Birds at the Grand Canyon

Much has been rightfully written about the California condor and its close call with extinction last century. With tremendous help it's making a comeback in Grand Canyon National Park. Lucky visitors might just get a glimpse of this largest of North American birds soaring over the majestic landscape. Since it's not a regular occurrence, most of us will have to settle on seeing more common birds if birding is high on our to-do list on a visit to the park.

The south rim of the Grand Canyon rises to 7,000 feet in elevation, so its flat terrain hosts many of the trees you'd typically find in Arizona's mountain forests including pines, oaks and junipers. As a result it shouldn't have been a surprise when I encountered many of the birds I've become accustomed to in similar environments like Flagstaff seventy-five miles away and Prescott over a hundred miles.

Whether you're sightseeing at the many viewpoints off the rim, setting up a tent in a campsite or hiking the miles of trails throughout the park and the canyon, there are indeed numerous opportunities to see birds. In most parking areas you'll notice the ravens scavenging the tourists' detritus and investigating the comings and goings. And any any view skyward or into the canyon should afford you a vulture sighting - alas the turkey variety and probably not the California condor.

Deeper in wooded landscapes it's easy to find Arizona's most popular forest birds, including both white-breasted and pygmy nuthatches, juniper titmice, bushtits, juncos, acorn woodpeckers, western bluebirds and mountain chickadees. While birds of prey populate the park, I only saw one American kestrel on my innumerable hikes. But I was able to see my favorite high elevation bird, the Steller's jay, who made piercing calls as it visited acorn-bearing oak trees. And its cousin the Woodhouse's scrub jay also flew by in blue flashes with its own noisy calls.

I was actually surprised not to see or hear more woodpeckers besides the acorn woodpecker. But besides the California condor, it was the pinyon jay, another blue cousin of the Woodhouse's and Steller's, whose absence most disappointed me. Was it just bad luck and timing or maybe a poor supply of pinyon nuts that caused them to take up residence somewhere away from the canyon's rim?

Of course the Grand Canyon is a vast park where the distant north rim rises even higher than the south rim and whose mighty Colorado River lies a mile below in unique desert terrain. A wide array of habitats exist throughout the area, sustaining diverse flora and fauna. Finding one condor or one jay in one weekend's one square mile might be a greedy request for this wondrous park.