Look, up in the sky! It's a bird!

Back in Florida Canyon AZ, early Saturday, St Patrick's Day, John spent an hour staring at some reeds, a bird zipped past and disappeared in them twice. A couple of groups came and went. John kept saying, an hour more, an hour more.  Finally, a man came who had gone to the left where you have to hop the creek to the right to get to the dam, so consequentially arrived pretty late in the morning. John and he were commiserating about the difficult Rufous-Capped Warbler, when the man glanced UP and said 'There it is'. A pair were cavorting around in the tops of the trees, while John and others had been staring down into the reeds. John spent a lot of hours and days on that bird. On the phone, he must have spent 10 minutes describing his frustrating morning to me before he finally got to his success. He's a tease.

He left home Thursday afternoon in a blizzard of taxes and reservations and stayed the night in Blythe. Early Friday, he was by the Colorado River. Again teasing me, he said on the phone, he got poor pictures of the Ash-Throated Flycatcher. Then, he added, he also got great pictures of the Nutting's. I had been bugging him not to rely on the one we saw on the Rio Grande, since it has yet to be verified. So our scouting trip to the Colorado in January, when we failed to see the NUFL, finally paid off. He also revisited thrasher corner, near Buckeye, where we saw zero thrashers in January. As per advertisement, there were three identifiable species plus at least two more he isn't sure of. Then Friday night he heard the pygmy owl and whiskered screech owl in Florida Canyon.

He had called me this afternoon, Saint Patrick's Day, on his way into Patagonia SP to try for the Black-Capped Gnatcatcher once again. He does have a little Orange Irish in him. Does that count? Maybe he had the luck of the Irish today.

There is a lot of heavy slogging over the next three months. He'll need that luck.

Here and gone again

John is up to almost 200 species. Those rarities just aren't showing themselves. Saturday, February 4th, he got to Tubak bridge over the Santa Cruz river in Arizona about 10 AM and the Streak-Backed Oriole had last been seen around 8:30. Then John went on to Patagonia State Park and looked for the Black-Capped Gnatcatcher. And didn't see it. At least he got to spend some fun time at Patton's looking at their hummingbirds.

Camping in our car sounded like a good idea to John. There were bright lights and a full moon at Patagonia State Park so he hung various things in various windows. There were little pockets here and there in the car to stow important little things like chapstick and a flashlight. But if you neglect to store important little things in those little pockets each time you put them down, they are very hard to find. He did finally find the flashlight and had three other back up tubes of chapstick, but they were all in the same place and he couldn't find that place in the dark. You know what it is like in the desert, you don't need chapstick until you realize your lips are dry and then you REALLY need some chapstick. It didn't help that the air mattress deflated in the night.

So Sunday morning, the 5th, John looked again for the gnatcatcher in the park and looked again for the oriole at Tubak bridge, then went on to Bog Springs Campground in Madeira Canyon. After choosing a campsite, John drove over to Florida Canyon to look again for the Rufous-Capped Warbler. We had been there in early January. Again, there was bird activity right at the dam but the rare bird didn't pop out and pose. John went out to Green Valley for supper and was surprised to see an empty parking lot at MacDonald's. He forgot about Super Bowl. At least his campsite had some shade from the moon and his air mattress didn't deflate.

Monday morning, the 6th, he tried yet again for the oriole at Tubak bridge. No luck. The last sighting was the one on Saturday at 8:30 AM. Sigh! The RCWA will probably nest in Florida Canyon so he has a chance of getting it later in the season. The BCGN might be around later too. The oriole may be heading back to Mexico. Doesn't count that we saw it in Costa Rica, wrong year, wrong country for his big year.

John got home Monday night and stayed Tuesday to nap and get the car serviced and Wednesday to repack. He left Thursday morning, the 9th, for a swing around Northern California. I hope he has better results than Arizona. He is still having fun, though I don't think he plans to camp in the car except as a last resort.