The Colima Warbler is a small, pretty plain little bird, but it is rare and only found in the United States right here in the Oak woods of the Chisos Mountains above 6000 ft...and only between March and mid-summer. We had the timing right, now we just had to find the bird.
This took an 8+ hour, 10 mile hike with 2400 feet of altitude gain to over 7000 feet.
Only Ernie and Paul were joining us on the hike. This was good for us as they are both good birders and Ernie is quite good at birdsong identification. Jim was a bit under the weather this morning and decided to stick to the lower altitudes.
We left around 7AM and started up the Pinnacles Trail. It was a breezy and cool morning and an excellent time to start. Our route took us up the Pinnacles Trail, along the Boot Canyon Trail, then the the Colima Trail and, finally, back to the trailhead visa the Laguna Meadow Trail. The idea was to find the warbler and, if were were not to far along, return along the same trail rather than going all the way around. This didn't happen.
We actually heard the warbler not to far up the trail, at a lower altitude than expected, but it was too far into the woods to see...so on we went, picking up other birds, particularly Mexican Jays, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers and Acorn Woodpeckers. The highlight of the first part of the trail was finding a Band-tailed Pigeon, a life bird for us. We covered the 3.2 miles of the Pinnacles trail without hearing or seeing another warbler.
AS we were going up, we encountered three young men with expensive binocular running down. We asked if they had found the warbler. They answered "bunches of them near Boot Spring" and dashed on without stopping. We thought this rather strange. They must have hiked up (probably ran up) well before dawn as it was quite early in our hike when they raced by. We later found out they were doing a "Big Day", a competition to see as many species as possible in a sigle 24 hour day. It seemed a pretty bold move to go all the way to the Chisos Mountains for the Colima Warbler, which is far from anywhere...unless there were significantly extra points for rarities.
We had another companion for most of out climb, all the way to Boot Spring and our lunch stop—a Mexican Jay. each time we stopped, it would land a couple of feet away. You are not supposed to feed the wildlife in the park, but this guy had not gotten the memo. He was obviously looking for a treat. In the interest of protecting the guilty, I won't mention who gave in to this friendly pan-handler.
We got about half way along the Boot Canyon Trail before we heard another Colima Warbler. This one was a lot closer and we spend a long time looking for him. We were eventually joined by another half-dozen birders, but no one could get a look at it. It eventually stopped singing and we moved on.
We decided to walk past the turnoff to the Colima trail and stop at the Boot Spring Trailhead for lunch (joined by our Mexican Jay buddy). As we finished our lunches, we heard another warbler right near the top pf the trail leading down to Boot Spring. We knew he was right behind a tree about 25 feet away, but couldn't see him, then a bird shot out from behind the tree and into the woods and was gone...a tantalizing glimpse, but no real sighting.
We almost gave up and considered going back down the trails we came up , but decided to go back to the Colima Trail and give it a try. The Colima Trail connects the Pinnacles and Boot Canyon Trails, which run up from the Basin to the east side of Emory Peak, the highest point in the park, to the Laguna Meadow Trail, which runs up the west side of the peak.
We were about half-way along this trail when we heard our fourth warbler. This one was right next to the trail and we all got very good looks at it as it sang high up in a trail-side tree...finally, the bird we did all this walking for. It was high-fives all around. The Colima Trail lived up to its name.
We thought about turning around, but we figured that continuing to the Laguna Meadow Trail was about the same length and it was supposed to be a gentler trail than the Pinnacles. In retrospect, this may have not been the best choice in the middle of the day. While the trail was less steep, it was also quite open on a hot, sunny afternoon. We were totally wiped out by the time we reached the lodge. It was 91° at the time.
We all sat around with Jim and Christine on the shaded porch of the lodge, cold drinks in hand to recover. Jim and Paul offered us the use of their showers, an offer we took before taking Speedy back to the campground where we barely had the energy to make dinner.
It will be quite a sleep tonight.
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