Birding in Arizona

Picture from Wikipedia.

Arizona's sky islands and the high mountain country along the Mogollon Rim and into the White Mountains, enable an extremely diverse community of birds. The Arizona Bird Committee has listed hundreds of species of birds. While riding bikes around the city in the early morning we see dozens of bird species. This morning we saw a large, chicken-sized bird that looked like a huge fat quail. After combing the bird lists and looking at pictures, we decided that it was a chukar or Alectoris Chukar or possibly a rock partridge Alectoris graeca.

The chukar is a bird from Central Asia that was imported into the U.S. as a potential game bird. It is supposed to be known in Arizona only in isolated populations in the northern part of the state, but there are reports of sitings in the Phoenix area. It is certainly not a quail.

This is just one of the very unusual birds we frequently encounter in the Mesa, Arizona area.

It is not unusual for us to see peacocks roaming wild in both Phoenix and Mesa. When I was younger, peacocks used to fly into our yard and wake me up in the morning with their very loud cries. We commonly see cardinals, humming birds and a wide variety of other bird species in our backyard or along the canals.

Mesa is also home to a sizable duck and goose population. They live in canals and can visit home swimming pools on occasion. From time to time I plan to write about our interactions with Arizona's bird population.