Birding in Arizona

birds fill our lives with joy and Wonder we are constantly entertained by their song we enjoy observing their vibrant colors watching their unique expressions and laughing at their antics some birds are with us year-round and some migrate from afar only to stay a few weeks of the year neither way birds bring us joy these feathered friends have earned a special place in our lives and what can bring more joy than a little free spirit with a beautiful song to sing there is something very special about the joy of having birds around from that first rousing welcome to the day the universal dawn chorus the often mysterious sounds of the birds is almost constant birding is one of the fastest-growing and most participated in outdoor recreation activities in the United States millions of Americans enjoy birding at some level some quite fanatically the US Fish and Wildlife Service put the 2011 estimated population of birders 16 years of age and older at around 47 million that's about 20% of the population the average birder is 53 years old and more than likely has a better than average income and education she is slightly more likely to be female and highly likely to be white there's also a good chance that this birder lives in the South in an urban area backyard birding is the most prevalent form of birding with 88 percent of participants watching birds from the comfort of their homes 38% of birders travel more than a mile from home visiting both private and public lands it's interesting to look at our typical customer as a backyard wild bird store I would say that 95 percent of our customers maybe higher are what I call casual backyard birders and there's a difference between what we call field birders in casual backyard birders personally I do both I do a lot of backyard birding but I actually go out into the field I'm a type of birder that will chase rare bird sightings I will if I hear about a bird that showed up somewhere that's unusual I will drop everything and run out to the field and go see that bird and there are a lot of serious field Berger's but they're different than our core customer our core customers seriously a casual backyard birder oftentimes they'll get a customer in the store and I'll say so what kind of birds are you seeing in your yard and they're like I have no idea I just enjoy feeding them it's like that's cool so it identification isn't that important to them it's just the enjoyment they receive from seeing the birds in the yard and watching the bird behavior in their yard birders are quite serious about it too spending millions of dollars each year on equipment and travel trip related expenditures include food lodging transportation and other incidental expenses we were fortunate enough to find this this place here in Hereford right between the major canyons of ash miller and car canyons each of those canyons being world renowned for birding especially hummingbirds and we started our bed breakfast catering to birders not only from the United States from from all over the world we've been doing this for now 11 years in our 12th year right now and we've had guests from every state from foreign countries including Australia New Zealand hungry the UK most of the Canadian provinces we've had guests from and we're very proud of what we've accomplished here I'm very proud our first year in business we had 21 nights of occupancy we have two rooms so 21 nights out of 365 days we weren't sure that we had picked the right right business but those 21 nights have grown exponentially and we do more than 250 nights of occupancy currently with many of those being returned guests what kinds of birds are they looking at 75% of away-from-home birders reported observing waterfowl like ducks and geese making those the most watched type of bird birds of prey such as hawks eagles and owls were also popular with 72% of birders followed in popularity by song birds such as Cardinals and robins and other water birds such as herons and shorebirds we've been here since oh three and immediately upon getting out of the u-haul with all of our furniture I noticed a blue bird in the backyard that I'd misidentified as a scrub jay only to realize in short order that it was a Mexican jay and that went down as our first yard bird and in our tenure here our list has grown from that first Mexican Jay to a list of 173 species having been seen in or from our half a per piece of land here most people know of Arizona is a great place for hummingbirds and we've seen 12 different species of hummingbirds on our property many Warbler species including painted red start for all species including our annually nesting they'll follow some of the rare birds that we've had rare for this location we've had a Lewis's woodpecker one time we had opinion Jay show up one fall another very good bird for down here is a berry thrush it showed up long enough there's been a few photos and for my wife to come out and confirm my sight probably eleven twelve species of sparrows including a clay colored sparrow Foxborough white-throated Sparrow just about all the others expected to be seen in southeast Arizona we probably have 25 to 30 species that we consider resident that they're here year-long such as cactus wren kirgo Thrasher acorn and ladder back and Gila woodpeckers but in the fall we get an influx of what we call wither migrants Northern Flicker and then of course there's those migrants both in spring and fall that come and arrive in late March through the first part of May on their northern migration back to their breeding grounds that includes a lot of the Warblers species white-throated Sparrow is Eastern vagrant that shows up periodically think about Birds is anything to show up at any place at any point in time birders spend money on a variety of goods and services for their trip related and equipment related purchases in 2011 the US Fish and Wildlife Service put the total expenditures for birding at 41 billion yes that was billion with a B one of the economic impacts that we bring to the community is that we are a knowledge-based business you can buy birdseed at probably 20 different stores in the Prescott area and we sell more birdseed than anything else believe it or not last year we sold about 700 thousand pounds of birdseed which is really phenomenal for a small backyard wild bird store equipment expenses consist of binoculars cameras camping equipment and other costs and then from there it's just you know a mixture of hummingbird feeders and bird baths and yard art and things like that by having ripple effects throughout the economy all this spending is only part of the economic impact of birding the effect on the economy in excess of direct expenditures is known as the multiplier effect not only are we supporting employees we have ten employees who support their families through our business we're also closely affiliated with a lot of nonprofits in our community and organizations that are like-minded and we contribute a lot financially to organizations within our community that are doing things to create awareness of the natural environment and protection of birds and and habitats we do have an economic impact within community and through sales tax collection and things like that most serious birders subscribe to several magazines published specifically for the activity there are hundreds if not thousands of websites worldwide that cater to birders one such site is Peggy Coleman's Facebook page