From Magee Marsh, Ohio                                  2015 May 14

Hello Everybody,

I've been busy the past 8 weeks, first birding intensively in Arizona as
the spring migration season started, then a busy week birding with EV at
some of the places I'd found earlier, a few days at Big Bend NP in
Texas, and then finally twelve days driving to Ohio, all on the smallest
two-lane no-traffic roads my GPS could find.

Two of the best known 'target birds' for SE Arizona are the Elegant
Trogon and the Five-striped Sparrow, both which come just barely into
Arizona from Mexico. The accounts which I'd read of people seeking the
Five-striped Sparrow had put me off trying for it, as they mentioned
miles of hiking in isolated steep rugged mountain country; however, a
report on the email rare-bird-alert list sounded not so bad and probably
feasible even for me, and it referenced exactly where the bird had been
seen in California Gulch just a couple of miles north of the Mexican
border west of Nogales. This is in beautiful mountain country, on rough
little dirt roads ideal for my 4X4 camper truck, and although the
driving is rugged, the hiking not so. I found the directions given in
the guidebooks and online blogs quite confusing, but I finally sorted it
all out and managed to see the bird, and decided to try to clarify
things for other birders by writing a description with an annotated map
and GPS coordinates of key locations. I was very gratified to have 3
people email me with thanks, saying they had long wanted to try for the
bird but had not felt they had adequate information to risk it -- and
one of them later wrote to report success. Hurrah for the internet!

I next spent several days farther east in the Sierra Vista area, driving
to the top of Carr Canyon: the last five switchbacks are so tight my
long-wheelbase truck can't make the turns without backing up halfway
through the turn to put the rear wheels right at the edge of the
drop-off, quite exciting. Near the Forest Service campground at the top
another Mexican bird was being reported, the Buff-breasted Flycatcher,
another addition to my 'life list' of species seen.

I'd heard someone mentioning tent caterpillars dropping off the trees at
San Pedro House, a well known birding area on the San Pedro River, and I
saw what they meant when I went walking along the river looking for
birds -- several times I had to pick caterpillars off my bare arms as
they dropped from the trees overhead, there were many scattered along
the path, and in one place a huge mass of them on a dead log.

When EV flew in from Oregon and we walked back to the truck in the
Tucson airport parking lot, we were amazed to see a couple of 20-30 foot
Parry's Agave in full bloom: although SE Arizona has tens of thousands
of the beautiful dried seed stalks of these plants, in a dozen years
I've only ever seen one other blooming. We had a great time going back
to California Gulch where EV got to see the Five-striped Sparrow
(probably the same one I saw a few weeks earlier), and then to Sycamore
Canyon just to the east, where I had never been before. This turned out
to be a prize, with great hiking in a beautiful canyon and with several
Elegant Trogons to be seen. One flew by us about 20 feet away out in the
open and just above head height, giving us an amazing view, and then he
perched for photographs as he worked his way back up he canyon.

After a repeat visit to Carr Canyon, we hiked up Miller Canyon to see a
Spotted Owl perched at a location which had been described to us. This
species is threatened in the NW US and Canada, so we felt fortunate to
be able to see this Mexican subspecies. We continued much farther up the
trail to find the nest of a Goshawk which had been described to us, and
although we found the nest, no birds were there to be seen. We next
spent a couple of nights camped in French Joe Canyon, which had been
EV's introduction to Arizona birding 8 years ago, and the 4 mile dirt
road in seemed even more rutted, ditched, and rocky than we remembered,
but we enjoyed our remote campsite and good hiking in birdy country.

EV wanted to spend some time in the areas of thick Saguaro cactus
density before returning to Oregon, so we stopped at Gates Pass in
Tucson Mountain Park west of the city. We were delighted to find that a
few Saguaro were blooming, which neither of had seen before; EV found
online that they bloom at night and the day following, then that flower
site is finished. We were also intrigued to see several swarms of bees,
both flying and clustered in great masses. And the Palo Verde trees and
bushes were covered in pale yellow blossoms, enhancing the scenery even
more.

After dropping EV at the airport, I headed for Big Bend NP to try to see
the Colima Warbler at its only location in the US. EV had seen it around
7 years ago on an 'ultimate solo hike' from the Chisos Mountain
campground, something like 8 miles round trip with a 2,000 foot
elevation gain, and the temperature around 98º, but I had not tried that
one. Subsequently I'd read that the bird could reliably be seen more
easily in Pine Canyon at the edge of the Chisos Mountains, with half the
milage and elevation gain, and the day I tried for it was windy and in
the 50ºs. But although it was a fine hike, I had no luck with the Colima
Warbler. However, Brittlebush was in brilliant yellow bloom everywhere,
and it was great to visit again that beautiful country.

Heading north in the Texas panhandle, I received a good send-off when I
spotted a large Diamondback Rattlesnake as I was leaving Caprock Canyons
State Park campground. It had a large lump in its middle, apparently
from a recent large meal.

Remember, these large files may take several minutes to download; while
waiting to get a really fast uplink in Santa Cruz, Joey has migrated me
to the commercial host ICDSoft, which will greatly speed things up for
those of you who have a fast download connection. There has been a
myriad of opportunities for typographic errors in putting up all the
older slideshows; please let me know if you run into any problems.

The new server address is:     http://john-armitage.com

The new slideshow (at the top of the list) is: 15_04_Apr_AZ_TX.exe and
the equivalent in .zip format for Mac users. This email is also repeated
there in .txt format.

Boilerplate follows: If you can easily change your screen brightness,
you might optimize it for the best viewing.

NEW: For Mac users there is a .zip file to download, and here is how to
use it (please let me know if you have any problems):

go to    http://john.qued.com/   and click on the blue line for a list
of slideshows

click on a zip file for a slideshow

after downloading, open the zip file

open the extracted folder which will be in the same folder and have the
same name as the zip file (likely in Downloads)

select all of the jpg files, using Cmd+A (select with this method only,
to keep them in order)

use the space-bar for a Quick View slideshow

click the tiny circle with the backslash through it near the upper left
corner for full screen (in Yosemite)

don't click the menu bar, it will disappear

use the right and left arrow keys to navigate

use Escape to exit full screen

optional: delete the zip and/or extracted folder

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.

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 would like any of the individual images, perhaps to print, just
let me know. If you don't want to get any more emails like this one in
the future, please 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 if they have a broadband internet connection.
None of this is commercial or copyrighted, the more who enjoy the
pictures, the better.

Regards, John Armitage 1-970-250-6080 john@qued.com