Arizona 6

Our sixth morning in Arizona, I wasn't feeling well. I had woken up in the middle of the night with a mysterious sharp pain my upper left side. I still don't know what caused it, I suspect it by sleeping in a strange position or something, but it made it hard to breathe, so I thought it best to head down the hill first thing to get out of the altitude.

That didn't make a big difference, but pain medication eventually did, and so we were able to have a pretty good time despite all that. Our first stop that morning was South Fork, in Cave Creek Canyon. Among birders, this place is famous as one of the easiest places in the United States to see Elegant Trogons. No such luck for us that morning, but we wandered around and enjoyed the birds we could see, while listening to a couple of out-of-sight Trogons croaking up the hillsides.

Anyway, we eventually despaired of finding anything, so we headed into Portal. This is a little town that's not much of a town, with a store, a post office, and a library, and scattered houses around in the desert scrub. From there we made our way to Stateline Road, driving down along the New Mexico border, and looking for Scaled Quail and Bendire's Thrashers. Highlights of the drive included a Tarantula we saw walk from one state to the other, and a Scaled Quail perched up on a fence post.

Tarantula!

On the way back we stopped in Portal for lunch at the store, which is also a restaurant, and then headed back to South Fork to check out the action. We were strolling about the parking area, trolling for Trogons, when we heard some excited Mexican Jays yapping in the distance. We carefully approached the angry mob, alert for any possibility, but were puzzled because we couldn't see anything. We could tell it was something on the ground, though, and by carefully observing with our binoculars we finally picked out a snake. The jays were harassing it mercilessly, hopping around it, angrily pecking the ground and throwing leaves in the air, while the snake turned from one jay to another, threatening to strike. Our first thought was that it was a rattlesnake, but we were able to figure out later that it was a Gopher Snake. Still, it was a pretty cool experience.

That afternoon we made our way up to Barfoot Park, a meadow in the high Chiricahuas, in hopes of finding a Short-tailed Hawk. This tropical hawk used to be found only in Florida in the U.S., but has recently begun to breed in the mountains of southeastern Arizona, too. We missed the species in Florida, and so had hopes of finding it here. At first we didn't find any, though we enjoyed exploring the park. Overhead Turkey Vultures and Zone-tailed Hawks rode the afternoon thermals, and down below there was luxurious green grass, wildflowers, and more.

Zone-tailed Hawk

As we returned to our car, we picked out a distant raptor riding slowly down some thermals over a peak to our north. We set up our scope as quick as whiskers, and squinted into its eye-piece. Sure enough, it was a Short-tailed Hawk, in all its pale glory. Hurrah! We were able to watch it sink slowly down for several minutes before it passed behind the forest encircling the park, and it was with great satisfaction that we headed back to camp. Along the way we were pleased to see a family of wild turkeys, and also pleased to find a pretty little patch of flowers that was swarming with butterflies.

Libby took this nice picture of a Pacuvius Duskywing nectaring along the flower patch.

So, despite its difficult beginning, it turned out to be a great day, after all!

Pictures on Flickr, of course: Arizona 6.