birding Arizona in the southwest one of my guests from Phoenix suggested that I get on a Facebook page dedicated to birding and bird photography it was started by a lady named Peggy Coleman I was able to convince her to come down and see what it was like and she photographed here in the garden and loved it and posted her pictures and I started posting images of birds from down here and it generated a tremendous response from the greater Phoenix area all have been down I'm in South now to do their birding in both photography social media such as Facebook offers a tremendous opportunity for small businesses like mine and the other seven or eight that are down here additionally many other general nature magazines calendars and websites have birds and bird-watching as part of their content and books look at any serious birders library and you will typically find dozens of reference volumes on bird finding bird identification and ornithology software in the form of CDs and downloadable apps have also become very popular for bird identification one increasingly popular side shoot of this birding business is bird photography I personally used to do a lot of birth photography one as a child and I really found a lot of enjoyment in bird photography but as I got older I got more serious about birding and I stopped doing very photography and I've never gotten back into it a lot of our customers do bird photography and I find personally that it's very hard to mix bird-watching and photography you either have you need to have one focus or the other it's hard to co-mingle those two emphasis but I find that peak who are excellent photographers are also excellent bird watchers bird-watching is easy you just need a simple field guide and maybe a pair of binoculars but photography requires better equipment and certainly more time in the field to get the good shots when I started birdie night I was hoping I would see 700 life birds in North America 700 club is pretty exclusive it's probably less than a thousand birders with with that number I'm in the mid 600's but once I moved here I became more passionate about my photography and believing that any rare bird is gonna show up here in my yard eventually so I've lost track of my counting but in general birders are very passionate if not compulsive about wanting to add to their life list we cater do a lot of folks that are return visitors because they missed a bird or two birds or three birds species that they really want to add to that growing list you know our current guest Jack Sheldon from Mesa he has a brand new birder he started in May and so the very common birds in the garden common to me are new to him and he shared his photographs with me of an Oriole really uncommon bird for this time of the year Scott's Oriole showed up and he got a killer shot of it but yet there's the the Mexican Jays and the titmice and the nuthatch which are common but not to him and I see that in our guest and I feed off of their their excitement and their enthusiasm their passion and when they get excited over a bird that I see and know to be common I get enthused and react and so you bird us feed off of each other's passion and enthusiasm and that makes even the most mundane bird a house sparrow exciting if you get a better photograph of it or you see it in a different light birders who don't necessarily want to travel far and wide in their pursuit of that next bird on their life list can set up a backyard garden to bring the birds to them in order to track the birds you have to provide three essentials food water and cover and my yard is set up pretty much like that I've got brush piles behind where I'm sitting a lot of foliage around the feeder location standard feeders you know hanging feeders proceed sock feeders for the gold finches and siskins suet baskets the photographer's really don't want to shoot a bird on a feeder so I find dead falls that have nice grained nice contour and nice cavity locations where I could stuff suet into these holes and so the birds coming to water want to come from a hidden location coming out of the oak trees down to the high perches before going down to the water and when they do so they also find the hidden goodies peanuts or suet stuffed into premises of the perches also we have hummingbird feeders throughout the garden so provide water provide food and cover and voila you've got it I also have a photo blind my initial thought was the birds will not come in if I'm sitting out in the open only to find out that the blind is a blind to myself it restricts my vision and I could probably shoot just as well sitting outside the blind I'll write in the in the open I feed a mix each go through probably 100 pounds a month during the wintertime suet instead of buying the the premade cakes of suet we make our own I use a recipe furnished by Cornell Lab of Ornithology it's a mixture of oatmeal cornmeal flour lard and peanut butter and it's a high-energy mix that the birds just absolutely loved especially during the wintertime when other food sources are limited they're probably the most important thing you can do to attract birds to your yard is to create an inviting habitat in your yard habitat dictates whether you're gonna be able to invite and attract nature to your yard in general if you have a really sterile yard with like rock landscaping with a few non-native trees and shrubs you're not gonna attract a lot of birds to your yard birds needs are a lot like our they need a place to rear young they need a place for shelter they need food well where do birds get their food where do they shelter where do they rear young it's in trees and shrubs they build their nests 'they they hunker down at night they roost at night in trees and shrubs if you want to attract hummingbirds yeah native plants is great feeders help but habitat is the most critical piece to attracting birds yard and the same for seed eaters and suet eaters insect eaters I think there was a movie Field of Dreams when there was a align that person said if you build it they will come and they built a ball field and out of a cornfield and sure enough they came well my cornfield is my garden here with a water feature beautiful natural-appearing perches for the birds and of course food and over the years the yard has evolved into a perfect location for bird photography or those that just want bird in a casual way sitting on the patio where I am right now and with a wonderful view of the bird photography location and sit with a beer iced tea a good book and enjoy as any birder can tell you birdsong is a great uplifter of the human spirits when you spend too much time cooped up in an office or driving the little ones to their dance recitals and playdates one misses the melodies it's hard to hear their songs above the honking taxis speeding cars in the sheer pace and pressure of life I'll take the honk of a Canada goose any day you

Channel: Arizona GameAndFish

Views: 18,684

Rating: 4.9187818 out of 5

Keywords: birding, Arizona

Id: HgmyTamuRnM

Length: 18min 56sec (1136 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 22 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Pollymath]

I was never really into birding until coming to Arizona, mostly because our species our so unique and varied across the state. Now I'm hoping to sell my Sigma 50-150 f/2.8 and some other lenses in hopes of purchasing a Tamron 150-600.

[u/Netprincess]

Laying here in bed listening to outside. Beautiful.