Miller Canyon: The High Life

Mid to later May in Arizona is Miller time. This preeminent of the Huachuca canyons holds constant attractions, both migratory and residential. The southeastern specialties found here often rub shoulders with seasonal rarities and plenty of other generally cool birds. The canyon is, of course, most famous for its Spotted Owls and its hummingbird station on the Beatty Guest Ranch. It's not particularly well known for its Spotted Towhees, but they are there too. 

After some quick forays in Huachuca Canyon and Sierra Vista with foul-mouthed birdwatching machine Nate McGowan, we headed south to Miller Canyon for the largest chunk of the day's birding. Although we were arriving a bit after peak hours, the canyon was still noisy with residential and migratory bird activity. The lower reaches held Hermit and Swainson's Thrushes, Vireos, Titmice, and about a thousand pounds of Dusky-capped Flycatchers. 

There were plenty of ABA/AZ specialty lifers on the hike and along the way to our larger targets. With some complicated directions from the ever helpful and loquacious Beatty fellas, we located the Spotted Owl nest, from which the female's head was visible (not photographed). The Northern Pygmy Owl nest didn't produce anything for us but we picked up some montane Warbler species, including Painted Redstart and Grace's, as well as several attempts at my still-photo-nemesis Red-faced Warbler, perhaps Arizona's best warbler despite these unjust shots.

We didn't turn up Olive Warbler, which I've actually never seen in Miller Canyon anyway, nor Hermit Warbler, which is a migrant that's very good at not showing up as soon as you try to find one. I'll go ahead and further posit that those plane-faced, bug-eyed Hermit Warblers are one of the dorkiest looking of the bunch. I know that simplicity is the way of the hermit there, warbler, but still, a mask, a cool scar, supercilia, a tribal tattoo, something. So no, I won't apologize for not having a single decent photo of the species. Sorry.

The main prize up canyon was one that's even grown in value since our departure, where apparently two Northern Goshawks have since hatched. When we made it up the bird was still incubating the eggs and was thus barely visible. With the recent hatchings, presumably it is now more conspicuous, as may be the Goshawk chicks--not at all a common bird or a common sighting.
It was pretty crazy to see this large, intimidating, and rare bird just sitting pretty. The sighting was all the more interesting because bird activity in the area was very high. Tanagers, Pewees, and warblers were all very active in the sycamores and pines nearby, mercifully thankful that their smaller size and thinner frames, perhaps, would keep these top predators from developing much of an interest.

The muted sighting and photo of the Goshawk was actually better than we got of the Spotted Owl, so these canyon highlights were a bit unsatisfying. There is no better cure for the nascent birding desire at soul-satisfying views than a hummingbird station.
The feeders themselves detract from sightings with their overpowering plastic redness, but the general buzz they create and sustain in the surrounding trees is more than compensatory, and the Beatty hummingbird station was also the recent site of our last major target for Miller Canyon.

At the Beatty hummingbird arena, some birds bide their time and plot violence, or sugar consumption, in the shadows, while others perch in open, broad (tailed) daylight with a devil-may-care attitude. 

The sugar water is about the only sweet thing shared between the different hummingbird species. In fact, they're often so busy not sharing that they don't get any for themselves. The Hummingbird hierarchy is beautiful, intriguing, and totally lacking in virtue. Being among the largest hummers present, Magnificents usually reign supreme. They're like the Great White Sharks of the Hummingbird world, for obvious and apparent reasons that need no further elaboration.

The White-eared Hummingbird often breeds in Miller Canyon, though in small numbers, and a pair arrived back in town early enough for us to try for them while in the area. They're not as physically intimidating as the Magnificent or Blue-throated Hummingbirds, nor as colorful as the Broad-billed, but the rarity and limited U.S.--range factors make this a highly coveted bird, plus that ear stripe is just awesome. You could land a plane on that thing at midnight.

The male White-eareds are actually pretty gorgeous but it's difficult to capture the colors on the head and gorget with this bird, especially when its predominantly backlit, a frequent trouble with the Beatty station any time after 9:00am or so. This was my first lifer of the trip, leaving Berylline and Buff-breasted as the only two ABA hummers I've yet to see, plus stupid Allen's, which everyone knows is just a greener-backed subspecies of Rufous anyway...

With a similar though less good-natured dynamic to a mixed flock, all the hummingbird commotion attracts the attention of other birds as well. Bushtits and Titmice and Titless Bushmouses were all chittering in the surrounding oak scrub. Also of interest was a violently ill Acorn Woodpecker. It was Sunday morning, after all, so needless to say it had been partying too hard with its other head-banging buddies the night before.

