Agua Fria National Monument Riparian Corridors IBA

Size: 26.31 square miles, 16843 acres
Identified: 01/2004. Recognized: 01/2010
VISITING THE IBA: The Agua Fria National Monument is located 40 miles north of Phoenix, AZ. It is easily accessed by traveling on Interstate 17 to the Badger Springs Exit (Exit #256), Bloody Basin Road Exit (Exit #259) or Cordes Lakes and Dugas exits.

SITE DESCRIPTION: Agua Fria National Monument consists of semi-desert grassland mesas with pockets of chaparral, mesquite and desert riparian communities. A number of wells and watering tanks create local micro-habitats. The IBA is the deeply cut canyons of the Agua Fria River and tributaries that contain mature riparian forests of Fremont cottonwood, Goodding and other willows, Arizona ash and Arizona sycamore. At the lower end of the main canyon above Black Canyon City this habitat is dominated by cottonwoods and merges into sycamore dominated riparian forests at the highest altitudes.

Yellow-billed Cuckoo by Larry Smith

BIRDS: Species of special conservation status and interest that use the habitats within this IBA include:

Breeding: Great Blue Heron, Common Black-Hawk, Zone-tailed Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, Cooper’s Hawk, Golden Eagle, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Black-throated Hummingbird, Bell’s Vireo, Juniper Titmouse, Lucy’s Warbler, Yellow Warbler, Abert’s Towhee, Black-throated Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Summer Tanager, Blue Grosbeak, Lazuli Bunting, Bullock’s Oriole, and Hooded Oriole.

Migration: Swainson’s Hawk, Bald Eagle, Red-naped Sapsucker, Southwestern Willow Flycatcher, Gray Flycatcher, Olive-sided Flycatcher, Cordilleran Flycatcher, Crissal Thrasher, Gray Vireo, Virginia’s Warbler, Black-throated Gray Warbler, MacGillivray’s Warbler, Townsend’s Warbler, Lark Bunting, and Brewer’s Sparrow.

CONSERVATION CONCERNS: Grassland and riparian habitat health requires management of grazing, off highway vehicle travel and fire. Loss of the grasslands impacts the small Pronghorn Antelope population and the grassland bird assemblage (sparrows, meadowlarks, and Gambel’s quail). Immediate concerns are: spread of invasive plants and animals such as tamarisk and crayfish, as well as illegal off-road vehicle use. Upstream groundwater extraction and development strategies: Off-highway vehicle management, seasonal exclusion of livestock from the riparian areas and fire management through prescription fires.

CONSERVATION STEWARDS: Sonoran Audubon Society and Friends of Agua Fria National Monument

Maps of this Important Bird Area:

Agua Fria NM Riparian Cooridors IBA GIS map

Agua Fria NM Riparian Cooridors IBA GIS map – zoomed out

State of the IBAs 2014 Baseline – More Technical info about the status of this Important Bird Area

National Audubon Profile Page for Agua Fria NM Riparian Cooridors IBA

Complete eBird.org Checklist of birds Reported for Agua Fria NM Riparian Cooridors IBA

For an interactive map and habitat and land ownership analysis of this IBA visit the National Audubon IBA Map and select “Arizona” and then the name of this Important Bird Area. To access analysis graphs, click on the map boundary of the IBA.

Location: 34.3152°N:  112.0641°W

County: Yavapai

Site Status: Identified 01/2004, Recognized January 9, 2010

Ownership: U.S. Bureau of Land Management

Size: 26.31 square miles, 16,843 acres

 Criteria: D1: State: Species of Conservation Concern

D3: State: Species in rare/unique habitat: Riparian

D4vii: State: Outstanding landbird stopover

Site Description: The Agua Fria National Monument, east of I-17 from Black Canyon City to above Cordes Junction, is generally a series of plateaus and mesas deeply cut by the Agua Fria River and its major tributaries. The principal bird attractor is the 26.5 miles of riparian corridor along the Agua Fria and within the tributary canyons. Much of this is mature, native riparian woodland with cottonwoods, willows, sycamores and mesquite. Sonoran Audubon Society and Friends of the Agua Fria National Monument are the stewards for this IBA. Sonoran Audubon volunteers are conducting bird surveys in all seasons and are members of the Agua Fria Watershed Partnership and Friends of the Agua Fria National Monument. Information about the Sonoran Audubon Society IBA monitoring program and Together Green Innovation Grant can be found in their e-newsletter at www.sonoranaudubon.org. Audubon has created a partnership with the Arizona Riparian Council, whose members are piloting riparian habitat monitoring techniques suitable for citizen science volunteers in the Agua Fria River watershed.

Target Bird Species: The extensive riparian woodland along the Agua Fria River and its tributaries provides both breeding and wintering habitat for a number of bird species and constitutes a recently discovered migration route paralleling the one along the Verde River. This IBA supports one of the higher densities of nesting Yellow-billed Cuckoos in Arizona. Twenty-eight species with special conservation status occur in the area, including breeding Common Black-Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, Golden Eagle, Yellow-billed Cuckoo, Costa’s Hummingbird, Belted Kingfisher, Gray Flycatcher, Loggerhead Shrike, Bell’s Vireo, Juniper Titmouse, Abert’s Towhee, Lucy’s Warbler, and Yellow Warbler.

Belted Kingfisher by Frank Lospalluto

Sonoran Audubon Society seasonal volunteer bird counts throughout the entire monument include riparian and uplands.

Conservation Issues: Grassland and riparian habitat health requires management of grazing, off highway vehicle travel and the fire regime. Fire management through prescription fires has been successfully implemented by the BLM. Loss of grasslands would also impact the small Pronghorn Antelope population, as well as grassland birds including sparrows, meadowlarks and quail. Native fishes, including longfin dace, the Gila mountain sucker, the Gila chub, and the speckled dace, exist in the Agua Fria River and its tributaries. Upstream groundwater extraction is a potential serious threat as development proceeds along the I-17 corridor.