Few quantitative data are available on avian densities and species composition for mixed-coniferous forest habitats in southwestern United States. Species accounts have been presented by Hubbard (1965), who studied various habitats in the Mogollon Mountains, New Mexico, and Tatschl (1967), who investigated species composition in a mixed-conifer forest in the Sandia Mountains, New Mexico. Other workers have examined avian densities and species composition in a spruce-fir, aspen community in the White Mountains, Arizona (Carothers, Balda and Haldeman 1973); in a fir, pine, aspen forest in the San Francisco Mountain area, Arizona (Haldeman, Balda and Carothers 1973) and in a mixed-conifer forest in the Sierra Nevada (Bock and Lynch 1970).
The Thomas Creek watershed in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona contains a plant species community which is different from any of the preceding studies both in plant species composition and in plant densities.
The purpose of this study was to determine avian species composition and breeding densities in the Thomas Creek watershed. These data previously were not available for a plant community comparable to Thomas Creek.