Catalina State Park - Tucson, AZ

Bruce and I were up today (Sunday) at 5:50 am to trek to Catalina. I've lived in AZ most of my life and have never been to Catalina. It was a bright, cloudless day and at about 7:30am it was probably in the 80s when we arrived at the park.

We started down the Birding Trail where there were many runners and hikers, I'm assuming from Oro Valley. Some of whom were quite loud, talking to each other and on their cell phones. Oh well! We went off-course and onto a smaller trail that lead us to an overlook of the valley where we were surrounded by a multitude of massive saguaros, and their respective Gila Woodpeckers. We saw some warblers (of which I'm not too good at ID'ing) and sparrows, of course. It was starting to get hot at that point. So we went back onto the trailhead to the riparian area (the one 'sin agua'). Crossed the arroyo and Bruce spotted the female Kestrel perched atop a saguaro. Oooh, a first for me!

Continued along the trail to spot Pyrrhuloxia, Warblers, and Sparrows. A passerby stopped to tell me he saw a "beautiful" copper and silver snake, I said "nice." Little did he know, I'm not too fond of snakes.

Bruce and I parted ways and I hiked the nature trail and found it to be too hot and sunny so I started back down the Birding trail. It was there I spotted the Green-tailed Towhee. I'm almost sure it is a positive ID. At first I thought it was a Rufous-capped Warbler, but according my Kaufman's field guide the Warbler has a yellow throat. This bird had a white and black throat. It had me baffled all afternoon, until I looked in my beginners, bird-color-coded guide (Tekiela). I found the Towhee.

On the way back I met up with a birding couple who said they saw a MacGillvray's Warbler. Then stopped to see the Green-tailed Towhee again, who was foraging on the ground.

Hello World!

This is my online birding journal. Being new to the birding and birdwatcher world, I want to keep track of my birding travels along with what I see (and attempt to identify). I'll do some back-tracking and post some entries about the few places I've been around southeastern Arizona. You'll see I'm still learning but there is a lot of information out there; also other birders, who are more than happy to share their knowledge.

Good Birding!