Friday April 21- Lucy's Warbler Nestsearching and Foraging Observation Group Event at 7B

Tucson Audubon is launching an initiative to learn more about Lucy's Warbler nesting needs as well as study how effective different nestbox designs can be for these charismatic warblers. By signing up here you are expressing interest in helping with this project - you will be contacted with more information very soon.

The Lucy’s Warbler (Oreothlypis luciae) is North America’s smallest cavity nesting bird and is a secondary cavity nester. It is intricately tied to mesquite trees (Prosopis spp) for foraging, so much so that it has previously been called the Mesquite Warbler. In Arizona the primary and largest mesquite is the velvet mesquite (P. velutina) which grows in xero-riparian areas along waterways of all sizes in the Sonoran Desert. On the floodplains of the few remaining perennial rivers and streams, velvet mesquites can form large stands of immense trees forming a dense closed canopy called mesquite bosques. However, the reduction in groundwater levels has resulted in die offs of entire stands of these native trees. Wood from large mesquites is also commercially valuable and results in substantial harvest from the few locations where they still manage to grow. While riparian gallery forests are the poster-child for imperiled habitats in the Sonoran Desert, their associated mesquite bosques are equally imperiled.

For this event we will be visiting the beautiful 7B ranch (map: https://goo.gl/maps/CiSLjaNH2AL2 ) and looking for Lucy's Warbler nests and watching them forage while wringing observations on how long they forage etc.