Day 2 - Madera Canyon and Beyond

The storm arrived in the night with lightning, thunder and lots of rain.  In the morning, the air smelled to me of animals.  I imagined wet javelinas in the wash.  Mark said it was the smell of the first summer rain on the dry dry grass.  It is very unusual, we are told, for it to rain in May in Arizona.  After a huge breakfast, served at 6 AM, we went back to the pond we’d seen the previous afternoon.  It began to pour, raining harder and harder until it was hailing.  We stayed in the van, marveling over the many swallows flying low over the pond and sitting on the wire but before too long we fled the rain, driving south to Tubac where we found lush habitat by the Santa Cruz River bed—willow, cottonwood, mesquite, elderberry and lots and lots of birds.  We spotted a flock of cedar waxwings feeding in a tall mulberry tree on the juicy ripe berries.  There were more than a dozen different kinds that came to the tree, delicious eye candy, that kept us peering into the tree for more than an hour.  As we left, we were serenaded by white winged doves calling “who, who, who” —the sound of summer in Arizona.

The sky became lighter to the north, so we headed to Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains.  We walked up a paved trail up the Canyon, with the sound of a burbling creek nearby. As desert scrub changed to sycamore, oak, juniper forest, we learned about many plants (always a treat for me).  We spotted a beautiful Bridled titmouse with a big fat caterpillar in his mouth and watched as he flitted here and there until he popped in his nest cavity in a tall tree.  Because he didn’t eat the bug himself right away, we knew he was feeding young in the nest.  There were many wildflowers which I had to photograph.  I very much appreciated that all the plants, including all the grasses, are native here.  The squirrel tail grass was golden glowing as it swayed in the breeze.  At the top of the trail was a picnic area where we ate our lunch.  As we finished, we could feel the air change, the breeze pick up and by the time we were all in the van, a torrential downpour began.  We drove to the next site, the Lodge, and sat in the van waiting for the rain to stop.  It didn’t.  It even began to snow, so we went on to our next adventure which was a drive across a dirt road over the crest of the Mountains.  Bumping along, Mark suddenly stopped and we all got out.  He’d heard a bird singing.  It was a 5-striped Sparrow, a very rare bird found only occasionally in S. Arizona.  Though the weather was dramatic, windy, cold, with spattering of rain, we all got many good views of this rare bird.  It was exciting.   Over the mountains, we drove along a valley to Patagonia, a town time seems to have forgotten.  The Main Street  is wide with no traffic.  There was a old building with an old old sign on it that said “Patagonia Lumber” but in the window was a sign that said “Pilates.”  We checked into our very quaint B and B.  It’s in an old adobe building and very brightly decorated in Mexican hand weaving and carvings with a beautiful big garden.  After settling in, we went for our late afternoon birding to a famous spot - the home of Wayne and Marion Paton.  In the 70’s they retired to Patagonia and began feeding the hummingbirds.  As they put out more and more feeders, flocks of hummingbirds began to frequent them and people began to come to see the birds.  Though the couple have since died, their work is continued by Tucson Audubon.  We spent a couple of hours sitting comfortably on benches, watching birds come to

the many many feeders.  Right at the end we saw  the iconic and very rare violet crowned hummingbird.  It was a good day made dramatic by the rain and wind.  We had a wonderful pizza dinner and now it’s time for me to throw the 12 pillows off the bed and get into it.