Birds at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon

California condors, Clark's nutcrackers, and black-billed magpies were on my mind as I set out on the long road trip through the Painted Desert, the Navajo Nation, and wide expanses of pine tree forests. Over six hours later, having reached my destination on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, I was surprised that my first bird discovery was an American robin. Surely, I asked myself, this remote corner of Arizona should also be the home to some of our state's most uncommon bird life?

The North Rim lies more than a thousand feet higher than the South Rim and its plateaus are set back twice as far away from the Colorado River deep below. And only ten percent of Grand Canyon National Park's visitors ever venture to that side of the river. It's isolated, both from towns and the surrounding desert environment. As a result, countless miles of views, trails, and pristine native habitat await uncrowded and unspoiled.

The forest landscape isn't all that different than others found throughout the Southwest. So I shouldn't have been surprised to encounter robins and many of the same birds I see at my cabin in Prescott: white-breasted nuthatches, dark-eyed juncos, spotted towhees, pygmy nuthatches, hairy woodpeckers, mountain chickadees, western wood pewees, and northern flickers, to name some. Joining ravens and vultures in the sky, violent-green swallows darted overhead as I walked the two trails, Transept and Bright Angel, both radiating from the Grand Canyon Lodge.

Of course I didn't overlook the views of the canyon, always mesmerizing in the changing light of day, especially as an early monsoon generated rain and clouds on the first day of summer. As a birder, however, I'd be excused for focusing just as raptly on a rock wren scampering across a boulder teetering over a dizzying precipice.

Each of my two mornings in the park, I awoke to the enchanting sound of birdsong. Convinced it was an exotic migratory bird high in the pines, I soon discovered it was yet another robin. Resident in the tight campus of guest cabins, it joined another common bird of Arizona's mountain forests, the Steller's jay. Away from the small crowd of overnighting human visitors, along the trails overlooking the canyon, I did discover pairs of western tanagers, summer migrants to the American west. Also joining the long-distance travelers were black-headed grosbeaks.

If only ten percent of Grand Canyon guests visit the North Rim, I suspect only a small fraction of those individuals venture beyond the lodge and campground. Unlike at the South Rim, there is no road meandering dozens of miles along the rim with scores of turn-offs to soak in the views. Instead there are a few hiking trails and a single paved road through the forest that leads to a second plateau called Walhalla. From Point Imperial to Cape Royal on that plateau are at least ten opportunities to pull over and gape at the eastern end of the canyon, and if so inclined, to hunt for birds.

While the views offered even more sublime photos, I failed to add many more birds to my collection of sightings. Acorn woodpeckers perched atop dead tree trunks in recently burned areas I passed through. And I noticed bluebirds along the road, neither myself nor the birds pausing long enough for me to discern if they were of the mountain or western varieties. At Point Imperial, I saw some kind of warbler or vireo - perhaps even a warbling vireo - high in a tree, similar to others I witnessed along Transept Trail back near the lodge.

Surrendering any hope of spotting a condor, I shifted focus and asked back at the visitor center where I might be able to find a Kaibab squirrel. The habitat of the cute, tassel-eared critter with a white, fluffy tail is limited to the park and adjacent Kaibab National Forest. To possibly encounter one, I was directed to the campground a mile away, and then Widforss and Ken Patrick Trails beyond. In other words, into the vast forest behind the finger of land leading to Bright Angel Point, where I and most other visitors were staying and almost exclusively exploring.

Alas, I didn't plan more than two nights on my first trip to the North Rim in more than twenty-five years. To really discover the animal and bird life of the park, I'd need a walk in the woods, deep into the woods, far from the captivating and distracting canyon views.