5 Days/4 Nights

Arizona Hummingbird Fall Migration

Join Birds & Blooms magazine for the enthralling sight of Arizona’s annual hummingbird migration! You’ll travel with a professional birding guide to southern Arizona's best birding hotspots. Along the way you’ll explore Madera Canyon, visit the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum walk-in bird aviaries and participate in hummingbird banding. The scenery is gorgeous, the food is scrumptious and the birds are plentiful on this fascinating tour!

Tour Highlights

• Explore some of the best birding territory in North America at the height of the fall hummingbird migration.
• Travel with professional birding guides and participate in private hummingbird banding.
• Visit the world-famous Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and its bustling hummingbird aviary.

Itinerary

Day 1—Tucson: Join us in Tucson! Blessed with 360 sunny days a year, Arizona offers you birding at its best. Get to know your fellow travelers as we kick-off our memorable hummingbird adventure at this evening's reception. Welcome Reception included.

Day 2—Tucson/Green Valley: We're off to the internationally acclaimed Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum for an introduction to the beauty of southeastern Arizona. This outdoor museum has a walk-in hummingbird aviary which features the tiny, iridescent birds in constant motion!

We’ll head to one of the treasures of southern Arizona, the Mission San Xavier del Bac, a magnet to those who appreciate art and architecture ­dating back more than two centuries. As we approach the mission, nestled among brown hills and distant mountains, you’ll understand why it’s called the “White Dove of the Desert.”

Before dinner we’ll take a ride to the private home of one of our birding guides, Jack Murray, who will spend more time with us during our visit to Madera Canyon tomorrow. We’ll stay the night in Green Valley. Meals included: B, L, D.

Day 3—Madera Canyon/Tubac/Rio Rico: Travel to Madera Canyon, the wooded valley at the base of the Santa Rita Mountains and a world-renowned birding destination, for a morning of birding with Jack Murray and other expert birding guides. Keep your eyes open for Cooper's Hawks, American Kestrels, Acorn Woodpeckers, numerous hummingbird species and lots of other local wildlife.

Enjoy time for lunch and shopping in the village of Tubac. Then it’s off to the Santa Cruz Chile & Spice Company where your taste buds can test several salsas and seasonings. There is a gift shop just in case you want to take some of your favorite flavors home. The rest of the afternoon will be spent at Tumacácori National Historical Park. The park preserves and tells the story of the Tumacácori Spanish colonial mission ruins and several others in southern Arizona. It also provides refuge for many species of birds and animals.

This evening we’ll visit the private home of Linda Pfister, where we’ll observe and learn about the nighttime hummingbird feeder visitors: bats! These nocturnal mammals don’t perch well and can’t hover like hummingbirds. Instead, they swoop into the feeder for a quick taste, then fly off and circle back for another sip. Meals included: B, D.

Day 4—Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve/Sierra Vista: Begin your day birding with our guides in the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve. The Preserve is one of the most popular places for birding in the United States. Easy walking trails take you along Sonoita Creek and through a rare cottonwood willow forest to spot the hummingbirds that have migrated here. Before we end our morning, we'll stop at the home of Wally and Marion Paton, a true hummingbird haven! We'll sit in the Patons' backyard and enjoy winged wonders at their abundance of feeders.

We’ll stop for a fun lunch in Patagonia at the Velvet Elvis, then travel to Sierra Vista and check into our hotel.

Next, we’ll look for hummingbirds along the trails near the San Pedro House bookstore and visitor center of the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area. As many as 10 different hummingbird species use the San Pedro River as a “freeway” between their winter homes in the tropics and their northern nesting grounds. Here we’ll help staff and volunteers capture, weigh, measure, band and release hummingbirds as part of a long-term migration study. Meals included: B, L, D.

Day 5—Sierra Vista/Hereford/Tucson: This morning we'll hear from Sheri Williamson, author of Peterson's Field Guide to Hummingbirds of North America. We'll observe hummingbirds at the yard feeders at Tom and Edith Beatty's Miller Canyon Guest Ranch, "America's Premier Hummingbird Viewing Spot". Fifteen different species of hummingbirds frequent the Beatty's feeding station and garden.

To say farewell, we'll lunch in Sierra Vista, then head back to Tucson with plenty of memories of gorgeous southern Arizona and its colorful birds and wildlife. Meals included: B, L.

Fall Accommodations

• Day 1: Radisson Suites Hotel Tucson Airport
• Day 2: Quality Inn, Green Valley
• Day 3: Holiday Inn Express, Nogales
• Day 4: Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott, Sierra Vista