Madera Canyon

January 17, 2024

Susan’s leaving us today, after an excellent week that would have been even better if I hadn’t caught a cold at the end. I’m driving her out to the airport in mid-morning, but we start by going out for coffee and pastries together at the nearby Time Market.

Thanks for the wonderful week, Susan! What a great way to start off the year, eh?

I’ve learned my lesson for the time being and am not planning another strenuous bike ride until I’m confident that my health is back to normal. One of the rides I’ve been planning on ever since coming down this winter is the climb up into Madera Canyon. It’s a pretty challenging ride, involving a steady twelve or thirteen mile climb at the end that lifts you up from the basin floor to 5,400’ if you make it all the way to the end of the pavement in the national forest. I started out on this ride last winter but had to turn back to the car after only five miles - not even to the beginning of the climb - because of an arrhythmia episode that left me lying in the shade behind a fire station for about fifteen minutes hoping it would stop.

Now though, it’s looking questionable whether I’ll be able to do this ride this year either. I’d thought I’d do it right after Susan left, until this cold came on; but now the forecast is changing and it looks like we’ll be seeing several days of rain next week, the last before we leave town.

Actually though, the main reason I want to go to Madera Canyon isn’t for the ride - it’s for the birds. It’s the one place reasonably near town where I can hope to see much that’s new this winter. With its higher elevation and different habitat, it gets a decidedly different mix of birds than the basin floor. Several of them are primarily Mexican species that I won’t have a chance to see anywhere else this year because this is the extreme north end of their range. When I check out recent sightings in Madera Canyon on eBird, fully half of the first 25 on the list are ones I haven’t seen yet this year, and several that I’ve not seen ever.

So that’s the plan - after dropping Susan and Vivian George off at the airport I just keep driving south for another half hour or so, stopping only to check out a hawk and a raven atop utility poles as I’m climbing up to the canyon. As I drive I’m thinking through what I’m hoping for - I feel almost certain I’ll see acorn woodpeckers and Mexican Jays (and I’m right on that point - I’ll see dozens of each before the day is done); but hopefully a few others. I’m thinking that a good day will find me with perhaps five birds to add to the list.

I park the Raven at the lowest parking lot inside the park, leave my National Park pass on the dash (and btw, if you don’t have a pass bring the exact fee in cash: $8) and then start walking up the canyon toward the end of the pavement, partly on a path through the woods and partly on the quiet road.

How did I do? Exceeded expectations. Outstanding, actually. Ten new birds, three of them lifetime firsts. Well enough that when I think back on the day I realize it was a blessing in disguise to have gotten sick because otherwise I’d have biked up here instead and seen much less. Walking is definitely the way to go here.

My walk gains not quite a thousand feet, starting at 4,600’ and ending at 5,400. It’s through a transitional zone that starts above the open desert and ends in the pines.

Staghorn(?) cholla and alligator juniper.

There’s a little water still running down Madera Creek.

The wild canyon is rife with snags and fallen trees, a real haven for woodpeckers and other wildlife.

It’s not long before we’re starting to see oaks mixing in with the junipers. I wonder what that might attract?

There aren’t many open views at first, but when I get one I can see the high ridge leading up to Mount Wrightson, the highest peak in the Santa Rita Mountains.

#75: Yellow-eyed junco. I also saw #76, a dark-eyed junco, but the shot was too poor to bother including.

I was surprised at the number of privately owned structures there are clustered near the end of the road. I wonder what these heavy ropes were for - mining maybe? I saw them coiled and heaped up in several places.

One of these places is a lodging of some type, and a bird magnet with its dozen or so birdhouses. I leaned against a giant coil of rope for about twenty minutes watching the birds dash in briefly and then quickly return to the trees. This nuthatch isn’t new - I saw one in Reid Park last week - but I’m getting a much better look this time.

Even up here at 5,000’ we’re still finding cacti clinging to exposed surfaces like this.

Some of the boulders in the creek are very colorful - purple, red, and green.

Is this the summit of Mount Wrightson? Probably not - at 9,500’ it stands higher than Mount Lemmon and would probably have some snow. I’m likely too close under to see it.

At the end of the pavement there are traces of residual snow on the ground. So no, if the summit is still another 4,000’ higher that can’t have been it in the previous photo.

Not much light is making it down into the canyon by the time I walk out, but it’s a good time for observing wildlife of all kinds.

#78: Wild turkey, one of a couple that were slowly walking down the canyon in front of me but at a distance from each other, softly calling back and forth as they moved through the underbrush.

#80: Bewick’s wren. I haven’t seen this bird many times in my life, and this is certainly the best look at one I’ve ever gotten.

Just another colorful rock. I took a shot of this one on the way up, but it was too bright then.

I was excited to see a deer early in the hike, but they’re everywhere. I must have seen a couple dozen of them. These are part of a slowly advancing group of seven I followed down the creek for nearly a quarter mile.

This shot is for Susan, who reminds me that I should take more head shots.

Out of the woods now, I stopped at a viewpoint before the drive home for a last few shots.

The view toward Green Valley and the surrounding mines.

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Janice BranhamYou've reminded me of what a beautiful place Madera is. We have to get down there before we go. Glad you had a good day.
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3 months ago

Scott AndersonTo Janice BranhamIt really is a great place. I’d go more often if it weren’t quite so far from town.
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3 months ago