A NEW DECADE!

New Year's Eve morning Bob and I went to Tumacocari (near Tubac) birdwatching. Bob had been there the day before and he had seen four life birds, so he wanted to take me to hopefully see them too. There were other people there trying to see the same birds. I did get to see three of the four.

The life birds we saw were a Rufous-backed Robin; a Rose-throated Becard; Sage Thrasher; and Bob saw the Crissal Thrasher the day before.

The picture below is one I took of a Western Bluebird. There were dozens of these all around. They are so pretty and different from the Mountain Bluebirds we see in Idaho.

That evening we went to Scott and Yvonne's to ring in the new year along with Shirlie and Cliff, and Marg and Norm. We had a great time with good friends and good food, and we were home and sound asleep by 9:30 p.m.! On Friday, we went to Madera Canyon on our second annual New Year's day birding hike. We were just heading off to bird when we heard someone call our names, and it turned out to be the same two ladies from Canada that we had met on the Christmas bird count. So they birded with us for a while before moving on to see other places. It was much colder this year. Last year we were in short sleeves and Bob was in shorts. I took this picture of a Robin just because I thought he was such a pretty boy!

And this pretty Mexican Jay.

On Sunday, January 3, Bob wanted to go to the Avra Valley to see the Crested Caracaras that had been spotted there. As we were driving by Sweetwater in Tucson, he decided to stop and see if we could spot the Leucistic (white) Vermilion Flycatcher that had been seen there. We were just going to go to the Hidden Pond but it was such a nice day and the birds were abundant we ended up walking around the whole area. As we were making our way back to the entrance a number of people were watching a Vermilion Flycatcher (picture below).

As we stood there watching the Vermilion Flycatcher, I turned and said, "Is this the bird we're looking for?" Sure enough it was the Leucistic Vermilion Flycatcher. We watched it for a while and it was still there when we left giving everyone a good look.

We decided to forget looking for the Caracaras as it was already noon so we just came home, but we had a great day seeing 48 species in all! It's the best day birding we've had in a long time.