We've all been there, when the fun of Saturday night sucks away the happiness of Sunday (which is why the day after feels so terrible). It's terrible, the world is spinning, you regret the late night texts you sent to the jock Arizona Woodpecker even if it is a lying bastard, and then you puke. Then you feel amazing again and are ready to have your picture taken. FANTASTIC!

After racking 'em up in the Huachucas, we took a detoured drive through Patagonia and then north on the I-19 to the Santa Ritas, where several more potential lifers awaited. The greatest perversity about Miller Canyon is the driving need one feels to go back as soon as one has left. Early July I'll be wiping out on its rocky trails (which I've managed to do every single time I've hiked it) and trying for the Berylline Hummingbird, if the Goshawks don't take me first.

Miller: The Champagne of Canyons

Miller Canyon...with its perfect location, beautiful habitats, and relative accessibility, it is so often the object of birders' hopes and dreams, and so often the subject of many heartbreaks. The attractive qualities of Miller Canyon are superlative. The Beatty Guest Ranch in Miller Canyon is world-renowned for its variation in hummingbirds, with a North American record 14 species seen there in a single day. Additionally, it hosts an annual pair of breeding Spotted Owls, a majestic and endangered species that is not reliably found anywhere else in the state.

Despite the Owls being largely sedentary, I've made the drive down south and missed the Owls on three separate occasions, and once while joining forces with an outstanding birder ally. 

There enters the heartbreak, the spiraling depressions and benders, the broken commitments, the total total nadir of an Arizona birder's soul...a binge in Miller Canyon and leave one reeling for days. 

Heading into the belly of the beast. So young...so naive

After the most recent miss on the Owls, I was back in the Canyon within a month. I knew that this time I would find the Owls, in addition to a great many great birds, and I knew that because this time they were not the main reason for the trip back to Miller Canyon. I returned with my birding buddy Tommy, at the expense even of doing a Maricopa County east side Big Day, because there was an almighty concatenation of birds in that Huachuca Mountain pass the weekend of April 27th.   

When Western Tanagers and Magnificent Hummingbirds are some of the less remarkable bids seen on a trip...it's a good birding day.

Not only was Miller Canyon still hosting the Spotted Owls, and not only was it now receiving its normal influx of Blue-throated and Magnificent Hummingbirds, along with Dusky-capped and Buff-breasted Flycatchers, but the Canyon also had two reported Crescent-chested Warblers, a Flame-colored Tanager, Pygmy Owls, Goshawks...add in a Lucifer Hummingbird next door at Ash Canyon, and it was a feathered paradise.

A young Scott's Oriole perched on ocotillo? Not even a big deal...

Just to avoid any later disappointment, the Crescent-chested Warblers did not show that day, though we did hear some suspicious, Parula-like trilling on the trail. Thundering up and down Miller Canyon, even with dozens of other eager birders from around the southwest, including California, New Mexico, and Nevada, the odds were always heavily against finding those little birds, and we will likely hav eto wait a few more years to try again. 

But searching for Crescent-chested Warblers in Miller Canyon is like trying to find the perfect diamond in a jewelry store: there are plenty of other gems around. Also, you shouldn't eat the merchandise, nor put it in your pocket and try to leave. 

The stationary Hummingbird feeders are great attractions at the Beatty Ranch in Miller Canyon, but finding and photographing some of the Hummers away from the feeders, like this female Blue-throated below, presents an enjoyable challenge, especially when warblers are being all anti-social. 

Like the other southeastern Arizona mountain ranges, Miller Canyon and the Huachucas host the brown-backed Arizona Woodpecker. The Cactus Wren is a mighty mascot for state bird, but this fellow would've done well too, even if it is esoteric in its location. With an ability to climb, eat, and fight crime while upside down, these Woodpeckers, like Nuthatches, make Spiderman seem blasé. 

Every birding trip of 3+ hours driving needs to produce a rarity of some sort, and that rarity must have a grainy, backlit portrait taken. Miller Canyon is peculiar in that is hosts so many great birds, and so many birds that are not found much elsewhere in the country, but within the mountain range they're locally common. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, this Flame-colored x Western Tanager applied for a job in the 'rarity' department. With the yellowish wingbar and weaker orange coloration (seems like a crime to say, doesn't it) disqualifying this bird as being a pure Flame-colored, it is in the odd position of being rarer than either a Western or regular Flame-colored, and yet, as far as the lister is concerned, more or less useless. This is the plight of the hybrid bird, but a plight that does not at all extend into the realm of aesthetic enjoyment.

