Kathy and I, along with Barb (our neighbor) took a drive up toward Cornville this morning to go “birding”. I’ve never been a bird watcher, but I got to thinking “Hey, I’m retired now – I’ve got every right to take some time to go birding” …. besides – this is something that Kathy wanted to do, so off we went.
There were about 15 folks that met at the Page Springs Bubbling Pond which is where the Arizona Game & Fish drop millions of eggs to start the production of trout.
We were led in the 2-3 mile walk through the lower wetlands area of Oak Creek where the spring water flows from Oak Creek Canyon, down through the bubbling ponds and hatchery (at a constant 68 degrees) and then back into Oak Creek, eventually making it’s way to the Verde River.
About 200 species of birds have been found in this area over the 15 years that Arizona Audubon has been conducting these bird-watching excursions. Kevin helped us to find 36 different species on this day including; Heron, American Bald Eagle, Killdeer, Snipe, Cardinal, Robin, Says Phoebe, Egret, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Warbler, and too many others for me to remember or list.
This slide show below is a few pix of the birds we saw, but my 200 mm telephoto lens didn’t do nearly as good a job and seeing the birds as the Vortex binoculars that our leader let Kathy borrow for the walk.
There’s also 3 pix of the restaurant (G’s Burgers) where we had lunch on the edge of Cornville.
After you’ve seen the slide show, check out the video of the hatchery further down the page. Feel free to leave any comments at the bottom of the page.
