Ramsey Canyon has been famous among birders and other nature enthusiasts for over a century. Though best known for its diversity of hummingbirds in season, the canyon offers much more to discriminating naturalists. Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher, Black-headed Grosbeak, Black-throated Gray Warbler, and Painted Redstart are common summer residents, while Arizona Woodpecker, Bridled Titmouse, and Spotted Towhee are present year-round. The canyon has had its share of rarities as well, including Flame-colored Tanager, Tufted Flycatcher, Aztec Thrush, and Eared Quetzal. Sightings of Coues’s White-tailed Deer, White-nosed Coati, and Arizona Mountain Kingsnake are common, but truly lucky visitors may catch a glimpse of a Mountain Lion crossing the trail or a Black-tailed Rattlesnake basking on a tree trunk. The upper part of the canyon is within the Miller Peak Wilderness Area of the Coronado National Forest; trails here connect to trails in Brown Canyon and upper Carr Canyon.

Ramsey Canyon, located in the Huachuca Mountains within the Upper San Pedro River Basin in southeastern Arizona, is renowned for its outstanding scenic beauty and the diversity of its plant and animal life. This diversity is the result of the interplay of geology, biogeography, topography, and climate.

Southeastern Arizona is an ecological crossroads, where the Sierra Madre of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, and the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts all come together. The abrupt rise of mountains like the Huachucas from the surrounding arid grasslands creates “sky islands” that harbor tremendous habitat diversity and form stepping stones to the tropics. This combination of factors gives Ramsey Canyon Preserve its notable variety of plant and animal life, including such southwestern specialties as Apache and Chihuahua pines, ridge-nosed rattlesnake, lesser long-nosed bat, elegant trogon, and berylline and violet-crowned hummingbirds.