Blue Goose ~ Day 198

December 11, 2014 ~ Patagonia Lake Campground, AZ

I woke before dawn, read some more and took a shower at first light. The bathroom was pristine and heated.

Connie and Joe had a plane to catch and packed up right after breakfast. Connie was always looking in the trees with her binocs and spotted a brilliant Vermilion Flycatcher high on a nearby exposed branch, a great start to this chilly, sunny morning.

Vermilion Flycatcher - Patagonia Lake SP - AZ

She told me that one of their daughters lives in the Florida Panhandle and gave me her email address...someone to go birding with once I get there. I would love to have Maggie connect with them somehow, and maybe Livy, Camille and Louise could spend a session at the camp...and Donovan if he wanted. Maggie could work there...spinning this out. They gave me an open invitation to visit... "We have a wonderful chef!" What a life for these two. It was a pleasure to meet them.

I hiked back along Sonoita Creek, and hung around the trogon area for 40 minutes but saw only a few birds and not the ET. Pete Dunne describes it thusly: "The adult male looks like a bird painted by a color-struck four-year-old." He writes of the bird sitting immobile for a long time and then it "suddenly goes berserk, throwing itself against the foliage in a fluttering frenzy of wings and a fanned tail, grabs a large insect (or plucks a fruit) and takes a perch, once again composed." The trogon is large and colorful and elusive, a perfect nemesis bird.

I told the ranger I would be staying a second night and returned to Patagonia, got a few groceries, had coffee, poked through a few of the small galleries and went again to the Paton yard, before returning to the campground to read in the sun mid afternoon.

I was on the bridge early enough to watch the birds as the sun began to set: Great Blue Herons, Coots, a Marsh Wren working through the reeds and the Black-crowned Night-Herons flying in.

Great Blue Heron - Patagonia Lake SP - AZ

A gentleman came up, also to watch. He was from Maine and was traveling with his 92-year-old Dad, visiting historical spots in the Southwest, just back from the Grand Canyon. He was my age and had to soon fly back to Maine, but his Dad was continuing the road trip...his 92-year-old Dad would be driving around in the RV by himself. Yes, he did worry a bit, but what can you do? He had binoculars and a worn bird guide in his pocket. More and more I can speak the language with other birders, or even help some of them....They too had been trogon-seeking today but didn't see it either.

Earlier in the afternoon, when I got back to my campsite, there was a mid-size RV parked very close. A gentleman was trying to get it positioned perfectly, slowly backing up an inch or two, getting out and checking it, moving forward, backing up.... They were German, Reiner and Katherine. I asked him to spell his name before I could understand him. He said, "This is not a good system.." but I had no idea if he meant we were too close to each other or what exactly. They never left the RV as far as I could tell and covered their windshield and I covered my side windows as I could see him sitting by a small high window, reading (or maybe watching TV), very near the van.  I would have liked to talk with them, to hear their traveling tales.

Patagonia Lake State Park - AZ