Birds and More at Cave Creek Ranch

My head danced with superlatives as I drove more than four hours to Portal for the weekend. The small town lies in the extreme southwest corner of the state where the closest medical care is a roundabout sixty miles away in Douglas. But more importantly, I was on my way to the largest of Arizona's sky islands, the Chiricahua Mountains. Portal's surrounding skies are some of the darkest and clearest in the region, offering stargazers a feast for the eyes.

Most interesting, Portal acts as the gateway to Cave Creek Canyon, home to some of Arizona's most diverse flora and fauna. It's a pristine, mostly forested environment with rugged peaks towering over seasonal and perennial streams. The bird life includes the blue-throated mountain gem, the largest nesting hummingbird in the United States.

But it was another extraordinary bird that was on my mind during the long drive: the elegant trogon. It's in a family of tropical birds that includes quetzals, and is the only member that nests in the States. I sought out the strikingly colorful male and his drabber mate along the South Fork of Cave Creek, exactly where I encountered them last year. Alas, I was disappointed this year. Drought, high temperatures, or something else seem to be delaying the arrival of these beauties until, hopefully, later in the summer.

Nevertheless, I found myself content birdwatching at my weekend's lodging, Cave Creek Ranch. It is situated just north of Coronado National Forest, the steward of Cave Creek Canyon. The ranch's seven creekside (currently dry) acres of woods and grassy fields host not only cabins to shelter human visitors but an array of feeders and water features to sustain wildlife. The scenic grounds are a kind of animal sanctuary where birders and nature lovers can observe their favorite subjects up close.

Besides hummingbirds, grosbeaks, orioles, tanagers, and flycatchers, to name just a few of the many kinds of birds I saw on the grounds, herds of mule deer, packs of javelinas, scores of chipmunks, a multitude of rabbits, and even a curiously tamed skunk call the place home. A strict "No Dogs" policy certainly helps guarantee these critters' comfort and safety.

While I didn't see it on this year's trip, there's at least one resident coati on the grounds. I longed for this relative of the racoon's frequent visits to the bird feeding area where sugar water bottles, jelly jars, suet baskets, seed trays, and orange slices all hung from the branches of a large juniper tree near the lodge's office. Even peanut butter - a favorite of the coati - was slathered on a tree trunk. Indeed, there was a feast for every bird and critter.

A scrappy, one-eyed black cat, either adopted by the host or having itself adopted the host, didn't seem to be interested in the house finches or northern cardinals flitting about. "He's a mouser, not a birder," the lodge's owner told me.

Well the birds certainly got MY attention. I was initially struck by the bright yellow of a male western tanager as I had never seen one so close or at a feeder. His flaming red head seemed as nervously focused on me as on the jelly.

Just as strikingly golden were all the orioles, in fact, literally EVERY oriole possible: Bullock's, hooded, and Scott's. That's right, all the three seasonal visitors to Arizona were each represented by an especially showy male at Cave Creek Ranch. It's as if there was some kind of beauty pageant in progress. I had only ever seen one Scott's oriole from quite a far distance many years ago, so he got my vote as the beauty king.

Of course there were black-headed grosbeaks - scores of them - and not just at the feeders but throughout the property. I'm starting to think that they may be the most abundant migratory cardinals in the state, outnumbering by far blue grosbeaks and summer tanagers, birds I unfortunately failed to see in the Cave Creek area.

Three kinds of woodpeckers were present, two of which, the acorn and ladder-backed, are also common in all the state's higher elevation forests. A regional species, the Arizona woodpecker, was also there, standing out because of its brown as opposed to black coloration. In addition many other birds from the state's woods were well represented throughout the property: bridled titmice, white-breasted nuthatches, bushtits, pine siskins, spotted towhees, and even a lone juniper titmouse. The only mountain birds missing might have been juncos.

At five thousand feet in elevation, Cave Creek Ranch lies in a transition zone between the Chihuahuan Desert to the east and the pine forests higher up in the Chiricahua Mountains. As a result, species that call hot, arid Phoenix home like Gambel's quails, canyon towhees, and curve-billed thrashers populate the area and imbibe in the free food.

However the hummingbirds quickly confirmed I wasn't in Phoenix anymore. I enjoyed the change of pace with two species that are guaranteed to spend the summers at the ranch: the blue-throated mountain gem and the broad-billed hummingbird. While the latter bird is mostly a cobalt blue, the mountain gem is relatively dull except for its colorful neck. But he's easily twice the size of his more vivid neighbor and seemed to perch longer than other hummingbirds. I wonder if it's because of the energy it takes to keep such a large body airborne. Whatever the reason, he made for an easy subject in my many photographs.

Large flocks of Mexican jays colored the landscape, in contrast to the lonely pairs of their cousins, the Woodhouse's scrub jays, that I often see 350 miles away in Prescott. The Mexicans roamed the dry creek bed below my cabin, visiting the feeder I regularly filled with the sunflower seeds stocked in my cabin as if they were coffee or soap for a guest.

Finally, along the dry creek were flycatchers like black phoebes and Cassin's kingbirds. They hunted invisible-to-my-eye insects that must thrive on the mere hope of trickling water. It was my first identification of a Cassin's and I was impressed by its size. Much larger than the vermillion flycatchers and Say's phoebes that I frequently see along the canals in Phoenix, it might have rivaled in its bulk a more widespread regional migrant, the western kingbird.

But maybe the Cassin's is indeed the largest flycatcher I've ever seen. Since I spotted it at such a sublime place as Cave Creek Ranch, I wouldn't be surprised at the memorable distinction.