March is a bitter month to be a birder in northern Arizona.
At least in a place like New England, it's clearly still winter; the ice hasn't even cracked on the ponds.
But for the past two weeks here in Sedona it's been aqua blue with temps in the 80s. Streamside, the cottonwoods and ash have nearly leafed out. You need shorts to hike. It is so totally spring and the migrants are...nowhere to be found.
OK, OK, that's not 100% true. Waterfowl are on the move (but did I catch the reported pair of Hooded Mergansers I need for my state list? Noooooo.)
And today I dropped in at the Page Springs Fish Hatchery and the trees were suddenly thick with Lucy's Warbler. And someone reported their earliest by far record of Scott's Oriole.
But the weather! It screams tanager, vireo, warbler, flycatcher, grosbeak, oriole, hummer!
It's the same story every year. No matter what the weather (and we're setting heat records here), the migrant waves ain't breakin' until April.
It doesn't help that those spoiled brats down south are reporting Snowy and Black-bellied Plover, Franklin's Gull, White Ibis, and Long-billed Curlew, potential lifers all pour moi.
Well, anyway, I'll just content myself with the dulcimer spring song of the House Finch and rejoice in your spring birds.
Posted by MadMonk at March 23, 2004 12:10 AM