One day in November we receive out of the blue an invite to take part in the Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) Bird Count. After verifying that the email is genuine we decide it would be interesting to do a bird count and so on this Saturday early morning are in a parking lot watching the sunrise. There are a lot more people here than we expected and given that there are three meeting points it means that there are a lot of people up and about at this early hour for the bird count.
After splitting in groups our group makes its way to an irrigation canal where we immediately find our first wildlife, a pack of coyotes trying to get to the water.
Besides the coyotes there is a whole group of black vultures waiting for something. In fact we see also many flying in and we assume there is a carcass nearby from the coyotes.
The coyotes are looking at us but decide we are not good prey, we assume, and the black vultures are not interested in us so we start our survey of the birdlife.
We walk on the levee for a while looking on both sides for birds and we see the expected ones, mostly flycatchers and a few warblers.
We are seven in our group which in this case is just the right size for counting the birds that we see. The top count bird we see here besides Black Vultures and Gambel’s Quails are the Gila woodpeckers that are quite loud and everywhere around us.
Returning to the car it is time to follow the canal to our next stop with a nice view of the grasslands. Here we don’t see a lot besides a herd of cows passing nearby like on an African plain.
From here we continue on the dirt roads seeing multiple red-tailed hawks and our favorite, lark sparrows which are quite beautiful.
At some point the count passes through old citrus groves with relatively few birds but some nice views and even some sunflowers flowering by the roadside.
One of the funniest sights we see is a kestrel and a dove in the same tree, both resting. Not sure how the dove sees this as a safe place but it seems it really likes it. In fact there really is a cornucopia of predators here including a northern harrier hunting close to the ground.
The number of predators might be due to the overpopulation of doves in this area there are really lots and lots of them everywhere. We especially see them during the rain as they sit on the trees waiting for it to pass.
Roadrunners are also common here and we see two of them on the fields and roads as we make our way back towards our starting point.
As we leave the dirt roads we find two more raptor species in the trees waiting for prey. Special for us is the peregrine falcon as it is a rare find for us in Arizona.
After the bird count everyone is invited to the Huhugam Heritage Center to get some swag and attend some festivities. Unfortunately the festivities are cancelled due to the rain but the swag and the food are still offered so it is worth a stop before returning home.
There are quite a few people wandering around exploring the Heritage Center and as we haven’t been here before we take the opportunity to do the same.
The center looks quite new and there are some interesting locations but it doesn’t have something we really expected, a museum or an exhibit. And as the rain starts to roll in again and we are quite tired after the early start it is time to retire to the car and return home where we catch a few more zzzz and mostly rest the reminder of the day especially as it continues to rain outside.
