Planning a birding trip to SE Arizona?
The following information will help, but my best tip is to hire me as your expert SE Arizona birding guide. It will make your life easier, and you’ll see more birds.
What to Bring in Summer
- Cool, lightweight clothing: shorts and t-shirts, by all means, but some long pants and long sleeved shirts for cooler times and insect bite/sunburn prevention
- Waterproof clothing, if visiting during the monsoon season (July/August)
- A light jacket. It’s not not red hot all summer, just the vast majority of it!
- Lightweight walking shoes. Optional waterproof/rubber boots during monsoon
- A good insect repellent, a bite/sting lotion
What to Bring in Winter
- Warm hat, gloves, warm coat
- Waterproof clothing – it doesn’t rain often, but it does sometimes
- Stout walking shoes
- Optional rubber boots
- Still bring some lightweight clothing, for those inevitable sunny days in the lowlands and desert
What to Bring All Year
- Sunscreen!
- Wide-brimmed hat!
- Water!
- Sunglasses
- Lip balm
- Optional: water/beverage container (bottled water will be provided)
- Additional or preferred snacks (some snacks provided)
- Binoculars
- Optional: telescope (use of a telescope will be provided)
- Optional: camera and accessories
- US electrical adapter, if bringing equipment from overseas
- US Dollars, credit/debit cards
- Passport (preferred) or Arizona-recognized ID. We will likely pass through Border Patrol checkpoints
- Emergency contacts, medical and allergy information, medications and prescriptions
- Health insurance, travel insurance
- A positive attitude and a good sense of humor! 😀
Recommended Online Birding Retailers
Recommended Arizona Birding & Wildlife Apps
The best selling birding app, which I use in the field often. Recommended!
The entire Sibley guide, plus the most comprehensive songs and calls, in your pocket at all times! This is the biggest advance in birding in decades. I use this app in the field many times per day. Outstanding and HIGHLY recommended!
Recommended Arizona Birding & Wildlife Books
Birds of Southeastern Arizona (Rick Taylor)
Published in 2010, this is a fantastic photographic field guide covering all the birds you’re likely to see in SE Arizona. I can’t recommend it highly enough, especially as more than 20 of my own photos have been used! 😀
Field Guide to Birds of Arizona (Rick Wright/American Birding Association )
Published in 2016, this book will guide both novice and experienced birders to help identify the amazing diversity of bird life in Arizona. Crisp color photographs of birds in nature, authoritative text from an expert birder, and a handy portable size.
Newly updated and published in summer 2011, this is an absolutely indispensable guide to birding in SE Arizona. Whether you’re a visitor or a resident, you NEED this book!
Published in 2005, Rick’s excellent guide to birding in SE Arizona contains many day and half day trips and is highly recommended, but bear in mind that it’s now more than a decade old and some things have changed.
Published in 2005 using data collected from 1993-2000, this is a huge reference guide with amazing detail on every breeding species in the state. An essential reference book for any birder in Arizona – you have to have this one on your shelf. A new version would be nice…
I didn’t think the first edition could be beat, but the new second edition, now that the original printing faults have been ironed out, is an absolutely must-have guide for any birder in North America. The classic, and still the best field guide for the region.
The more portable Western version of the first edition of Sibley. This is a must in the field in Arizona, a high-quality, portable field guide for the region. Presumably, a new version is planned, based on the second edition of the ‘big’ version of Sibley.
This latest edition of the classic Net Geo guide is packed with info and has much improved illustrations over previous editions, which now makes it a genuinely usable guide in the field.
This comprehensive, hard-backed reference guide is the first place I go for detailed North American bird information. Like an expanded version of the field guide, this book is the most likely source for the info I need. The second edition is even better than the first.
For those who prefer a photographic field guide, Kenn Kaufman’s photographic Field Guide to Birds of North America is the best guide covering the region, written by one of the best-known and most capable birders. A useful addition to your bookshelf, even if you don’t use it as a field guide.
Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America (Jeffrey Glassberg)
Written by Jeffrey Glassberg, the pioneering authority on the field identification of butterflies, this revised second edition of the most detailed, comprehensive, and user-friendly photographic field guide to the butterflies of North America.
Butterflies of Arizona: A Photographic Guide (Stewart, Brodkin & Brodkin)
Published in 2001, this is a large, comprehensive and easy to use photographic guide to Arizona’s butterflies, compiled and written by Arizona’s foremost butterfly experts. Another book which would benefit a revised edition.
The companion to the above field guide, this book details all the best sites to find each species, and crucially, at which times of the year. It also gives extra detail that the ID guide doesn’t cover, so it pays to have the pair.
Dragonflies and Damselflies of the West (Paulson, Princeton Field Guides)
Easily the best field guide to Western dragonflies and damselflies, written by Dennis Paulson, the top expert in the area. Being as there are so many species, it’s a huge subject to cover in one book, but this guide manages it quite well.
Published in 2015, we finally have a comprehensive field guide to Arizona’s odonata! Recommended.
One of the best photographic wildlife guides around. This is an extremely good book, published by Arizona Game & Fish Department, written by local experts, with each species photographed from the collection at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. Essential reading for any Arizona naturalist.
Sheri Williamson is perhaps the world’s foremost hummingbird expert, and this information-packed guide is the culmination of her life’s work and knowledge on this most fascinating of bird families. An updated edition will be published in 2016, which looks even more impressive.
Planning a birding trip to SE Arizona?
The information above will help, but my best tip is to hire me as your expert SE Arizona birding guide. It will make your life easier, and you’ll see more birds.