October 1 -- A "Birdy" Morning, And A Reception For A Painting Of Geronimo

The sunrise was the standard one here, nothing too memorable (besides that fact that it was a sunrise HERE), so I headed out early to re-find the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher at Willow Tank, about 10 miles to the southeast in the San Simon Valley. The photos I'd taken the day before of the STFC were, though good, distant looks, and I figured I could do better -- just as long as it was still there. I drove down Stateline Road, which runs along the border of Arizona and New Mexico, and turned on to Sulphur Draw Road (both roads are dirt). At Willow Tank there were Western Kingbirds, White-crowned Sparrows -- even a few ducks flew in as there is a bit of water to make a pond -- but no immediate sign of the STFC. I went to the west side, where we had seen it the day before, and waited.  I saw a flight motion off to my right, and it turned out to be a juvenile Cooper's Hawk --

This was the only frame out of about 6 in-flight shots that turned out, but all it takes is one...It then landed on a post and surveyed the landscape --

The light at this point was "to die for" -- early morning. After about a half-hour of waiting, someone else with a camera and binoculars came by, and he said he'd seen the Scissor-tailed on the east side, flying with a small flock of Kingbirds. While he kept watch on the west side, I walked to the east, didn't see anything, then saw a bird with a LOOONG tail fly out on the north side; it of course with the STFC. I motioned to the other watcher that I'd seen it, and we watched as it flew along the ground, looking possibly for grasshoppers. Then if flew off to the west. Any shots we got were distant, but enough to prove that it was still there. While waiting for the bird to re-appear, I found out that my fellow observer was Mel Moe, a retiree who worked for various wildlife agencies, and that he lived down the road just on the AZ side of the border. About a half-hour went by, and Susan and Burt came by, Susan helping to hold the musical events here (next week will be Portal Irish Week, with a group performing Irish music). We talked, and waited -- but no sight of the Scissor-tailed. We all went to our trucks (pretty much the main vehicle of use here) and I continued west on the road, thinking that since it had disappeared to the west...It was there, right on the fence alongside the road. waved back to Burt and Susan and took photos of it perched on the fence --

Though the perch wasn't the preferred natural one, I was smiling to myself, thinking these were the shots I was looking to get ---

SUCH  a beautiful bird...Burt and Susan saw it, too -- a first sighting of  STFC for them. After going to a tree for a spell, it then worked its way east, perching on agave stalks then flying to the next one, so I set the Canon 7D MKII for flight shots -- and once again got a good one that made all the out-of-focuse ones worthwhile -- 

Now you know why it's called SCISSOR-TAILED Flycatcher... :o) After saying goodbye to Susan and Burt, I went back on Stateline Road, and saw a juvenile Red-tail perched with the Chiricahuas in the background -- 

Wonderful. And it was still just a little after 9am...But it was warm outside, not conducive to doing outdoor work, so I took a needed nap, had lunch, and checked on Desert Willow to see how it was faring with the grasshoppers. And the buggers were still munching away on it...Later, my friend John and his wife Carol came to pick me up for a reception at the Chiricahua Desert Museum; John is an expert on gardening, particularly desert flora, and he said that in regards to the grasshoppers, all I could do was wait until the weather cooled down and they disappear -- and continue knocking them off -- and that the willow was heat-stressed and badly in need for more water. Well, the only way that I am going to get a green thumb is if it turned gangrenous, so though it had looked dry to me I wasn't sure. Now I'm going to make the Desert Willow's water well bigger, construct a little moat around the edge so the water won't leak out -- and soak the hell out of it with water. Then we went down to the reception at the Desert Museum. It was being held for Tell Hicks, an artist from England who did work for the museum, and he was to unveil a portrait of Geronimo that was to take pride of place in a new events center that was being built nearby. He went into detail about how he decided on Geronimo's clothes, rifle, setting -- and his face. He based all of his work on contemporary photographs, and the setting was in the Cochise Stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains, about 50 miles to the west. It was a magnificent portrait of the Chiricahua Apache warrior, who fought against the US (and Mexico) until he surrendered in the late 1870s. I ordered a signed lithograph of the painting; it will go well with the signed Rex Allen movie poster, and a copy of a Paul Grimm painting  of a mountain set in a desert landscape (probably Mt San Jacinto overlooking Palm Springs, as that particular mountain was his inspiration). After the reception we all trooped over to the Rodeo Tavern and had "Mike's Sandwich", a specialty item not on the menu, for dinner, and headed home after good food and conversation. Though I may be sounding like a broken record, it was another day here on the east side of the Chiricahuas that was as fun and fulfilling as pretty much all the other days spent here and at Faranuf have been...