On the drive down from Phoenix, Tommy and I stopped to do some owling on Mt. Lemmon in Tucson the night before. It cost a good night's sleep, but we heard Flammulated, Western-Screech, Mexican Whip-poor-will, Great-horned, and N. Saw-whet Owl (nice!) all on the mountain. This fortunate prelude of owling could've been interpreted two ways. Either it was going to be a very owl-y weekend, or we used up our Owl luck in Tucson.

It was the first possibility that proved true, and we made sure right away. Before hours of hiking up and down Miller Canyon, scouring every bush and analyzing every trilll for the CCWA, we spotted the Spotted nemesis sitting in a choke-cherry tree.

Knowing he could thwart us no longer, that we had his number, that his ticket was up, the Owl still did its best to frustrate, ducking away and pretending to scratch an itch on its back. I could just be bitter, since I too get itches on my back and cannot scratch them in this fashion, thus begging the question, what the heck good is our spinal chord anyway?

When the perch has been found, the hard part is done. though the morning light was behind the bird, we eventually had some great, overdue face-time, and I should also stress that the Owl was not stressed or harassed in any way beyond our unavoidable proximity, perched as it was fairly near the trail. For better or worse, we gawking birders were business as usual for this freckled hooter.

Forgive my indulgence here, but I've dipped on this bird consistently for two years of trying, so I took a lot of photos at long last. At one point the Owl started preening and chewing on its feet--something I often see Burrowing Owl do too, but in some photos it looks like he's got twigs, leaves, or even maybe the remain of a critter stuck in there.

With the Spotted Owl secured, it was time to thunder up and down the mountain in the hopes of seeing some rarer and much more energetic birds. We scoured the lower washes, turning up many warblers, tanagers, and sparrows. We trekked up higher, turning up Greater Pewee, woodpeckers, Siskins, and Buff-breasted Flycatchers.

In our Warbler search, which did turn up just about every other possible warbler in the area, including Red-faced and Virginia's, we did a fair amount of exploring around a bend in the wash where another birder reported seeing a Northern Pygmy Owl being mobbed the day before. Exploring the pine trees around the trail, I found whitewash deposits but all the elevated staring in the world couldn't produce that little eight inch poof ball I was looking for, only dozens of Wilson's Warblers.

Later in the afternoon, while quintouple-checking that same area for the elusive Warblers, we met up with fellow Arizonan and fantastic birder Kurt Radamaker, who spotted a small but well-worn hole in a nearby scrub oak. A little patience...and there it was.

"Who dares to disturb my slumber!?"

Our sixth owl species in 12 hours, this was a super find and one of the highlights of the day. On one hand, the bird's limited visibility kept it from being a perfect sighting, but on the other hand, actually getting the Owl-in-a-hole experience isn't as normal a treat as common consensus and Halloween decorations would have us believe.

This is another Owl species I'd been trying and hoping to see for some time, with them occurring regularly but elusively on Mt. Ord in Maricopa County. It just goes to show that, like with the Spotted Owls, one of the best ways to find a really cool bird is to look for something else entirely (but also really, really cool). What's that really cheesy expression, 'shoot for the stars and land on the moon' or something? Yeah, it's kinda like that.

With Ash Canyon and Sierra Vista grasslands beckoning after Miller Canyon, there was no time nor desire to crack open a few of the High Life when we finally called it quits on the Warbler (nor time and desire for smokes after Ash Canyon, nor Sierra Nevadas after Sierra Vista, etc). No no, there were birds to see. We saved all the prodigious drinking for the drive home.

Drinking water that is! Ha ha..ha...

            

Smiles all round'

It's Miller Time!

One of the most well known and well loved birding and hiking destinations in the Huachuca Mountains, Miller really is the champagne of Canyons. In addition to Sulphur-bellied Flycatchers and rare Tanagers, Miller's Canyon is one of the best places in Arizona, and perhaps North America, to see a Spotted Owl. Naturally I didn't see one, but along the way I did stop by the Beatty Ranch at the base of the upper canyon. The Beattys maintain a small bed and breakfast operation in the canyon and, best of all, a fully stocked Hummingbird station that draws in all kinds of southeast Arizona specialties.

