HikeArizona.COM

Reintroduction of longfin dace part of larger effort to renew life along Downtown Tucson stream

https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/local/re ... ruz-river/

@Pivo This is interesting. I was going to make a joke about reintroducing water to the Santa Cruz as a first step, but apparently they did that a couple of years ago. I had no idea of the efforts to restore some of the historic riparian corridor through the city. Apparently it's been a long road, as illustrated by this informative article from 20 years ago (to anybody looking to learn something new today ) https://www.tucsonweekly.com/tucson/a-r ... id=1068331

chumley wrote:I was going to make a joke about reintroducing water to the Santa Cruz as a first step, but apparently they did that a couple of years ago.

I would have made the same joke. I don't remember ever seeing water in the Tucson portions of that river except the day after a big rain, and even then, it was just kind of a shallow brown soup for the trash to float on.

@chumley
They have been reintroducing water over the past few years, it's always a treat to see water in the riverbed on West Congress when driving to hike The Crown Jewel of the Tucson Mountains.
Pic from July 2020 of water in the Santa Cruz from the discharge.
[ photo ]

There's always water over by Ina Road. That project was completed decades ago. They put the retreated water in there. There's quite a riparian area over there. And turtles! Or maybe they've gotten rid of the turtles by now. But the area you're talking about is a newer project. I have not seen that yet.

azbackpackr wrote:There's quite a riparian area over there. And turtles!

Also some pretty rare birds!
[ photoset ]

cactuscat wrote:Also some pretty rare birds!

This quote in that decades-old article I linked to stuck out to me:

"There are more birders than there are golfers," Dahl says. In just the last year birders spent $251 million in Arizona, traveling, eating and sleeping, he says. Arizona has five of the top 10 ranked birding spots in the U.S. and a wet Santa Cruz just might turn into another one

While there may be more birders than golfers, I wonder if the golfers don't actually spend more money during their visits than birders do? Birding is probably a significantly less-impactful "industry", and probably a wise choice to focus tourism development.

@cactuscat
Wow! I wonder if its still there? I'll be in Tucson next week.

@azbackpackr
It stayed for months, but I believe it disappeared after a flood event. Still a good spot to go check out - always plenty of birds there, and this wasn't the only rarity to turn up there.

@chumley
Recent article in the Republic about Birding Hikes.
https://www.azcentral.com/story/travel/ ... 063251001/

@Pivo
Pretty good article - except they misidentified a Wilson's Warbler as a Yellow Warbler in photos 8 and 9.

@cactuscat

cactuscat wrote: they misidentified a Wilson's Warbler as a Yellow Warbler in photos 8 and 9.

Channeling your inner Chumley.

View of the release area this morning from A Mountain.

@Pivo
Little suckers are gonna have their work cut out for them. Are they going to bring their own water to swim in?

@Alston_Neal
You can see the water flow marks in the sand coming from the water discharge site. Unsure how often water is released.

@Pivo
Oh okay, really zoomed in didn't see any water at first.