Over the years, we have aided a number of research efforts. For 18 years, Alan Craig and I researched the birds of the Diamond A Ranch, a.k.a. the Gray Ranch. We were very fortunate to have lived for a year on the ranch, which lies at a major juncture of several important ecoregions.
Thanks to such diverse habitats, the total number of bird species documented for the Diamond A is just over 300, a remarkable total for any inland area in the United States. Mammals and reptiles are equally diverse. Please note that the Diamond A is privately owned and controls visitation very strictly; visits are generally not possible. Luckily, all of the species on the ranch can be seen elsewhere (mostly in Arizona) with far less difficulty than is the case on the Diamond A, where the terrain is very rugged, and access roads or trails are few.
On another interesting research project, I joined Noel and Helen Snyder, Rose Ann Rowlett and Rich Wagner as we observed a Short-tailed Hawk nest, high in the Chiricahua Mountains. That research (plus research by Aaron Flesch in Mexico) is detailed in a paper in Western Birds (Volume 41, Number 4, 2010): Short-tailed Hawks Nesting in the Sky Islands of the Southwest.
At one point the female Short-tail drove an intruding Apache Fox Squirrel out of the nest tree, as depicted in this drawing:
