Santa Maria Mountain Field Expedition

Memorial Day Weekend, May 23-26th 2025
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Come join us for a full-scale survey of the Santa Maria Mountain range in Yavapai County Memorial Day weekend.

 

This 16-mile long, low mountain range is northwest of Prescott and is the most underbirded of our five eBird Gaps Project areas. Its various mesas, peaks, and hills are a large section of the northwest transition zone between the Colorado Plateau and Basin and Range Deserts. It contains a mix of vegetation types, including chaparral, grassland, pinyon-juniper woodland, ponderosa pine forest, and a riparian corridor. Two designated Wilderness Areas (Juniper Mesa and Apache Creek) within the Prescott National Forest are part of the area. Birders have provided some recent coverage along Walnut Creek and Camp Wood Road, but most of the area has not been birded. We are hoping to survey large swaths of the southwestern, central, and northwestern sections of this eBird Gaps area.

 

Water is scarce on the range and springs attract birds when there is adequate winter and summer precipitation.  Resident and breeding birds likely to be surveyed throughout the range include Acorn woodpecker, Band-tailed Pigeon, Black-headed Grosbeak, Anna’s and Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Black-chinned Sparrow, Bridled & Juniper Titmouse, Common Poorwill, Grace’s Warbler, Gray Vireo, Hepatic & Summer Tanager, Painted Redstart, Steller's Jay, Virginia’s Warbler, Wild Turkey and many more. There is extensive habitat adequate for breeding Pinyon Jay, a species of interest as it is on the Conservation Watchlist having had an 85% decline in populations between 1970 and 2014. ​

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