Just another warm and sunny day.
It was actually cool in the early morning when we started our walk. We went down from the Bog Springs campground, birded the Madera Picnic Area and then walked up to the Santa Rita Lodge and the Amphitheater section of the nature trail. In all, we walked through two counties, something we didn't know until later, but that's another paragraph.
There were only a few birds on the way up from the picnic area to the lodge, including more male Wild Turkeys showing off. We wondered why they were so intent on displaying as we saw no female turkeys. The race of turkeys out here don't seem as colorful as those in New England. While they still have blue heads when puffed up, their feathers are much more monochromatic that the eastern birds.
The feeders at the Santa Rita Lodge were not as crowded as when we were last here, but that was in the winter season (Winter being relative), but we did get three species of hummingbirds, Hepatic Tanagers and Black-headed Grosbeaks.
The highlight was when we got up to the Amphitheater parking lot. We could hear the unmistakable call of the Elegant Trogon. We stepped out onto the bridge leading to the nature trail and there he was, sitting out in the open, on a wire. We had even better looks than yesterday as the bird was almost even with us. It soon headed down the canyon and so did we.
As we went back to the parking lot, my phone connected (a signal!) and there was a message from Craig and Evelyn, volunteer friends who we met when we were both volunteering and staying in Buenos Aires NWR. They have since moved to Green Valley, right below Madera canyon. They wanted to come visit us in the cooler heights of the canyon. We agreed to meet at our site and then quickly headed back to Speedy via the steepish climb of the Bog Springs Trail.
Craig, Evelyn and their dog, Paco, showed up soon after and we spent a couple of hours catching up on their move and happenings at the refuge. Hopefully, we will see them again during our stay at Buenos Aires.
After they left we decided to switch sites to one which was somewhat shady and had a better breeze and view. It was not as flat. Even using all of our leveling boards, we were still not quite level. This is the second time we have had to level Speedy and haven't been able to get it level. We may need to augment our leveling kit before the next trip. We can now go up 4.5 inches (three stacked 2 x 10 boards) and made need at least one more level. Where to fit them is the question.
We have been keeping list of things we forgot (or didn't think we'd want) and things that need to be fixed or improved. It is 45 items long at this point. There is much to do in June, both on the house and Speedy.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing in our site and emptying the refrigerator. It does not cool on propane and it has gone up to 60° inside during the 90°+ days when we don't have electricity. Anything that could be considered remotely spoilable had to be thrown out. Fortunately, the cooling system seems to prioritize the freezer and that part of the refrigerator hasn't gone above 15°.
We also had a slightly better cell signal at our new site and we were able to post today's list to eBird. We got a relatively prompt reply from the local reviewer that we needed to split the list since the Madera Picnic Area was in Pima County and the Santa Rita Lodge and above were in Santa Cruz County. With a bit of pique, I split off the birds I thought we saw between the campground and the picnic area, but there were a couple that we saw on the road and it doesn't have a county line painted on it. They are a bit picky here. Madera Canyon, a very highly birded area, has 18 eBird Hotspots within two miles. There are, however, about 30 miles of trails within the canyon.
Tomorrow the plan is to do a bit of morning birding in the canyon before moving south to the Tubac area.
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