SEAZ Birds: The Missing Tracks, Disc 1

Disc 1: Quail to Hummingbirds

by Diana Doyle

 Click the ZIP icon to download the entire disc 1 set, with liner notes (11.8MB .zip file).

This album of the “missing tracks” for Southeast Arizona’s Sky Islands is intended to supplement the popular national-coverage app, Sibley eGuide to Birds. The album currently has five “discs” with 117 audio tracks of 75 species, including regular species with missing calls, annual specialties, local subspecies, rarities, and the rare but potential dream-birds:

Regular Species— Locally common birds that are missing vocalizations often heard in Southeast Arizona, such as Buff-breasted Flycatcher’s “pit” and Crissal Thrasher’s “pjurrre-djurre” call.

Annual Specialties— South-of-the-border species that are typically seen annually, such as Black-capped Gnatcatcher and Lucifer Hummingbird.

Subspecies— Mexican subspecies of familiar birds, with regional songs that make them confusing to visiting birders, such as Bewick’s Wren and Brown Creeper.

Rarities— Species that don’t appear annually in Southeast Arizona, such as Eared Quetzal, Sinaloa Wren, and Tufted Flycatcher.

Potential Rarities— Twelve species not yet on the AZFO Bird Checklist, but expected given their patterns of vagrancy or their distribution in the adjacent Mexican state of Sonora. Marked with an asterisk in the audio file name, examples are Orange-billed Nightingale-Thrush and Rusty Sparrow.

Diana Doyle was Department Editor of Birding’s Tools of the Trade column from 2011 to 2016. She has also written conservation and bird behavior articles for BirdWatching, Bird Watcher’s Digest, and the ornithological societies of Minnesota and Florida. She lives in Southeast Arizona.