New Years Day
Day one of The Biggest Twitch
7am and we are with Moez Ali at the Sweetwater Sewage Works, Tucson, Arizona. It is cold, very cold and the first hints of light are in the sky. We are all looking intently at a cactus plant, nowhere else, no one even thinks of scanning around, we only have eyes for this particular cactus. Birds are calling behind us, no one turns, we watch and wait. There! Under the bush, it’s there! Cactus Wren, bird number one of The Biggest Twitch. Arizonas state bird and in its rightful habitat it kicks off our big year.
With Bird number one under the belt and the one we wanted, we are now free to bird like crazy – so we did. Sweetwater quickly provided a further 40 species and then we headed off for Madera Canyon. Thankfully by now the temperature had risen above freezing and we began to get the feeling back in fingers and toes. We birded the canyon from top to bottom and racked up some great birds including Black-throated Grey Warbler, Arizona Woodpecker, Magnificent Hummingbird, Painted Redstart and Olive Warbler.
We then headed south on the freeway stopping briefly to check out a pond where we quickly scored Buffelhead, Lesser Scaup, Redhead and Canvasback. Continuing south we reached Patagonia and birded the lake. Despite strong winds and limited time we collected great birds. Black-capped Gnatcatchers gave amazing views right by the track and we were surprised to see two Greater Scaup on the water.
No time to dwell on our success light was starting to fade and we wanted more birds. In Patagonia we again visited Patons and watched spell bound the mass of birds at the feeders. Even at this late stage new birds came quickly – Blue Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, White throated Sparrow and Anna’s Hummingbird. Robin Baxter was as cheerful and helpful as ever and gave us tips on where we might find a Grey Hawk with only minutes of daylight left. We checked around the area, no sign, then Ruth said she thought she had just seen it dive behind a tree. We looked hard, nothing, then, wow! The Grey Hawk flew towards us and landed in full view! What a way to end a fantastic days birding.
The total on day one? 117 species seen and a further two heard only.
A huge thank you to Moez for his tireless efforts and good humour throughout the day, and more importantly for his expert bird knowledge, a better person to be in the field with is hard to imagine. You can contact Moez at
info@birdingamerica.com, or telephone 1-800-774-6150. Want to go birding? Then give him a call - we know you will have a fantastic time!