Down The Road To Nogales, AZ

We left Casa Grande and headed on down the road to Nogales, AZ and arrived this evening to watch the sunset from the hot tub.

Our first stop was Picacho Peak State Park which we have stopped at before.

As the park attendant was taking a look at our park pass I could see out the window a little bird sitting on a saguaro cactus.

It was my first cactus wren of the trip.

I have to say to so far there have been very few birds this trip.

Normally there are birds everywhere but we are having to work hard to find any.

So, I was thrilled to see the little wren.

We drove around the park and went for a walk on one of the trails.

I spotted a bird and off I went.

Up the hillside, over rock, round cactus and small prickly bushes following the birds.

For all my efforts I got a very bad photo of a black-throated sparrow and saw a little gray bird but that was the extent of my luck.

I made my way down the hill to find Rob who had continued up the trail and we sat down and played our flutes to the mountain.

Just around the corner was Rooster Cogburn – Ostrich Ranch and Petting Zoo.

It was even better than last time as we knew what to expect.

Rob’s favourite was still feeding the parakeets and mine was feeding the lorikeets.

We were talking to the owner and she was telling us about a lady that comes twice a year.

They finally figured out that she comes to a birding show in the area and raised lorikeets.

Maybe raising is not the right word. She sells them for around $1200 a bird.

The lorikeets are hard to come by as you aren’t allowed to import them into the country anymore.

Anyway, this lady would come with a large bag and hang out in the bird’s cage. She was even known to get into the cage under the wire.

They figure she extracted a number of birds over the years but they’ve gotten wise to her and everyone is on alert when she’s there.

We had a lovely time feeding all the animals and headed to Green Valley.

Someone had told me of a great place to bird called Florida Canyon which was supposedly close by Maderia Canyon.

I say supposedly because even though we followed the directions we ended up heading back to Tucson.

But… the highlight was a pack of javelinas trying to get across a busy highway that had construction going on.

So, back on highway 19 to Nogales and now we started seeing hawks (red-tailed) on the hydro poles.

It’s interesting that you don’t see very many hawks north of Tucson, but in the south, you don’t have to travel very far to see the next one.

I napped, Rob drove and we got our favourite hotel for the night.

Off to Patagonia tomorrow to see about a flute.