About Birdland Ranch

Birdland Ranch is a private home and natural preserve secluded in a high valley in the remote mountains of southeastern Arizona. Sierra madrean pine-oak woodlands cover the surrounding fields and foothills of this mountain sanctuary. Birdland rests high on the side of one of southeastern Arizona's "sky islands," hosting a rich biotic community. Biodiversity, abundant monsoonal rains and colorful expansive vistas make it a joyful inspirational setting.

The great naturalist Aldo Leopold wrote, “To my mind these live oak-dotted hills fat with side oats grama, these pine-clad mesas spangled with flowers, these lazy streams burbling along under great sycamore and cottonwoods, come near to being the cream of creation.” The Southwest United States was pivotal in the rise of Aldo Leopold’s global conservation efforts.

The 70,000-square-mile sky island region of southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northwestern Mexico is unique to North America for its rich biodiversity. In this region, mountains and foothills tower above a surrounding ocean of grass, creating habitat for rare and endangered animals like the Mexican gray wolf, jaguar (its northernmost range), thick-billed parrot and elegant trogon. Rising thousands of feet above the encircling desert, sky islands are forested mountain ranges that support changing life zones.

Birdland Ranch is home to diverse populations of hummingbirds, warblers, tanagers, flycatchers, woodpeckers, raptors and more. One hundred twenty-nine species have been identified and the count continues.

Birdland is also home to naturalists Tony Heath and Kate Scott. They live close to and in balance with the natural surroundings and are committed to an environmentally proactive philosophy. Their home has become a preserve fostering native wildlife and conserving land otherwise sure to be converted for human habitation. Through "citizen science" participation they hope to make a contribution to a grassroots wildlife conservation movement.

Through their nest-box project the two have devoted special attention to local flocks of Azure Bluebirds, a subspecies of the Eastern Bluebird rarely found west of the Rocky Mountains. The range of the Eastern, Western and Mountain Bluebirds overlaps in southeastern Arizona.

In 2003, Scott and Heath nominated the Huachuca Mountains as an Important Bird Area (IBA), a program started by BirdLife International with the Audubon Society as partner. The mission of IBA is to identify a global network of sites that provide critical habitat for birds. As of 2004, Birdland Ranch, along with the Huachucas, achieved official IBA status. This season they will be conducting IBA surveys to note species diversity, density, nesting and breeding behaviors of area bird populations. These surveys provide the means for cataloging the most important sites for birds and establishing priorities for conservation.