We finished the Grand Circle Tour and had two full days left on our vacation, so it was time for some serious birding. Our next destination was the Verde Valley Birding & Nature Festival which is based at the Dead Horse Ranch State Park in Cottonwood, AZ. This festival offers a wide variety of tours throughout the surrounding mountains, canyons, and chaparral. We spent the night before the festival at the Southwest Inn at Sedona. This town is a very popular destination and rightly so, as the area scenery is spectacular and there are numerous hotels and restaurants close by. For dinner, we walked next door to Famous Pizza which won the 2015 area best pizza award and the craft beers were quite tasty, too.

Saturday morning, before driving down to Cottonwood, we birded the area adjacent to the Southwest Inn and found Canyon and Spotted Towhee, Gambel’s Quail, Western Scrub-jays along with several other birds. We arrived at the festival site to check-in for our tours and were happy to find that this festival keeps the group sizes small to assure the best possible birding experience. We would much rather go out bird watching in a 10 passenger van than on a tour bus that holds 50 or more birders. In these smaller groups, you can actually follow what the guides are seeing and learn so much more about birding in general. Just goes to show that bigger is not always better.

Our group, led by David Moll headed out toward Mingus Mountain and our first stop was halfway up the mountain where we located Painted Redstarts, Grace’s Warblers with Plumbeous, Cassin’s, and Hutton’s Vireo. Back to the van, as the weather turned ugly we continued up to look for the Red-Faced Warbler, a bird generally only found in elevations above 6,000 feet. Just as we reached the summit the sun came out and we got great views of the valley below. Immediately after exiting the van, we saw two of the oddest looking squirrels that turned out to be Abert’s squirrels, a type of rabbit-eared squirrel which is endemic to the Rocky Mountains. There were many Acorn Woodpeckers which we affectionately refer to as clown woodpeckers.  Lucky for us, high in the pine trees David located one of our target birds, the Olive Warbler. We dipped on the Red-Faced Warbler which we will save for next time.

After the tour, we checked into our room at the Iron Horse Inn located in Old Town Cottonwood which is a great combination of a historic inn with modern accommodations. The courtyard is especially nice and there are a variety of restaurants, bars and shopping on the same block. The best thing for us was the room’s proximity to the Jail Trail. This is one of the premier birding locations on the Verde Valley Birding Trail where we found Gila Woodpecker, Abert’s Towhee, Western Kingbird, and a somewhat unexpected Indigo Bunting.

Early the next day we boarded our van for a morning of birding with group leader Rich Armstrong, who really knows his birds and is not afraid to tell like it is. It’s not every day that we get to go birding with a retired Nuclear Chemist! The first stop was Chuckwalla Drive for Hooded and Bullock’s Orioles, Bushtits, Brewer’s Sparrows, and Phainopepla along with more than two dozen other species. Our trip continued to Ogden Ranch Road and the surrounding area where we saw 30 Lark Sparrows,  a flock of over 70 Lark Buntings (life bird), and a wide variety of Sparrows including another lifer the Rufous-crowned Sparrow.

It was noon now and our birding day was just beginning.  Rich has graciously offered to let us bird his property in Sedona which has a Lewis’s Woodpecker in the backyard trees. What an amazing home with great bird habitat and plenty of feeders. Birds we found included Black-Chinned and Anna’s Hummingbird with Lesser and American Goldfinch. Never did find the Lewis’s, but did see Gila, Hairy and Ladder-backed Woodpeckers. On the way back to Dead Horse we stopped at the Sedona Wetlands where we picked up Ruddy Ducks, Cinnamon Teal, and Canvasback along with Grebes and Night Herons. The sun was going down as we arrived back in Cottonwood where we joined a very small group for the Owl Prowl. Not promised or expecting to see much we walked through the fading light across the state park to find a Great-horned Owl nest that had two owlets in it. Further down the trail our leader, Bob Miller called in two Western Screech-owls, another lifer. This must have been our lucky night because we had a fly-over Barn Owl while we shined a light on a Beaver slapping his tail in a nearby pond.

And so, as we made our way out of the park, congratulating ourselves on the fantastic Owl trip, we saw Lesser Nighthawks flying in the lights of the local ball field, another life bird for our list. It’s been a great day and night of birding but now we have to make a two-hour drive to the Phoenix Airport for the four-hour red-eye flight to Tampa.

Fortunately, after a glass of good wine, we both fell asleep on the plane and got somewhat rested for our Monday at the office. Oh well, no one ever said that doing a Big Year was going to be easy.

Next up: Birding the local patches

Trip : Total Species:   105  Year Birds:  34  Life Birds: 9

2015 : Year Birds: 301   Life Birds: 21

Here’s the list: 2015 Bird List