Sedona is for the Birds

Last night, while I was making pizza to the sounds of Mozart, a warbling song drifted in through the open windows. In the deep twilight, I couldn’t identify the singer by sight, but it seemed like the bird was responding to the violins playing on the stereo. Spring has brought a symphony of birdsong to our backyards and “neighborwoods,” the local nickname for the Coconino National Forest boundary that encircles Sedona.

Being so close to national forest, we host a mix of species, shy spotted towhees shuffling beneath bushes in search of insects, scrub jays scolding loudly from pinons, the occasional kestral silently watching for rodents or smaller birds from a branch or telephone pole. A popular neighborwoods walk is to climb Sugarloaf, a red sandstone butte in West Sedona, where white-throated swifts zoom past hikers’ heads.

Deeper in the forest, the liquid song of the canyon wren is sweet music to hikers' ears. These small reddish-brown wrens (about five inches long) hop in and out of rocky crevices and boulder piles in search of insects. The male’s song is a descending, flutelike tew-tew-tew-tew-tew-tew. Females usually choose nest sites hidden in the rocks, though one little mother raised her brood inside the room of an ancient cliff dwelling at Palatki. She tucked her nest in the hole from a roof beam, and her four offspring grew up under the watchful eyes of the site’s rangers and hundreds of visitors.

Cliffs and ledges in Fay Canyon, Sedona

Rocky canyons like Fay, Boynton, and Long also echo with the piercing cries of hawks and peregrine falcons, a threatened and endangered species (TES). Peregrines nest on the ledges of Sedona’s famed rock formations—the second highest concentration of breeding pairs in the state. Where canyons climb to higher elevations, acorn woodpeckers drill holes in ponderosa trunks to store row upon row of acorns, then spend most of their time relocating and defending their accumulated wealth. (Nature’s metaphor for modern life, perhaps?)

With nearly two hundred avian species, from tiny black-chinned hummingbirds to bald eagles, Sedona is a paradise for birdwatchers. Most birds nest here during summer, then spend winter months in Mexico or Central and South America. Seventeen are on the TES list, many of these—including the Southwestern willow flycatcher and belted kingfisher—dependent on riparian areas, the lush environments of Oak Creek, Beaver Creek, or the Verde River.

Some of the best places for birdwatching near Sedona are Red Rock State Park, the wetlands (reclamation ponds) west of town, or the Page Springs Fish Hatchery. Today is the final day of the area's top nature-themed event, the Verde Valley Birding and Nature Festival held each April. Whether you're an experienced birder or a beginner hoping to learn a little more about the feathered musicians in your backyard, the "Birdy Verde" is a fabulous event with workshops and guided field trips throughout central and northern Arizona.

Being a naturalist wannabe, I've made an effort over the years to study Sedona's flora and fauna. And yet every spring I find myself needing to relearn birdcalls or distinguishing marks. Binoculars sit by windows, and field guides pile up on shelves and tables along with a notebook and pen. After hearing last night's anonymous warbler, however, I've decided it's okay to remain in appreciative ignorance. Sometimes, not knowing can be sweeter. As psychologist Eric Berne once said, 

"The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing."  

As a writer who travels, I'm often too quick to put a label on the things I see. Sometimes it's better simply to enjoy them.

Sweet Home Sedona

Sedona, Arizona

On most any given day in Sedona, Arizona, visitors outnumber residents. Each afternoon, scores answer the seductive call of red sandstone to scramble up slickrock slopes in search of a vortex or view. Hundreds more drive up Airport Mesa or down Red Rock Loop Road to snap photos of rocks shaped like castles, critters, and kitchen implements. Shoppers jaywalk through Uptown, mountain bikers bomb down forest trails, and drivers—visitors and locals alike—hit the brakes when something unexpected crosses the road, be it a family of Gambel quail or a hot-air balloon gone astray.

            Life here can get pretty wacky at times. Maybe it’s because Sedona’s red rocks are riddled with vortexes (vortices, if you prefer). Whether they are whorls of energy or inventions to attract tourists, their draw is second only to the landscape itself. But more about the vortex scene another time. First, let’s consider Sedona’s other-worldly landscape, the reason why so many people (1) visit here, (2) move here, or (3) fantasize about moving here.

           The greater Sedona area, home to about 15,000 people, encompasses Uptown, West Sedona, and the Village of Oak Creek. It’s a bit like a suburb without an urb, a commercial/residential island surrounded by a sea of public land, most of it Coconino National Forest. Neither desert nor mountain but somewhere in between, the Sedona area is situated a couple thousand feet below the southern edge of the Colorado Plateau. Rugged canyons—splendid for hiking—are carved from the plateau’s Permian rocks. One, the canyon of Oak Creek, cuts through a 2,500-foot geological layer cake on its 12-mile length, revealing an earth shaped by oceans, deserts, swamps and volcanic flows.

           Sedona’s famed buttes and spires are sculpted from a 700-foot thick stack of mudstone, sandstone, and limestone colored dark red, orange, and gray. In some places, limestone forms a hard cap that protects lower, softer layers of rock, leaving water and wind to create shapes that tease the imagination. Taller peaks, like Bear Mountain and Capitol Butte, are topped with a gorgeous golden cross-bedded sandstone formed from ancient dunes. Counterpoint to the red and gold rocks is a patchwork of green (mostly piñon and juniper) and intensely blue skies.

           Living in such a beautiful place can be both blessing and curse. On days when deadlines keep me at my desk and a quick dash to New Frontiers for groceries becomes a protracted battle to find a parking space among hordes of rental cars, I grit my teeth to see the drivers lounging at the tables outside the deli, sipping wheatgrass shakes or lattes. Mildly sunburned and smiling, wearing Tevas and shorts, they consult topos or phone apps to plan their next adventures. As for me, well, I am as jealous as a jilted lover.

           My green-eyed monster may violate Sedona’s New Age vibe, but the sin of envy makes sense if you agree with one of my favorite writers, Pico Iyer, who compares travel to a love affair. He points out that travel is “a heightened state of awareness in which we are mindful, receptive and ready to be transformed.” 

           Travelers--and lovers--fare best when they are open to the unexpected and willing to become lost. This state is familiar to Buddhists and yogis as beginner’s mind. Lovers know it as the discovery stage, when all seems magical and possible. Psychologists might call it infatuation or limerance. Here in Sedona, we've dubbed it Red Rock Fever, and it can make people do foolish things, like trying to hike up Bell Rock in flip-flops or abandoning a steady career to become a yoga teacher or tour guide. (Or travel writer.)

           Being a travel writer, I get to fall in love a lot. And though it may be a bit harder to drum up passion for the familiar, state of mind is quite portable, as easy to pack as a clean pair of socks and ready to go anywhere … even the grocery store.