Monday, March 12, 2007

Santa Cruz north of Ina Rd, 3/12/07

I stopped at the Santa Cruz River on my way home today. There's a place on Ina Rd that's good if you only have a few minutes, on the east side. From here you can look north down into the riverbed. If you have more time you can explore the south side.

Here's an aeria
l picture for reference; red is on the north side; blue is where I park to bird the south.

There is space enough for a few cars to park:


And here's the view:


Closer inspection (a scope is handy) reveals lots of Black-necked Stilts...

Here's a partial list of what I saw today:
4 Gadwall
10 American Wigeon
10 Cinnamon Teal
40 Northern Shoveler
20 Green-winged Teal
4 Killdeer
196 Black-necked Stilt
7 American Avocet
1 Spotted Sandpiper
20 Least Sandpiper
23 Long-billed Dowitcher


Waterfowl numbers and species are down from earlier in the year; the stilts and dowitchers have been there through the winter. There's a lot of construction on the west side bank; it is part of Marana's work on the new park at Silverbell and Cortaro.

1 comment:

Rick Wright said...

Hope you can keep adding entries, Andrew!
Rick