Day 5 - Fort Huachuca

We spent today exploring nature in two canyons inside Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista.  First. we rode up a bumpy dirt road into Huachuca Canyon.  We heard the Elegant Trogans calling immediately when we got out of the van in the parking area which was under some big sycamore trees.  I think it was our “target bird” for today.  It is rare and only extends in the US in SE Arizona.  It nests in sycamore tree cavities. We saw both the male and the female with their big colorful bodies flashing red and green with a long square tail.  The pair was “house hunting.”  The males arrived a while ago to  claim their territory.  What makes a good territory from a trogan perspective is one with lots of potential nesting cavities.  The females arrived recently and chooses the male if she likes the cavities he shows her.  We actually saw the birds going in and out of cavities, like a prospective couple choosing their first house.  It is a critical part of their courtship and really neat to see.  We heard them calling to each other —singing their love song.  We saw a pair of sulphur-bellied flycatchers chasing each other around, wood peewees (a kind of flycatcher), Bridled titmice, warbling vireos, tanagers and brown crested flycatchers plus much more.  It was a riotous first hour of birding we spent right in the parking area.  As we walked up the rocky road, we had a good show watching a pair of Painted Redstarts, a very pretty black, white and red warbler.  We watched it spreading its tail and fanning the tree bark on which it was gleaning to flush out the insects.  Mark reads the landscape, telling us about the path of the stream over the last 100 years by where the sycamore trees are growing.  When someone brings him a tiny caterpillar found hanging in the air, he identifies it as a Tiger moth caterpillar then explains how it probably felt a bird jiggling the branch it was on and did a bungee jump escape.  After a while it will crawl back up the silken thread.  The stories endlessly fascinate me and it why I like to go on birding trips with Mark Pretti.  

We got our lunches at Subway in the PX and drove back up Garden Canyon, another nearby canyon in Fort Huachuca, where we ate our sandwiches.  After lunch,

we drove further up to the end of the dirt road into a pine-oak forest at about 6300 feet.  It was slim pickings in the heat of the day on our afternoon walk.  We returned to the hotel after getting our sandwiches for tomorrow’s picnic.  Dinner wasn’t noteworthy.  So it’s early to bed, early to rise for this chickadee.