Grab your binoculars and field guide May 8 for a morning spent tallying towhees and counting cardinals as a participant in the annual Global Big Day bird count. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Arizona Field Ornithologists coordinate the event.
If you are a skilled birder confident that you can ID resident birds along with recently-returned warblers and other tropical migrants solo birder and teams are needed to cover the Sierra Anchas, Roosevelt Lake, Timber Camp and Jones Water or your own favorite area. To join the count, email Gila County coordinator Brian Ison at lwrkenai@cox.net.
What birds can be found in our area? Check out the Cornell Lab’s crowd-sourced database of sightings at ebird.org, where you can explore hot spots such as Ferndell Spring, Roosevelt Lake, Green Valley Park, Tonto Creek Fish Hatchery and dozens more in Gila County, and read recent checklists. For example, on April 22 Camden Bruner reported a band-tailed pigeon, yellow-eyed junco and blac