By JERRY NACHTIGAL
The Associated Press
PHOENIX -- From California condors soaring on 10-foot wings above the Grand Canyon to thumb-size, blue-throated hummingbirds flitting among wildflowers near the Mexican border, Arizona is a bird-watcher's paradise.
Southeastern Arizona is one of the world's most renowned bird-watching destinations, with upward of 500 species of birds living in or migrating through its desert washes, riparian woodlands and pine-forested mountains.
Some are found nowhere else in the United States, such as the violet-crowned hummingbird, Mexican chickadee and elegant trogon -- an exotic tropical bird with a rose-red belly, shimmering iridescent green head and shoulders and long copper tail with a flared tip.
''There are so many opportunities to see anything you want except seabirds,'' says Sheri Williamson, director of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory in Bisbee. ''Some birds stray across the border from Mexico, which makes for very interesting and surprising bird-watching.''
Big business
Bird-watching has become a big business in Arizona, attracting enthusiasts from around the world who come here for the sole purpose of seeing birds they've never seen before.
A study conducted in 1995 found that bird-watching was a $128 million industry in the state. Many officials believe the economic impact has grown considerably as interest in birding has increased and word of Arizona's abundance of birds has spread.
A small cottage industry of bed and breakfast inns, gift shops and organized tours catering to bird-watchers and eco-tourists has sprung up around communities such as Bisbee, Sierra Vista, Patagonia, Willcox, Hereford, Elfrita and Sonoita.
Chuck and Judy Wetzel ditched banking careers in Hawaii three years ago to open Casa de San Pedro, a 10-unit, Spanish-style B&B at Hereford, next door to the avian-rich San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. The San Pedro River, which flows through the conservation area, plus Ramsey Canyon, Cave Creek Canyon, Madera Canyon and Sulphur Springs Valley are known for their birding opportunities.
The Wetzels estimate that about 80 percent of their business comes from bird-watchers and other nature-oriented tourists, who drive, hike and bicycle through the nearby Huachuca Mountains, home to an assortment of owls, hawks, eagles and songbirds.
''We've had guests from all over the United States, Canada, England, Australia and Germany,'' Chuck Wetzel said.
Sue Weinreis of Billings, Mont., gazed at a feeder outside the Wetzels' B&B on a recent winter morning and saw a Gila woodpecker, whitewinged and mourning doves, and a scaled quail. Perched nearby was a loggerhead shrike, nicknamed the ''butcher bird'' for its habit of impaling mice and insects on thorns to feast on later.
''I try to go birding somewhere every year and southeast Arizona is one of my favorite places,'' said Ms. Weinreis, who has seen 300 bird species in two decades of bird-watching.
Ms. Williamson, of the Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory, says each season offers its own birding highlights. In winter, thousands of sandhill cranes descend upon marshes and farm fields around Willcox, which celebrates the birds each January with a festival featuring seminars and guided tours. Spring brings a colorful parade of warblers and rarities such as black-headed grosbeaks and green-tailed towhees.
California condors
In summer, several varieties of warblers, tanagers, orioles and hummingbirds nest in southeastern Arizona. In late summer, when drenching thunderstorms generate a carpet of blooming wildflowers, ''it's not unheard of to see 15 species of hummingbirds in a week's time,'' Ms. Williamson said.
Fall brings migrating birds of prey such as peregrine and prairie falcons, merlins, roughlegged hawks and golden and bald eagles, which sometimes gather at the carcass of a road-killed javelina.
In far northern Arizona, two flocks of California condors -- 22 birds in all -- ride the thermals above the same canyons where their ancestors feasted on sabertooth tiger carcasses thousands of years ago. The giant vultures occasionally wing through the Grand Canyon, to the surprise and delight of tourists and river rafters. The 15 birds in the first flock, reintroduced into Arizona in 1996, can often be spotted roosting on rocky ledges in the Vermilion Cliffs, about 30 miles southwest of Page.
INFORMATION
Southeastern Arizona Bird Observatory in Bisbee: (520) 432-6684
Casa de San Pedro bed and breakfast at Hereford: (520) 366-1300.
