This trip of the Sonoran Audubon Society and Birders’ Anonymous was led by Eleanor Campbell, who tied us in with the Conservation Director Thomas G. Hulen and Steve Jones, a retired botanist, representatives of the Desert Foothills Land Trust  (www.dflt.org) From Cave Creek community lake Spur Cross Road to the site.

This area of Upper Sonoran Desert receives more water and is slightly higher (2500’-3900’ elev.) and is comprised of only 27 acres on the site of an old mining town, Lincum (Au and Ag) that is bounded on the north by the Spur Cross Ranch Conservation Area ($3 entrance for the public) of more than 2000 acres including Elephant Mountain and part of the south drainage of Sugarloaf Mountain and the Tonto National Forest.

The parking area is located about 1/8 mile beyond the Preserve entrance and the horse corrals. Park and walk back to the gated entrance and bronze plaque. Call 480-488-6131 to make an appointment.

There are three habitats within the Preserve in descending order:

• The Arizona Upland – at road level includes Saguaro, Desert Hackberry, Creosote Bush, Foothills Paloverde,Twinberry (yellow), Ratany (white & sticky) Filaree (pink, low), Desert Globe Mallow, Disodia (a pungentcousin of the marigold), Popcorn Flower, Eriastrum (light blue), Triangle Bursage, Flat-top Buckwheat(pinkish), Gray-thorn Tomatillo (Anderson Wolfberry), Strawberry Hedgehog, Fiddleneck (yellow), ChristmasCholla, Chainlink Cholla, Fishhook Mammalaria (“pincushion” cactus) which needs a nurse plant, Blue Dick (long stem), Fleabane, Schichmus Grass, Cat Claw Acacia and Chuckwalla’s Delight. 
  
  
• Mesquite Bosque Composed almost entirely of Velvet Mesquite with a few creosote bush and grasses.
  
  
• Cottonwood – Ash Riparian Area – on Cave Creek, which originates at Seven Springs Forest Campground. Trees here include the towering Fremont Cottonwood and Arizona Ash with an understory of Desert Hackberry, thistle, Gooding’s Willow, Blue Paloverde, Canyon Bursage (large leaf), Velvet Mesquite, Arizona Walnut, Seep Willow, Desert Broom and cattails in the river bottom. Small shrubs and herbaceous plants include London Rocket (yellow), Purple Three Awn Grass, Penstemon, Red Broom Grass, Wormweed (gray), Ripback Grass and Bermuda Grass, many of which were introduced, i.e., not native.

The valley is composed geologically of mixed old metamorphic rocks, a diorite intrusion which assimilated some of the metamorphic schists and quartzite and all this strewn with boulders of basalt and extrusive ash tuffs and rhyiolites from the nearby mountains. Two abandoned mines of gold and silver lie nearby in the valley. Cave Creek river bottom has rounded off the dacite intrusion of dark hard igneous rock.

Aside from abundant Morning Doves were Northern Cardinal, Curve-billed Thrasher, Abert’s Towhee, House Sparrow, House Finch, Phainopepla, Brown-headed Cowbird, Common Raven, Anna’s Hummingbird, Black-throated Sparrow, White-winged Dove, White-crowned Sparrow, European Starling, Vermilion Flycatcher, Bewick’s Wren, Bell’s Vireo, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, Northern Flicker, Gila Woodpecker, Cactus Wren, Turkey Vulture, Red-tail Hawk, and Bronzed Cowbirds in the horse corral. Also, a caged Emu was seen. Small lizards and garter snakes were seen on this trip but Gila Monsters and rattlesnakes had just been seen earlier in the week.

Participants were: Vera Markham, Eleanor Campbell, Chuck Richard, Dick Fogle, Judith Burke, Ken Larsen, Chuck and Loretta Richards, Dean and Joan Luehrs, Andrea Nesbitt and Fran Baughman.

After thanking Tom Hulen and Steve Jones some of us topped off this very scenic hike with a good meal of Mexican food at El Encanto in Cave Creek. The weather was clear but winds blew up to 35 mph later that afternoon after we arrived back home.