2008 April 13, from French Joe Canyon, Arizona (SE of Tucson)

Hello, Everybody,
                          
Two new slideshows cover the past month, between Monterey Bay
in California and the Tucson area in Arizona. I've had mostly great
weather, sunny around 70 degrees, and lots of wildflowers. A couple
of special thrills: while camped in the southern foothills of the Sierra
Nevada, a bobcat wandered by just a few yards from my camper,
the first I've ever seen. I was returning from a hike and was just able
to snap a poor picture before it disappeared into the brush. And in
the mountains NW of Phoenix, I was able to watch and photograph
a pair of Cactus Wrens next-building in a nearby Saguaro, and
foraging deep inside an incredibly thorny Cholla. Inside the camper I
propped upside-down on top of my Brita water pitcher the shaped
beanbag I usually use over the front window edge in my truck,
which gave me a nice steady mobile platform. I came across some
dramatic looking Arizona Blister Beetles, which I had never seen
before, and got to see a Red-winged Blackbird male charged with
testosterone puffing up his shoulder patches and shrouding his wings.

South of Tucson I birded a couple of days at Buenos Aires NWR, and
then  3 days at Madera Canyon which is  one of the most famous
birding spots in SE Arizona, and which I have previously avoided just
for that reason. But at least during the week, I found it not crowded,
with just enough other birders to be helpful and pleasant, and since I
got 4 new birds for my 'life list' I was happy I'd come. One, the really
beautifully colored 'Flame-colored Tanager' is a Mexican bird very
rare in the US, and fortunately one has been reliably coming to a
feeder at a lodge in Madera Canyon for several years - - since there
are perhaps only 1 or 2 or 3 known to be in the US at any one time, I
felt lucky to see it. He visits the feeders for a few moments and then
vanishes for an hour or two, so there isn't much time for a good
posed picture.

Next week I'm joining my friends Linda and Will Piper from Colorado,
for a week of birding and camping in the Chiricahua Mountains in
extreme SE Arizona - - they are my birding mentors, and I'm hoping
for more new birds and good pictures with them.

The server address is:

http://www.meetmarsha.com/john 

The new slideshows are:  

08 03 March CA AZ.exe
08 04 early April AZ.exe

Each browser is a little different, but generally you can either choose
OPEN to view the show once, or choose SAVE TO DISK and then
OPEN if you want to have it your hard drive for future re-viewing. I
have used Zone Alarm to be sure the .exe files are virus free, so you
can safely ignore Windows's warning about 'dangerous <.exe> files'. 

Right-Arrow or Right-Click or SpaceBar will advance to the next
picture.
Left-Arrow or Left-Click will return to the previous picture.
Esc will end the show at any time; use Esc if the show ever seems
stuck.

If you don't have a high-speed Internet connection it's not realistic
to download these large files on a phone line   please let me know,
as it is very easy for me to send them to you on a CD. And if you
would like any of the individual images, perhaps to print, just let me
know. I have limited space on the server, so must periodically
remove older slideshows to put up new ones; let me know if you
want me to send you a CD of any of the 'back issues', or of all of
them from 2004-2008 along with their accompanying emails, on CDs.
And if you don't want to get any more emails like this one in the
future, just let me know. If you have friends who might be interested,
I'll be happy to add them to my email list and they can download
the slideshows. None of this is commercial or copyrighted, the more
who enjoy the pictures, the better.   

Regards, John Armitage
1-970-250-9809