Not much happened on this day of Camp Chiricahua, but the few things that did happen satisfied me for the day. In the morning, we birded around the town of Portal, in a desert chaparral-type habitat. In this habitat, we found all 3 species of oriole (Hooded, Bullock's, and Scott's), Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Western Scrub-Jays (first ones of the trip), Black-throated Sparrows, and my lifer Juniper Titmouse. This small drab bird was once lumped into one species with the Oak Titmouse, which was called the Plain Titmouse. But intense research proved that these are in fact two distinct species. The only reliable way to tell them apart is through vocalization. Fortunately, their don't ranges don't overlap, except for in Modoc Plateau in northeastern California, which makes identification relatively easy. This was the best bird of the morning.
We then continued down the road and decided where to stop as we went. We stopped by some feeders up in the mountains. The lady that managed these feeders was very friendly and let us stay a little while in front of the feeders. Some birds that we saw were Bridled Titmouses, Mexican Jays, another Juniper Titmouse, and my lifers Summer Tanager and Indigo Bunting. I got exceptional views of these birds as they fed on the feeders fifteen feet away from us.
We then continued up the mountains. We saw two little birds chasing each other on some branches as we were driving. Curious, we stopped to find out what they were, as we were wont to do. As we left the vans, we walked into the open forest, and saw a little gray bird with a red face. As its name suggests, it was a Red-faced Warbler! And there were in fact two of them, which made this moment even more special! With these southwestern warblers were several Plumbeous Vireos and a single Hutton's Vireos.
Once we finally made it to the top of the mountain, we hopped out of the vans in search for a certain parid. This bird resembles very much a Black-capped or Carolina Chickadee, but lacks the yellowish sides, and has a much bigger bib. This bird is the Mexican Chickadee, found only in high elevation mountains, in open forests. We went to this exact habitat and listened for any chickadee-like chattering. At first, we only heard the peeping of the Pygmy Nuthatches, and we saw a couple Brown Creepers blending in with the bark on the trees. Suddenly, Louise Zemaitis and I heard a chickadee-like call nearby. Then, we saw the bird hop onto a fallen tree trunk. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect view of the bird.
It was finally time to head back to Cave Creek Ranch. Already with 4 lifers under my belt, I thought I was set for the day. But little did I know that we were going to find one of the best birds of the trip. During the "siesta-time", me and five other guys decided that we wanted to search for a beautiful galliforme that is seldom seen. Why did we think that we had a chance at finding the bird? Because we were dreamers. We walked down the wash and listened for a descending trill, but no such luck. So we decided to bushwhack through some habitat, in hopes of finding it then. Suddenly, we heard the descending trill, and we all froze in amazement. Our dream was about to come true. The bird was nearby, so we scanned the rocks to see if there was anything moving around on them. But when one the campers took a step, he flushed a gorgeous, male Montezuma Quail! This bird is very secretive and surreptitious. They blend in extremely well with their surroundings, making them very difficult to spot (which may seem surprising, considering their harlequin plumage). Unfortunately, we didn't get amazing views of it, as it flew off very quickly. We headed back to the ranch, and made everybody else jealous.
This pretty much sums up the highlights of the day. That night we went owling, but all we got was a calling Western Screech-Owl. This day however was amazing, and I couldn't have asked for anything more (except for maybe better views of the Montezuma Quail).
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