ to find Ferruginous Pygmy Owl. I had a few friends head here two years back and have one such endangered owl calling from near a campsite restroom as soon as they got out of the car. In the five different visits I have made to this site, I have had no such luck. I've come in before sun-up and birded through the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening without one little 'peep' or 'toot' for a small rusty owl. 

To be fair, this bird is endangered and sparsely distributed, so this it may not be of fair 'nemesis' status yet, but these annual searches throughout Organ Pipe each spring and summer have become pretty beleaguering. These attempts are additionally taxing because there's not a lot of bird diversity otherwise, so dipping on the owls also comes with few consolation prizes. So, without further adieu, let's look at what those consolation prizes are!

When driving around Arizona, I'm always on the lookout for the perfect saguaro. The Perfect Saguaro is the paradigm of pulchritudinous cactus. It has two arms, unevenly staggered, with a full trunk. Many saguaros have more than two arms, or none at all, or the arms are of uncouth length, or there are other growths atop the main trunk. This candidate at Organ Pipe is the closest I've come to finding The Perfect Saguaro. It's not there yet--it needs to fill out a bit more--but maybe in 10 years (when I finally find that stupid Owl) it'll be ready. I shall pin a bio-degradable blue ribbon on it. 

The saguaro and organ-pipe cacti are the most dominant and imposing lifeforms in the area, but there is plenty of dimunative-but-tough salt-brush, creosote, and cholla as well. This scrub provides the equivalent of a deciduous forest canopy, sort of inverted, and holds most of the avian life. Sado-masochistic Cactus Wrens and spherical Black-tailed Gnatcatchers are among the most audible and noticeable.




Organ Pipe's cup also doth overfloweth with myiarchus Flycatchers, with the numerous Ash-throated Flycatchers ceding the vocalization contest to their bigger, yellower, Brown-crested cousins.

The flowering saguaros sustain their own small ecosystems with many species of bee and other insects, as well as birds and bats all revolving around these dainty flowers. Scott's Orioles are big fans of the flowering saguaro, though they eschew the Woodpecker preference for living (and doing other things) in the same place they eat, so instead nest in the palo verde and mesquite, especially the trees have a nice mistletoe infestation.  

On the most recent return home from Organ Pipe, I made a quick stop at Base Meridian WMA in west Phoenix, still trying for that nifty Ridgway's Rail shot. This trip was also a bust, respective of the objective, even if there were hundreds of nesting Cliff Swallows and a weirdly active Lesser Nighthawk.

The B&M Meridian is great for Cuckoos later in the summer, as well as Least Bittern, and it also is/was one of the better areas in Phoenix to see Barn Owls. And Barn Owls are cooler than Ridgway's Rails anyway right? Well, that argument is moot if the Owl is dead, and the only bird I could find at B&M had caught such a case. This brings the tally of dead Barn Owls I have seen to 5, more than twice as many as I've seen alive.

And yet, despite these recent disappointments, I am not depressed. Despite the knowledge that bird-blog-culture-defining people are currently galavanting through the Maine forests and coastland, racking up lifers and tails most glorious, I am not disturbed with envy nor pangs of inadequacy. Why not? Because there are breeding Flame-colored Tanagers AND Tufted Flycatchers, to say little of Elegant Trogons and what not, in Ramsey Canyon right now, and I will be cutting loose to that feather-friendly Mecca on Thursday. How's that for consolation?