Arizona & New Mexico Guide Books

Before I forget, and as I get things put away and tidied up from my trip down to Arizona, I want to share a few great guide books. 

This latest edition of the Tucson Audubon publication, Finding Birds in Southeast Arizona, is an invaluable asset for the travelling birder. 

It gives a lot of trip planning advice, including some tips about visiting Mexico.  The book is set out in areas.  For example, Chapter 1 is Urban Tucson, giving explicit directions how to get to all birding areas within the city and birds you might expect to see (given the season).  I visited a good many of the areas outlined in Chapter 8, Huachuca and Whitestone Mountains, and the Upper San Pedro River Valley. 

Get this book before you go to Southeastern Arizona, period!  There are 372 pages of info, including adverts for various B&Bs and birder-friendly businesses.

Ditto this one, from Richard Taylor, published by American Birding Association, Inc.
  

Taylor compiles information in terms of destination areas; he supplies maps with trails well marked (in some cases, there are tear-out maps in the back so you don't have to take the entire book on long hikes).  

There is some information overlap with these two books, but each adds to the magnificent birding experience of SE Arizona. 

Both books are available on-line at:
http://www.tucsonaudubon.org/nature-shops.html

As with the above Arizona books, this one for New Mexico is a must. 

 I picked this up several years ago.  It is available from the New Mexico Ornithological Society on-line.  It is laid out in counties, shows maps of each county with the parks/locations.  Location write-ups includes an extensive list of birds likely to be found and when.  At 351 pages including index, there is a lot of info in this book.

Here are two Birding Trail maps that really help the visiting birder plan the trip.  Definitely get them before travelling. 

This National Audubon field guide is simply the best for the all-round, very curious travelling nature-lover.

It generally explains the area geology, has a section on rocks, mosses & lichens, plants (shrubs, trees, cacti, flowers), and features the common birds, insects, reptiles, mammals of the region.  There are even some star maps for those nights outside marvelling at the magnificent starry sky.  It is nicely sized to go along in a pocket or backpack.

All of these books are available at the various park gift shops as well.

Bearded Tachuri

Let's get back to Guyana for a bit...

When going on a birding trip to a foreign country, it is standard practice to study up and get a tad familiar with the birds one is likely to see.  How much studying, of course, depends on time and how much of a twitcher one is  (where Twitcher = a single-minded, often totally anal and obsessive birdwatcher).

I claim not to be much of a twitcher, and here at home, I'm not.  Yet, there's something about spending a great lot of $$, several months preparing and planning, and logging long airplane and airport time to reach the destination where the tour will begin.  So, yes, I become a twitcher when I travel.  And being a female birder, often travelling solo, I have got shunted to the back, as it were, along with the wives of the 'serious' (men) birders also on whatever tour.  Do you see my right eyebrow leaping up to my hairline? 

So...I tend to study my birds a lot.  There's a group of birds, The Flycatchers, that causes me sharp, hot pains behind the above mentioned right eye.  So many types of flycatchers and in each group, most look much alike, some virtually the same, identified only by voice.  Oy.

Last June I was in Ecuador.  I had studied my birds fairly religiously, flycatchers not so much.  First day out we stopped at small marshy Lake Colta.  Our guide whispered "Subtropical Doradito".  I had honestly never heard of this bird before - was this a big, or small bird; brown, red, green, blue, yellow?  Deep breath - I had to admit my ignorance and ask "what am I looking for?".  It turned out to be a lovely yellow unders and olive-brown uppers flycatcher.

Lesson learned.  I now I become very familiar with the names etc of the flycatchers we are at all likely to see.  So, I was somewhat prepared when we went out to the savanna at Karanambu for a couple hours of power birding before transferring to Surama.  Richard excitedly said "Bearded Tachuri", and happily, I knew what to scan for.  Yes, Got It!   This bird doesn't sit long; it's like a grasslands sparrow flitting up for a brief perch on a tall grass spike then back down into the long grass.

Bearded Tachuri  Polystictus pectoralis

Photo by permission of Jorge Martin Spinuzza at www.avespampa.com.ar

The Bearded Tachuri is one of the rarer birds we found this trip.  It has Near Threatened status.  It's a grassy savanna bird.  As with open prairie everywhere else in the world, this habitat is either being over-grazed by livestock or plowed up for annual crops.  

The above photo is from the collection of Birds of the Pampas Plain of Argentina

http://www.avespampa.com.ar/Home_i.htm   Good stuff here.  I'll be using a few more to perk up future blogs - I/we didn't get too many photos of birds, what with us being twitchers and not photographers, after all!

More info:  http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/speciesfactsheet.php?id=4181

By the way, if you are going to Guyana or anywhere else in Northern South America, get Birds of Northern South America by Robin Restall et al.  The Bearded Tachuri is in Plate 192, page 400 - right beside the Subtropical Doradito and Crested Doradito (which I haven't seen - yet).