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Published: April 15th 2022
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It was a perfect day weatherwise – warmer than yesterday but still only about 38 when we set out on the hike – it was so sunny and no wind, so I started in my vest and wind-coat, gloves and knitted hat, but I soon stripped down to just the vest (and long sleeves and warm yoga pants and boots of course).
We just repeated the South Fork canyon walk with its 5 stream crossings to get to the “bath tub” deeper pool, and then 2 more after that before turning back. We went further than yesterday but took just about as long – we are birders after all, not hikers!
After the hike we stopped at the Research center to watch the humming birds again, and to check out their souvenirs (not much). We stopped home for lunch and then went back to the Chiricahua Desert Museum. Fascinating emphasis on all things snakes – including a video by a man who sneaks up on snakes and handles them – very closely we thought. His first short video was the “top 10 poisonous snakes in Costa Rica.” Uh oh – that’s our next trip. Attached to this museum was
the Apache Museum – lots of history, timelines, old photos, arrowheads and bows and arrows, etc.
Then we went back to one of the feeding stations – nothing new. And on a whim we drove to the neighboring town of Paradise. This is about 1000’ higher in elevation so it can have different birds. Terrible road but only 15-20 minutes of it. We stopped at the feeders of Winston Samson, whose forebears lived there when it was still a copper mining center.
We still haven’t photographed a roadrunner, and we have seen a beautiful Red-faced Warbler once today on the walk without taking a photo good enough to have the birding App Merlin identify it (and add it to our Life-list), but we can say with great surprise that we have added 54 birds to our life-list even excluding those!!!
We met many interesting people today – a lady from Louisiana who sold her home 6 years ago and has lived in an Airstream ever since. She said it was very boring and lonely for the first few months being alone, until she discovered volunteering at nature centers (just like our friend the other day from Vt
or NH).
AND we discovered how to download a feature from the Birding Merlin App that allows us to tape the sounds of the birds and get a guess – that’s how we discovered the Grace’s Warbler today – the 5 or 6 of us stood around looking for it, knowing what we were looking for (a black and yellow bird high in the pine trees).
Second night of chicken stir fry.
I missed my nap today – and here it is only 8:45 (or 9:45 if I drove 6 miles down the road into New Mexico, as AZ doesn’t change to daylight savings time), and I’m ready for bed.
All this fresh air and hiking (with exultation now that I can do this again without hip pain from the collapsing knee joint – thank you, Lord) makes me tired.
We asked our Hosts, where in the world do you shop? They drive 50 miles into Douglas (south of here, so we won’t pass through it when we leave Sunday towards Carlsbad NM) and make careful lists. We bought 1 stick of butter today for $2 at the Portal Store. But then again, the other
day we bought Sweet Baby Ray’s for $4, which wasn’t much more than expected.
The one disappointment – the moon is so full we can’t appreciate the blackness of the night. Unless we would get up around 4 am – perhaps we shall just imagine what it would be like. We did find out that there is an entire development about 1 mile from here where many houses have mini-observatories, and HOA rules to not have porch lights and street lights on after a certain time. There live many ex-NASA and scientific and astronomer types who’ve written books on the subject, say our hosts.
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