April 7 and 8 -- A morning birding with a new friend, and a Northern Goshawk encounter...

On Friday April 4 a friend threw a "get-acquainted" party with me in attendance. Peg Abbot is a naturalist and bird guide living in Portal; I'd "met" her on Facebook (yes, good things can happen through contact on FB) and she invited me for dinner at her place where I met local folks who, if I were to live there, would make good "contacts", not to mention friends. The food was great and so was the company, and one person I met was Dodie, a woman originally from Minnesota who has spent time in the Chiricahuas these past few years. She's an excellent birder, knowing the bird calls and spots where to find the "good birds" there, so on Monday the 7th we met for a morning of birding. But before that, in the morning I was greeted near my trailer by a female Ladder-backed Woodpecker warming up in the sun --

  Dodie and I headed up the road to Herb Martyr, just past the Southwestern Research Center, and she spotted Buff-breasted Flycatcher; the Chiricahuas is one of the only places where Buff-breasted is known in nest. Alas, once I got my binoculars on the Buff-breasted, he took off, but I would have my own encounter with that species on another day. It was just a good day to be out and about, and when we stopped by the Southwestern Research Center, I saw a Yellow Warbler taking a bath in the creek --

I'd been in the Chiricahuas for only a few days but I was beginning to notice small details, such as Peg having a headlamp by her front door, and Helen when stopping by my trailer in the mesquite during the night was wearing a headlamp. It seems like EVERYbody does when they're out at night -- so you can spot snakes before stepping on them. And the snakes can be poisonous, especially Western Diamondback and Mojave. None of the "old wives' remedies" really work to counteract a snake bite; your only realistic option is to take a helicopter ride to Tucson, over 100 miles to the west, for treatment. But according to my friend and real estate agent in Portal, Helen Snyder, without insurance it would cost $15,000 just to step on board the helicopter -- and about $25,000 once you're treated and returned to Portal. But she said the insurance to cover such things costs only $100 a year, so a memo to myself: GET THAT INSURANCE! And besides headlamps, I noticed a few cars and trucks with their hoods popped open. When I asked my friend Wynne Brown who lives in Whitetail Canyon, about 20 miles north of Portal, she said it's to prevent pack mice from eating the engine wiring. They prefer the darkness of a closed hood, so as long as you crack the hood open at least a little, it prevents the mice from having a field day on your engine. Sure enough, we popped open the hood of my Tundra, and there in the dust on the engine I saw -- little rodent footprints. They'd been scouting out MY engine...

The next day, Tuesday the 8th, I decided to hike around the Herb Martyr road myself, so I went up to a little-known trail behind some cabins -- and promptly saw the Northern Goshawk (probably the female; raptor females tend to be larger than the males) that my friend Helen Snyder said had a nest near her cabin along Herb Martyr. Goshawks are the birds that started my interest in them; I'd been dive-bombed by Goshawks while backpacking in NE Nevada's Jarbidge Mountains back in 2004, and actually got a photo of a Goshawk coming right at me, screaming all the while. (They've been known to take off people's scalps, dive-bombing to defend their nests.) They tend to prefer isolated and thick forests, but here was one with an active nest just a few hundred yards from a road -- 

Goshawks really are my favorite raptors as they are the ULTIMATE raptor, obsessively pursuing their prey through branches and other obstacles, screaming all the while. And I got the Goshawk at the beginning of the hike -- how could I top THAT? The trail goes past John Hands campground and ends at Herb Martyr campground, along Cave Creek. It was here that I got a life bird for me, Williamson's Sapsucker -- a female -- 

I would see about 6 other female Williamson's during my Chiricahua stay. As I was making my way back down the trail to my truck, I came upon some guys in orange jump suits putting up barbed-wire fencing, being supervised by what looked like law officers. Their jumpsuits had "ADC" boldly printed on them. Turns out that stands for "Arizona Department of Corrections" -- i.e, they were prisoners. But they were very nice, calling me "sir" as I passed by; I even told them to watch for the Goshawk which was in the area. Shortly after that, since this was the right habitat, I turned on my BirdJam  and played the call of the Buff-breasted Flycatcher -- and one came in! Well heck, I just HAD to get as many photos of this rarity as I could -- 

Wow. After getting both Northern Goshawk and Buff-breasted Flycatcher, I was the proverbial Happy Camper...

Up next, a hike to an amazing micro-climate, similar to habitat 3,000 feet above...