I hate connecting flights, so I started VERY early in Boston and flew direct to Phoenix. Had some great birding spots to hit there before I headed for Tucson. My flight arrived in Phoenix a little before 10am, so I was on the road to Encanto Park about 10:30.
I was already frustrated because I saw a raptor from the train to the rental car facility and my bins & camera were not accessible and I could not ID it. It was probably a Red-tailed Hawk, which we have back east, but I was not feeling confident about beginning this adventure with a failed ID.
I was given a Hyundai Sante Fe
It was a good size and comfortable, but I struggled throughout the trip to understand all the bells and whistles of the car. Some of that is literal – this car beeped and buzzed more than any other car I have ever driven. It was fairly intuitive to hook up my iPhone holder (attached to the A/C vent) and it took me a little while to understand how to get the Car Play to work. It had a good-sized screen but the native GPS was terrible, so I used Google Maps a lot!
Because much of South East Arizona is not very populated, I knew the cell phone service would be spotty. I got some great advice from the Birding Travel group on Facebook to download Google Maps of the area beforehand and that worked beautifully. If you are going somewhere, you might not have cell service, this is free and easy, I highly recommend it.
Encanto Park is only about 7 miles from the airport. It was a Tuesday morning and other than a few golfers, there were very few people at the park. That made for a fairly easy car bird. I had a target bird – Rosy-faced Lovebird – which I saw almost immediately when I got to the park, but they would not sit still, until they did.
Link to Birding Encanto Park below
After Encanto, I stopped at a Circle K and got ice (in a cup) and water. I drove down to Gilbert intending to walk into Gilbert Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch (@27 miltes). When I arrived it was 95 degrees – the hottest it was my whole trip. Even though there was a Streak-backed Oriole about a mile into the Preserve, I let it go and just birded in the parking lot – which wasn’t bad – and left for Tucson.
Link to Birding Gilbert Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch - Parking Lot below
The drive down (@120 miles) was interesting and certainly made me feel like I was in the South West. I did not take any photos – because it was basically highway. There were mountains rising from the desert and little dust tornados everywhere. It even looked like there would be a thunderstorm at one point, but it didn’t happen. I got to the hotel and checked in a bit early.
I went out to Saguaro National Park, West in the evening – more in the next post
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