On to Karchner Caverns State Park. A hot desert Park, but we’ve got some altitude; about 4,000 feet, so it’s in the low 90s instead of triple digits. It cools off at night. Verizon cellphone and internet works here. It’s birdy. Life is good.
Time-zone issues. We’re still in the same time-zone as yesterday, but Arizona doesn’t recognize daylight savings time, so we fell back another hour. Two hours in two days. Can’t stay up past nine. Slept in as long as we could. Up at 5:45.
Our view:
| 1 | Gambel’s Quail |
| 2 | White-winged Dove |
| 3 | Mourning Dove |
| 4 | Inca Dove |
| 5 | Western Kingbird |
| 6 | Curve-billed Thrasher |
| 7 | Pyrrhuloxia |
| 8 | House Finch |
Not much of a list, but it’s always fun to get quail. We never get tired of quail. Now we’re in Mountain Daylight time.
Still at Fort Davis. Had some internet success. Got the audit software downloaded and configured correctly. I can work again.
Watching for the elusive Montezuma Quail. It really is elusive. We’ve been looking for it every chance we got for the last five years!
Got it this evening. Montezuma Quail. Life bird!
Travel day. We moved north to Fort Davis State Park. Still no cellphone or internet, but we discovered if we drove to the top of the overlook, we could send and receive. Here is my hilltop office.
Still at the Rio Grande campground; a triple digit furnace. Forays out into the Chisos Mountain Basin at 5,000 feet to hike. Cooler there. Only about 85. Today, the Laguna Meadows and Colima Trail for the Colima Warbler. Judy got a giant blister yesterday, so she stayed back with Annie and Eddie while Jeff, Carol and I went.
Another demanding hike. We didn’t mean to do a loop, just an out and back; get the warbler at Laguna Meadows and return. A 3 ½ mile grind to Laguna Meadows. No bird. We continued on to the Colima Trail. How could a person not get a Colima Warbler on a trail named after the bird? No bird. We did hear him three different times but couldn’t get eyeballs on him. By then we were well over halfway around the loop, so no out-and-back hike. We continued on over the Pinnacles Trail. Still no bird. We headed down.
The whole hike was wonderfully scenic. We gave the bird every opportunity, but he just didn’t take advantage of the situation and make an appearance. When we got home, I put him down on our life-list as a “heard only”. We’ll come back again some day and try to get an actual sighting.