The drive up to the Beatty Ranch is dry and dusty haul, but along the way you can expect to see Spotted Towhees, Mexican Jays, and Canyon Towhees all rustling about in the sparse undergrowth. Though their North American range is limited to the southern points of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, Mexican Jays are among the most sociable and vocal birds one might encounter in the sky island chain. This doesn't mean they're exceptionally fond of people, or at least of me, but through very careful and super scientific observation I discovered that these Jays like to eat nuts. This Jay was going mano-a-mano with a scrub-oak acorn.

The acorn proved to be a very stubborn adversary, and after a minute of squeezing and smashing, the Jay withdrew to a more private setting where he could eat in peace.

Perhaps his retreat was brought on by the annoying curiosity of this Canyon Towhee, a bird which the mellow blue Jays must regard as a stumpy and ugly neighbor. It occurred to me that Jays are, in many ways, like the stereotype New England WASPs. They're pretty on the outside and strain to keep their complicated social networks in order, but they can also be very snooty and cruel to anyone who doesn't meet their standards. The Canyon Towhee, by contrast, is less to look at, but I'm sure he leads a rich inner life...

This female Woodpecker, unlike the noisier Towhees and Jays, did not want to be seen at all. Tough luck! People say that if you want someone to look at you, you just have to stare at them and soon, for some supernatural reason, their gaze will gravitate towards you. That doesn't work with birds, probably because they have better things to do then sit around gawking all day. This realization, in turn, made me feel a little bit sad about myself...

Unless you're staying overnight at the Beatty lodge, you have to park before the complex and do a bit of walking to access the Hummingbird site and kick in a few bucks towards the sugar fund, but the jaunt is worth it. Over a half dozen feeders and cotton wads draw in the Hummingbirds while visitors sit on shaded bleachers and photograph, oogle, ogle, and let the mind be boggled by all the color.

Anna's Hummingbirds and Broad-tailed Hummingbirds are the most common species during the Arizona summer and they overrun Miller Canyon too. But if you're looking for a spot to consistently see some of the less common Arizona specialities, it's hard to beat Beatty's. So well maintained are the feeders that even Black-chinned Hummingbirds, the mostly mildly colored and mild-mannered of the bunch, have time to sit, drink, and show off their immaculate posture (I wish I stood up this straight after a binge of drinking).

Of all the migrant/summer Hummers whose North American range is exclusively in Arizona, the Broad-billed is perhaps the most common. These stunning birds are somewhere in between the Costa's, Black-chinned, and Broad-tailed Hummers, which are fairly common throughout the state, and the other rarer, more selective migrants that tend to stay in the southeast corner. The first time I saw one of these Hummingbirds I was stunned, and didn't imagine anything could be more shimmering. Amazingly, after twenty minutes at Beatty's you'll start to pass them over in favor of other, rarer birds--a true testament to the quality on display.



This immature Broad-billed still has some gorget to grow, but at least his pops, perhaps pictured above, has shown him where the best hangout is, the best place to pick up chicks.

All the same, this female Magnificent Humming is definitely out of the young Broad-bill's league. Not only is she Magnificent, she could totally crush him if he tried any funny business. At five-and-a-half inches, she's one of the larger Hummingbirds in the area, and it takes something extra special to get her attention.

Enter the Magnificent male...

It was a thrill to see this aptly named bird, but I'm pretty bummed with my inadequate photography. Cameras should come with a label on them that says something like, "Warning: This device will cease to operate properly if photographing wildlife that is above this camera's pay grade." Maybe it's just as well that the male Magnificent Hummingbird is a blurred bird; proper exposure of this hunk is known to cause paralysis in female Magnificent Hummingbirds and some humans.

Amazingly, the highlight hummer of the day was not the Magnificent. Lucifer, Berylline, and Plain-capped Starthroat could all be show-stoppers at the Beatty theatre, but they were not on stage that day. In a sense, this contemplative male Blue-throated Hummingbird wasn't either, but he brought a standing ovation out of me nonetheless.

I found this handsome fellow while striking-out on the Spotted Owls. An intriguing peeping sound drew my attention to a large Arizona sycamore where this clement critter was seeking some respite from the noontime sun. These large Hummingbirds have an appeal similar to the Black-chinned Hummers--a comparably conservative coloration with just the right accents. Hummingbirds are not known for their economy of style, but the Blue-throated pulls it off pretty well. Most of all, I was just glad to find a new bird--a new Hummer especially--that wasn't at a feeder. The feeders at Beatty's are terrific, but the one thing they don't provide is the full satisfaction of seeing a new bird out in the ruff.

I haven't birded Miller Canyon as much as I should, but even in my limited capacities it is a wonderful spot fully deserving of its sterling reputation. April through September; it's Miller time!