Page Springs

Last weekend I took advantage of the unusually gorgeous weather and headed down to Page Springs south of Sedona for birding. Page Springs is a tiny community with two fish hatcheries (named Page Springs and Bubbling Ponds) that are on either side of Oak Creek. Both hatcheries have associated trails that have been maintained as part of the Important Bird Area (IBA) program initiated by the National Audubon Society and other organizations. The high temperature was about 70 degrees and there was no wind, which made for beautiful weather to walk around in. The birds were noticing the warm temperatures too, with the Bewick's Wrens and Anna's Hummingbirds already breaking into full song. The hummingbirds were especially nice to hear, since there were lots of reports of their kind dying from the recent cold snap. At least some ones were tough enough to survive it. Other highlights included the Common Black-Hawk that had been reported all winter there (this is very rare, since pretty much all of their species migrates south of the border in winter) and a photogenic Green Heron. Here are some shots:

Green Heron:

Common Black-Hawk:

Great Blue Herons:

Northern Cardinal:

Ring-necked Ducks and Canvasbacks:

Belted Kingfisher:

In one of the flocks of Mallards, I found one bird that appeared to be a hybrid between the northern Mallard subspecies and the Mexican form. Most birds showing Mexican Mallard traits that have shown up in the U.S. are hybrids/intergrades. Besides this bird at Page Springs, I've seen them mostly in the southern half of the state (e.g. Gilbert Water Ranch), although I've had them as far north as Holbrook and Show Low. This bird shows the silvery gray patch on the wings, dark brown body, and yellow bill of the Mexican Mallard, but the curled up tail feathers of the northern Mallard:

Besides the birds, I find myself looking at plants just as much. Page Springs has a nice variety of riparian, desert, and chaparral flora around the fish hatcheries and along Oak Creek. At the Page Springs hatchery there is even a nice grove of Arizona cypresses (Cupressus arizonica), which are much more common further southeast in the state (along the Mogollon Rim, in the Mazatzal Mountains, and in the "sky island" mountain ranges in southeastern AZ). They give off a distinct, sweet musty odor which always reminds me of the Chiricahua Mountains. On this day at Page Springs I ate lunch under the trees imagining I was down in South Fork.

Another plant I noticed while I was here was the sugar sumac (Rhus ovata) which grows in a narrow band of chaparral and upper Sonoran desert vegetation communities in AZ. The ones at the Page Springs hatchery look to have been planted, but where they normally occur they associate with scrub oaks and manzanita. Some were beginning to open their flower buds (or getting ready to). Their leaves are very large in comparison to other sumacs in the state and have a drooping shape to them. The leaves are very waxy and smooth too: