It was a birding day on Mt Lemmon. Not the most successful birding, but great fun, a glorious adventure. It was certainly not what one might think of a typical day in the office. You know…structured, 9 to 5, focused on tasks, meetings and routine.
My office is of the retired person type. Easy going, decisions by the minute and as much as possible, outdoors. That said, today was perfect. We knew we were headed to the mountain and our first stop was Incinerator Ridge, but the rest of the day was free form. A special treat was stopping at Seven Cataracts.
I only know the term cataract in reference to the eye. I learned something new today. “One of the definitions of the term “cataract” is a large waterfall. The Seven Cataracts are a series of waterfalls along the stream that passes through Willow Canyon, which eventually empties into Bear Canyon near the Seven Cataracts Vista on Mount Lemmon’s Catalina Hwy. This description covers the traversing of a portion of Willow Canyon from Windy Point to the Seven Cataracts Vista, which includes hiking, scrambling, and technical rappelling down four waterfalls along the lower part of the canyon. This description does not address two additional but less impressive “cataracts” further down Bear Canyon.” And the exciting part is that because of the plentiful rainfall of late we saw all seven! Now that’s rare.
From Seven Cataract Vista we moved on to Incinerator Ridge. We decided to park at the bottom because of all the rains of late. It wasn’t a very active bird morning, but we were thrilled with the Thick-billed Kingbird. It wasn’t a usual location for Doug to see this bird so it took us a bit to believe…
“The boisterous Thick-billed Kingbird—once described as “Arizona’s loudest bird”—is a conspicuous presence as it perches atop tall trees and calls noisily in pursuit of flying insects. This species’ large head, upright posture, and pugnacious behavior mark it as a kingbird; its massive bill, black mask, and white throat and breast distinguish it from similar species.”
Our connection to birding was marginal during our morning. We saw –
-turkey vulture (NO a favorite of mine)
-red tailed hawk
-steller jay
-white crested nuthatch
-yellow eyed junco
– raven
Within our wanderings, we gloried in the outdoors…my kind of adventure. The green visual, the smells, the wonder of being at 7000′ and cool breezes, Along with that, Doug threw in a few side road scouting detours. It always amazes me how old I feel when I take these winding, narrow dirt roads with steep drop offs. I ‘could have’; in my 20s, but these ‘camps’ would feel like noose, not a joy to me at this age.
The original plan had been to picnic. But since neither of us no longer live the traditional 9-5 life, Doug decided on ‘out-to-lunch’, rather than a picnic.
They were huge servings and we each ended up with lunch, supper and breakfast. And tell me, truthfully, would you love potatoes, pulled pork, cheddar and BBQ sauce? Doug suggested it was a heart attack on a plate, but I was pretty pleased. I mean really…potatoes ARE one of my main food groups!
