We (Jed) decided we should go to Sierra Vista’s Environmental Operations Park to see what he believed would be abundant wildlife. The facility is a series of basins where treated sewage water is impounded to drain back into the aquifer, which sounded like a sound policy. Don’t know about the policy but the wildlife was a bust. We saw less than three birds but we believe we heard some others. It would be a good bird viewing area for the blind but we were underwhelmed.

From the EOP we drove over to the canyons running out of the Huachuca Mountains to give them a sniff. We went up a canyon called Miller and ran out of decent road at a place called Beatty’s Guest Ranch. It really isn’t a ranch but it is an amazing bird-watching area.

The ranch is actually a house that the woman owns and she rents out one room and serves breakfast to occasional tenants making her place a B&B. If you arrive at the right time, you can get a parking place and donate $5 a head to the plastic jar on the gate, walk about 35 feet and take a chair on her veranda/broken flagstone or cozy up in the sunshine on a garden terrace. The lady (Mary Ann?) that runs the joint is an avid bird-watcher and camps on the porch to describe what you are seeing. She is quite savvy on the species which is good because there are about 100 types of birds that visit her tiny back yard. Perhaps it is because she has a bunch of feeders and sticks halved fruit in the trees for all to enjoy and they birds know the stuff is here. The place seems to be just about halfway between the lowlands and the highlands so she gets most of the birds from both places. Saw a Pyrraloxia (sp?) which seems to be a cardinal except it is beige with separate red chunks of crown on his noggin. Never seen one before. Even non-birders should try this place out.

Still cold at night. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since we are about at 4500′ elevation.