Southeast Arizona Bird Guide, Birding Tours SE AZ: Welcome to Fun Birding Tours in AZ with Richard Fray » sweetwater

Black-crowned Night-Heron, Cooper’s Hawk

Richard — Thu, 13 May 2010 07:54:06 +0000

Whilst on my photothon last week I encountered a couple of birds that I couldn't resist spending a few minutes photographing, even though I was supposed to be on a mission to get quantity of species, not [...]

Richard’s Photothon 2010

Richard — Tue, 11 May 2010 10:47:42 +0000

After a decent effort last year where I photographed 105 species, I took my photothon even more seriously this year and aimed for 110. I decided on a new route, spending more time in the car to reach more sites, so even though I would be in the field less I'd be exposed to more birds. And it paid off. I saw/heard a total of 127 species and somehow got photos of 114! [...]

AveVentura Birdathon 2010

Richard — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 07:26:39 +0000

After three hours we'd passed 50 species with highlights including a pair of AMERICAN GOLDFINCHES in a mulberry in the grounds of Roger Rd Treatment Plant with a male WESTERN TANAGER nearby, a flyover PRAIRIE FALCON and HARRIS'S HAWKS and CEDAR WAXWINGS [...]

Sweetwater Wetlands, Mt. Lemmon

Richard — Wed, 14 Apr 2010 06:12:37 +0000

I met with Joe, Becky, Roger and Mary-Louise from South Carolina for the start of a five day tour of some of Arizona's top birding spots. We birded Sweetwater Wetlands to get the list off to a good start. As is always the case at Sweetwater, it was buzzing with wildlife [...]

Sweetwater Wetlands

Richard — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 08:28:53 +0000

My personal highlight was seeing multiple lizards for the first time this year, which means in the next week or two they will be everywhere. I managed to identify Desert Spiny Lizard, Zebra-tailed Lizard and Sonoran Spotted Whiptail as they inevitably scuttled away to [...]

Silverbell Lake, Sweetwater Wetlands

Richard — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 06:49:34 +0000

The first birds we saw were six Neotropic Cormorants which allowed close approach as they rested on a concrete boat landing. They eventually hopped into the water and did a circuit of the lake in a tight pack, diving and resurfacing simultaneously as they hunted for [...]

Birding with Jon Dunn

Richard — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 06:03:13 +0000

Jon is one of the most respected birders in North America and chief consultant and author of much of the National Geographic field guide series. He's also a super-nice man! He signed field guides for everyone (I took two - thanks Jon!) and he really showed his class as a birder and educator as he lead the huge group that turned out to meet [...]

Miller Canyon

Richard — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 00:52:10 +0000

Birding was tough all day. We hiked for miles, way up into the snow, but our reward was just a couple of Townsend's Solitaires, a few Bushtits, Canyon Wrens, Red-breasted Nuthatches and Yellow-eyed Juncos, and that was about [...]

Sweetwater Wetlands

Richard — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:01:29 +0000

There were so many birds in this area that we spent a while just standing, gawking at the spectacle of trees dripping with Yellow-rumped Warblers. There was one Myrtle, two Yellow, the friendly Black-throated Gray and several Orange-crowned Warblers, Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, and Lucy, the leucistic Vermilion [...]

Sweetwater Wetlands, Santa Gertrudis Lane

Richard — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 06:05:50 +0000

I spent the day with great company, Karen and Neill Hart from Little Rock, Arkansas. We started at Sweetwater Wetlands in Tucson, where we soon racked up a good list of birds.

Straight away we were into warblers, predominantly Yellow-rumped Warbler. We picked out one Myrtle from the regular Audubon’s. Several Orange-crowned Warblers frequented the lower [...]