Lower part of the road to the summit of Mt. Ord (April 2014)
View from about 6,800 feet (May 10, 2021)
Birding Mt. Ord involves driving the 14.4 mile road from Highway 87 up to near the summit at 7,128 feet, where multiple towers are located. Fire Road 626 is a good birding trail a little past half way up. The main road is blocked to vehicle traffic about a mile before the summit. But driving up there is not for the faint-hearted. The paved road ends after 1/4 mile, and while the one-lane drive up to FR 626 is not too difficult, the rest of the drive is on a narrow road of rocks and dirt with some tight turns and no guard rails.
I had been there twice in 2014 when I saw Black-throated Gray Warblers, Grace's Warblers, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and Painted Redstarts. I had heard a Virginia's Warbler near FR 626, but never saw it, and missed seeing Olive Warblers near the summit, even though birders coming down from there had just seen them. The road up to FR 626 was loaded with all sorts of neat avian species in 2014.
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But when we arrived this day, we saw that a brush fire last year had burned the ground vegetation almost all the way up to FR 626, and there were very few birds at all along this stretch of the road.
Gambel's Quail
We stopped at FR 626 to look for warblers, especially a Virginia's Warbler. At this time, I had not realized that I had seen and photographed a Virginia's Warbler on Mt. Lemmon on May 6. We only hiked a short distance there, as I didn't hear a Virginia's Warbler, and was eager to see and photograph an Olive Warbler closer to the summit.
Bushtit
Grace's Warbler
Grace's Warbler
Grace's Warbler
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Hairy Woodpecker
Ruby-crowned Kinglet
We stopped a short distance later when I saw two birds flying in the trees along the road. Both of them were Virginia's Warblers, and they were singing to each other!
Virginia's Warbler
Virginia's Warbler
Virginia's Warbler
Virginia's Warbler
Now I was really pumped! Would we see an Olive Warbler? As with Yellow-breasted Chats, Olive Warblers were moved out of the wood-warbler family a few years ago, but are still on my own "personal" warbler species list. Males and females of this species are mostly gray, with white wing bars. Males have a burnt orange breast and face, with a dark face mask, and females have buffy-yellow instead of the burnt orange. Both have whitish vent and undertail feathers with flared and notched tails.
We parked in the small parking area just before the chained road leading to the summit, walked around the chain, and almost immediately, two warblers flew across the road and perched momentarily before flying into denser tree cover. Both Walt and I got a great, but very short look at one of the warblers. It was gray, with a burnt orange face and dark mask - a male Olive Warbler! I tried to get some photos of this bird, but only got a couple of shots of the back of its head through the leaves.
Male Olive Warbler
I assumed that both warblers were Olive Warblers, and decided to try to photograph the other warbler as I saw it flitting about. But that one turned out to be a Townsend's Warbler.
Townsend's Warbler
Walt walked off the road to the other side of the trees to look for the Olive Warbler, and I started walking up the road a bit to look for it. And then disaster struck - my right leg started having intense pain. I couldn't bend my right knee and could barely walk. I must have injured my knee the day before, and some movement just then triggered the pain. Walt called out that he was seeing the Olive Warbler from the other side of the trees, but by the time I hobbled to where he was standing, the Olive Warbler was gone. We waited about 20 to 30 minutes for it to return, but only saw a few other species. There were two Gnatcatchers, and we hoped that they might have been Black-capped, but after looking at the photos, I think that they were Blue-gray. We saw two pigeons fly overhead, and Walt identified them as Band-tailed Pigeons.
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher
Spotted Towhee
Brown-crested Flycatcher
Cordilleran(?) Flycatcher
Dusky(?) Flycatcher
Cassin's Vireo
Without seeing another Olive Warbler, I decided to hobble up the road about 100 yards where I could see some avian activity, and Walt stayed put. I did see some warblers up there, but not an Olive Warbler.
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Yellow-rumped Warbler
A jogger ran by me and said, "Your buddy asked me to tell you that he was seeing the bird you are looking for." So I hobbled back down the road as quickly as I could, but the Olive Warbler that had been perched right in front of Walt was gone by the time I got there. I did see a few other warblers at that time.
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Black-throated Gray Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Orange-crowned Warbler
Painted Redstart
I did get one badly out-of-focus photo of a bird that might have been a female Olive Warbler.
Female Olive Warbler (?)
On the way down, we saw a Red-tailed Hawk, and once back in Phoenix, I stopped at a drug store and bought a knee brace, but it didn't help much. I asked Walt to think about where to go the next day where I didn't have to do much walking. We had prevously planned to go to other mountains in the area to look for warblers, but decided that it wouldn't be a good idea. :-(
Red-tailed Hawk