Birding the Mountains, Canyons, and Desert Grasslands of Southeastern Arizona

Mike Petrick will talk about Birding the Mountains, Canyons and Desert Grasslands of Southeastern Arizona. The talk draws upon Mike’s experiences in Spring 2023, when he and several birder friends - lovingly referred to as “the Old Buzzards” - spent 9 days there photographing a wide variety of birds.

Within the mountain ranges of the Coronado National Forest, the Chiricahuas “sky island” mountain ranges are home to plants and animals found nowhere else in the U.S., like the Mexican Chickadee and the Red-faced Warbler. Traveling west through grassland, dessert scrub, playa lakes, and farm fields, birders may see Scaled Quail, Bendire’s and Crissal thrashers, and Pyrrhuloxia. Now rarer than Bald Eagles, Ferruginous Hawks are regularly seen around colonies of Botta’s Pocket Gophers, their favorite prey. The canyons of the Huachucas mountains are home to several rare species, like the Flame-colored Tanager, Eared Quetzal, Rufous-capped Warbler, Crescent-Chested Warbler, Aztec Thrush, and Brown-backed Solitaire, as well as one of the most accessible pairs of Mexican Spotted Owls.

Mike grew up hunting, fishing, and camping in the woods around Burnet and Lake Buchanan. He is a 1960 graduate of Burnet High School and a 1968 graduate of Angelo State University. After retiring from a 38-year career in education, Mike became a Texas Master Naturalist. This led him to become an avid birder and bird photographer. He was able to combine his love of the outdoors, birds, photography, and teaching by volunteering as a trail guide at The Heard Refuge in McKinney and at The Lewisville Lake Environmental Learning Area near Lewisville. His main volunteering now is at the Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge near Sherman as a tram tour guide, as well as helping with the weekly bird census there.

The HLBWS meeting takes place at the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service, 607 N. Vandeveer, Burnet, TX 78611. Doors to the meeting open at 9:30 a.m. for social time and light refreshments. The business meeting starts at 10:00 a.m., and Mike’s presentation commences immediately after the business meeting. Anyone interested in learning more about the birds and habitat of Southeastern Arizona is welcome to attend.

There will be a pre-meeting bird walk at Haley Nelson Park, off Hwy. 29 in Burnet, at 8 a.m. if the weather permits.