In this third episode of Birding & Bird Photography from southeast Arizona, I head 2 miles into a remote canyon to find a rare warbler from Mexico.

Sycamore Canyon off the rugged Ruby Road is an out-of-the-way birding location just a few miles from the Mexican border. It is a common immigrant route for those fleeing Mexico, and signs were everywhere. A Border Patrol helicopter suddenly appeared over the canyon wall and zipped right overhead. I guess the fact that I was carrying a camera, and was headed in the “wrong” direction signaled that I was just a crazy birder and not an illegal migrant.

I meet Connor and Alex on the way in. A day earlier they had helped me with info about the Berylline Hummingbird at Santa Rita Lodge, and once again they provide me with valuable info on finding another rare bird.

This time it was the Rufous-capped Warbler, a “code 3” rarity from Mexico. It is seen nearly every year somewhere in SE Arizona or Texas but usually only one or two birds. In fact, between 1993 and 2025 it was only not found in the U.S. in 1997.

After getting turned around and backtracking, I eventually find the warbler. It is a real stunner, and looks more like a Chat than a wood warbler. I enjoy some brief looks as it forages in the shrubs and small trees in the canyon.

Other highlights include a Black Vulture (small SE AZ population), Rock Wren, several Canyon Wrens (nice! I rarely have seen), singing Rufous-crowned Sparrows, Hepatic Tanager, and Western Tanager.

Herps included a brief look at a Black-necked Garter Snake, and photos of Clark’s Spiny Lizards, and Elegant Earless Lizard.

I find a DOR (dead-on-road) lifer Hog-nosed Skunk on Ruby Road.

Sycamore is a very remote canyon, and there a few things every visitor should know:

–The road in is rugged but drivable by a rental car

–The “trail” in the canyon is undeveloped at best, and it is very easy to lose the route.

–Must bring plenty of water, sunscreen, hat, etc.

–No cell service! So make sure you have a compass or other ways to navigate.

–Trail is rocky but flat. Easy in places, but tough in others.

–After about 1.8 miles the route is blocked by a cliff and a small waterfall and ledge. It takes some real scrambling to make it around this point (I did it but I was a bit turned around and had already gone past the warbler location)

Black-throated Blue Warblers winter in the Caribbean and are not often seen in migration…especially males. And their nesting/singing sites are high in deciduous trees so an eye-level view is a real treat.

Duluth’s Park Point can be a major migrant trap during spring migration, BUT only if the right weather conditions come together. If we have beautiful spring weather during migration, the birds just wing their way north, bypassing Park Point. Sure, many birds stop along the way, but not in great numbers. This year we had the perfect storm of conditions as six days of fog, rain, wind and storms between May 18th and the 23rd trapped birds on the Point. Most warblers migrate at night, so when conditions south of us are good, they make major movements, but then they hit fog near Duluth and don’t dare journey out over Lake Superior. They plop down at the first available land, which is the 7-mile sand spit known as Park Point (and its twin, the 3-mile long Wisconsin Point). Fortunately for the birds (and unfortunately for the birders!) this phenomenon does not occur every year.

When we arrived at the Beach House parking lot on the Point on Sunday the 19th, birds, mainly warblers and Swainson’s Thrushes, were everywhere! You didn’t know where to look next. Majority were American Redstarts but my friend Ben Yokel had already seen 22 warbler species by the time we got there at 9:30am! Eventually 25 of the regular 26 species of warblers would be seen by birders over the next 4 days (only Pine Warbler was not recorded). Karl Bardon did some counts on the 21st (the day that the majority of warblers were feeding on the Lake Superior beach…hopping around on the sand as if they were tiny shorebirds!) and came up with some amazing numbers, including a state-high count of 452 Palm Warblers!

I ended up photographing TWENTY species of warblers during this mega-fallout. The highlight for me was the Black-throated Blue Warbler male, who put on quite a show, feeding for hours in a few pines near the soccer fields.

Nashville Warbler in Forsythia. I planted myself next to this blooming Forsythia to see who might come by, and in addition to this Nashville, I photographed a Least Flycatcher, Phoebe and a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird in this same bush in a 15-minute span.

Black and White Warblers are appropriately named. This is a male. The female lacks the striped undersides. Unlike other warblers, they often forage on the trunks of trees like nuthatches and creepers. They nest over much of the Eastern U.S..

Northern Parula male foraging on the soccer field. With fog, rain and high winds, many of the warblers were only finding insects low to the ground.

Magnolia Warbler male. One of the most striking of our spring warblers. “Mags” nest across Canada and the North Woods of NE N. America in dense cover of mixed coniferous/deciduous forests, especially attracted to young pines.

Cape May Warbler male. A real boreal species, preferring tall spruces in the far north of MN, WI, MI, Maine and much of boreal Canada. I often see them foraging in blooming willows like this one during migration.

Golden-winged Warbler female. I missed the male, who is even more striking. Found nesting in regenerating aspen stands, alder stands, but not very common. In the northeastern U.S. their existence is threatened due to interbreeding with the Blue-winged Warbler which is moving north into Golden-winged territory due to global warming.

Nashville Warbler. Note the rarely seen orange crown. A very common warbler in the North Woods. Note the willow catkins that add much to this composition.

FIVE species of warblers in one shot! Not a great shot but can you pick out the American Redstart, Magnolia Warbler, Canada Warbler, Palm Warbler and Chestnut-sided Warbler. On the 21st almost all the warblers were foraging on the sand on the Lake Superior side of Park Point.

Palm Warbler. One of the MANY terribly-named warbler species in North America. It’s breeding habitat is as far from palm trees as possible, nesting in the Black Spruce bogs of Canada and the extreme northern U.S. from northern Minnesota to northern Maine. The name came from early observations on their tropical wintering grounds.

Common Yellowthroat’s sport a “robber’s mask.” You can find them nesting in wet, marshy areas

Wilson’s Warblers nest mainly in Canada and Alaska but a few do breed in far Northeastern Minnesota. Named for Alexander Wilson (1766-1813), considered the greatest American ornithologist prior to Audubon. Other birds named for him include the Wilson’s Phalarope, Wilson’s Snipe, Wilson’s Storm-Petrel and Wilson’s Plover.

Magnolia Warbler female.

Blackpoll Warblers nest just north of Minnesota so we only see them in migration. Note their orangey legs. Blackpolls make heroic fall migrations, flying NON-STOP over several thousand miles of open ocean from New England/Eastern Canada to Venezuela!

Chestnut-sided Warbler. In most years, the bulk of the warbler species migrate through the Duluth area AFTER the leaves have come out on the aspens. This year, the warblers are late but the leaf-out, green-up is even later. Good for birders!

American Redstart foraging in the jetsam and flotsam on the beach. Redstarts are warblers, and often the most common warbler seen during migration (along with earlier migrating Yellow-rumpeds and Palms)

Northern Parula female. Love the yellow and blue combination! Nest high in coniferous trees, making unique pendulous nests woven from Usnea tree lichens.

Blackburnian Warbler foraging in the pines on a rainy day. They nest high in spruces in the boreal forests of eastern Canada, New England, Adirondacks and the North Woods of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan.

Ovenbird eating an earthworm. This is a shot I needed 6 months ago for the 2nd Edition of our Earthworms of the Great Lakes book. Oh well. They are ground foragers that love worms. You’ve probably heard them singing in mature deciduous forests, “TEACHER, TEACHER, TEACHER.” Ovenbirds get their common name from the resemblance of their domed ground nests to the clay/earthen bake ovens of yesteryear.

PHOTOGRAPHY NOTES:
Foggy, gray sky days are among the most difficult conditions for bird photographers. But when you have THOUSANDS of warblers “dripping from the trees” in front of you, there is no excuse for NOT shooting. The key is FLASH! I used both regular synch-speed flash which gives you a 1/250 of a second shutter speed, and sometimes tried High-speed synch flash, which allowed me to shoot even to 1/1000 of a second and still be able to illuminate my subject. BUT, you need to be quite close to your warbler if using high-speed synch at these fast shutter speeds due to the fact that the flash output is much less than at normal synch speeds. Also, the flash takes longer to recycle so you only get one flash image before the camera switches to non-flash mode. An external battery pack would have solved this to some degree. Attaching a Better Beamer to my flash allowed the beam of the flash to reach MUCH FURTHER. The unit uses a plastic fresnel lens to magnify the flash output.

[All photos taken with Canon 7D, Canon 400mm f5.6 handheld. Flash for most with Canon 520 and Better Beamer flash extender]