Picture Canyon Nature and Cultural Preserve

Recent bird sightings and photos: Rio de Flag--Picture Canyon hotspot, Illustrated checklist  Printable checklist: Picture Canyon checklist May 2 2022.pdf

Picture Canyon is a cultural and archaeological jewel which serves as a critical riparian corridor. This section of the Rio de Flag, fed by the City's Wildcat Hill Wastewater Treatment Plant, creates a wetlands at the North end where Marsh Wrens can easily be heard chattering away in the summer. It's a featured location for the Arizona Watchable Wildlife Experience as sponsored by Arizona Fish & Game Dept. Click here to view their description: Watchable wildlife video

Thanks to the life-sustaining Rio de Flag a great diversity of plants and invertebrates has attracted more than 219 bird species to date and given Picture Canyon a 6th place ranking as an eBird hotspot in giant Coconino County.  Among these many birds, around 65 draw sustenance from the canyon during migration, around 30 species inhabit it year-round, another 35 or so come only during summer and around 25 species are here only during winter. At least 22 species breed here.

Just east of Flagstaff, the Rio de Flag runs through an extraordinary geological feature that has fostered life for millions of years in an otherwise semi-arid, challenging environment. Picture Canyon is named for the hundreds of pictographs and other archaeological remains that attest to at least a thousand years of Picture Canyon occupation by the Northern Sinagua prior to European settlement. Picture Canyon is listed on the National Record of Historic Places.  About Picture Canyon

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