Birding Trail

Look who we found on the birding trail! (besides the birds, that is.) 

One of the main things we like to do here at Patagonia Lake State Park (between the towns of Patagonia and Nogales, AZ) is stare into our binoculars and try to identify birds. Amateurs we are. There’s a birding trail on the east end of the park that runs along Sonoita Creek. This time of the year you may see the year-round avian residents, song birds and water fowl, as well as the wintering birds. An Elegant Trogon or two live here too, and get a whole bunch of attention from birders greedy for a sighting.

This year, since our 2-week stay included the 3-day President’s Day weekend, Annie decided to join us. Annie, from Petaluma, CA, who worked as an avian field technician for 8 years, banding and IDing those feathered critters, was able to share some of her finely tuned knowledge of bird details with us.

So birding we did - on the trail and around the campground. There’s a vermilion flycatcher that we see every day flitting about our campsite and a phainopepla that often perches in the day-use area.

Sunday morning we took the pontoon boat Birding Tour around the east end of Patagonia Lake.  Our big reward on that trip was seeing four or five Great Blue Herons perched in a tall cottonwood treetop.

Later that day we drove to Whitewater Draw, a DNR Natural Area where thousands of Sandhill cranes hang out December through March.  Annie had never been there. Michael and I had camped a night there the previous weekend before coming to this campground. By camping there you can get in on the cranes’ early morning very noisy departure for their day’s feeding ground. Then they all come back to the Draw around noon. Big birds in flight.

Great Blue Herons above, Cranes below

    

and the Elegant Trogon