Dora's Way: February 2017

This is a birding hotspot, found at the northern end of the range for some birds, such as the Elegant Trogon, and the Arizona Woodpecker.

On the Florida Trail in the Santa Rita Mountains of southern Arizona

We met a couple of birders who saw the female trogon on the Florida (pronounced Fluh-REE-duh) Trail, just a few minutes after they had been watching her by the stream. Unfortunately, we were not lucky enough to see her ourselves. Another group of people saw the rufous-headed warbler before we arrived, but we did not see that one, either. We did see a couple of ruby-crowned kinglets (Ron saw the ruby crown on one of them); I saw a pine siskin and a gnatcather, and possibly a mockingbird.

View towards Tucson (to the north) from the Santa Rita mountains, Florida trail

After that, we had a picnic at the Madera Picnic area. I saw some titmice in the trees overhead. We saw some other birds across the creek and up the hillside, but couldn't see them well enough to identify. Maybe jays.

Finally, we stopped at the Santa Rita Lodge, and guess what!? That's where the small crowd of people was watching an even larger crowd of birds. Of course - they had feeders out. Following are some of the pictures I was able to get.

Bridled titmouse

Mexican Jays

Lesser Goldfinches

Spotted Redstart

Wild Turkey

Arizona Woodpecker - male

Acorn Woodpeckers

Arizona Woodpecker Female

We also saw a female hepatic tanager, Lincoln's Sparrow, several types of dark-eyed juncoes, pine siskins, and house finches.

It was a beautiful day, with temperatures in the 60s, but feeling much warmer in the Arizona sun. It was lovely to be at a slightly higher elevation than the desert floor for a change in the scenery, too.

---Mari

This scene captures the essence of the setting of "Desert Trails"

Since my last post, so much has happened - many adventures, new friends, exciting developments and fun experiences. One development is that we are staying at an RV Park outside of Tucson called Desert Trails. It was kind of a last-minute emergency when we realized that we were arriving in the middle of the famed Gem & Mineral Show, couldn't stay in a Wal-Mart parking lot, and had to scramble for a place to stay on about a day's notice.

We really lucked out to find this gem, not exactly hidden, but certainly off the beaten path. And it lives up to its name, with some trails leading right out of the park towards Tucson Mountain Park, Gilbert Ray campground, and beyond.

Well, we haven't hiked that far on their trails (yet), but I did take my camera on the trail a couple of days ago, and got some photos to share. This afternoon we went out again, about an hour before the sun set. It had been a cloudy day, with scattered showers. At this point in the day, there were still several showers scattered in the desert - we could see them, even though they were dozens of miles away. I didn't get a photo of the rain as the sun shone on one of the showers to west, but I did write this haiku-like poem:

Sheet of white rain
Shimmers
The setting sun

Here are some photos I took a couple of days ago on my walk on the "Desert Trails". The first group of photos follows the theme "Hole-y Desert". The rest are just things I found interesting during my hike.