We Move Campsites......Twice

As you may recall, the first day we arrived here in Cave Creek, Sunny Flat Campground, we found all the sites were full of campers and had been for past 3+ weeks. Only 13 sites available and this place is getting more and more popular. Patience paid off and the next day we managed to snag a location (#6)on the south side in the forest. This spot would be great in the hot weather as it is very shaded. However, we spent 4 nights there and it was cold much of the time. We were able to capture the suns rays part of the day with solar panels but didn't get much solar heating in the RV.

Two days ago we managed to move to #11 on the north end which has been in full sun. It took a couple days for Charli to warm up.

We used our new tiny propane space heater to warm us up in the mornings instead of running the power hog furnace.

The views are stunning from here. Looking out out front window we see the spires rising up from the forest floor. Sort of Yosemite meets Painted Desert.

It's quiet here except for the woodpeckers and the jays always making racket. And the broad tailed hummingbird zooms by, his tail making a zzzzzzzzzz past our heads. No crickets though.

We set up our bird feeders with hummer joy juice, seeds, and oranges.

We get a few customers during the day as we sit outside watching the Blue Throats and Magnificents battle it out for supremacy while a broad tail slips in un-noticed, sips and scrams out fast.
Now, on day 7 (6 nights have gone by), we finally are able to snag our favorite spot, #7. Woo Hoo. We are in the sun and we have the best spot for photographing the birds. Our friends, Cal & Irene have been in this spot for 10 days and have all the birds well trained so we should fit in real nicely.

Our new campsite #7

The Birdseye view

I have pix to post of bummers in a couple days

Posted with Blogsy

Hummingbird Banding

Can you imagine that those little tykes actually carry around a band on their legs?  There is a scientist in Patagonia, Arizona who founded a Hummingbird monitoring network all over the west coast.  On certain days during the year each of these locations along with "citizen scientists" spend 5 hours capturing, inspecting, weighing, measuring, putting an ID band and releasing hummingbirds!  The data is fed back to central location.  The days and times are the same for each location.

Magnificent Hummingbird

Beginning at sunrise the first Sunday in April and continuing  every other Sunday through September, one of these locations in Paradise, Arizona at the George Walker House does this.  We were here last year the first Sunday in April and happened to be here again this year on the first Sunday.  Because we had to wait to move our RV to a new location (see tomorrow for this story), we were late to the party today.  I got a photo of a Juniper Titmouse and a Bullocks Oriole, and did manage to snag some good photos of the process of a Magnificent Hummingbird. Turns out this bird had been captured before so did not need a new band. The process is similar.  Read the captions on each photo for descriptions and click on photo to enlarge.  Quite interesting.

NOTE:  No birds or humans were harmed in this process.

The trap used to capture the hummer.  When the hummer
enters the feeding area, a line is pulled

Reaching in gently to wrap hand carefully around the bird

In the grasp.  Same guy does all of them

Brings out the bird and carefully places in bag

"Bagged" another one!

Tools of the trade.  Note the numbered bands on the left.

Removing the hummer safely from the bag.

Inspecting an recording the band number

inspecting another bird who has gone docile and relaxed

Weighing the bird which was 3.6 grams!

Getting ready to feed the bird prior to release

Feeding the bird so it has energy to fly away and wakes back up

Placing the bird in another palm for release

This guy is ready to fly!!

And he is gone!

It was a slow day. All in all, they banded about 25 birds in a 5 hour stretch.  We had fun, ate stuff talked and photographed other birds!

For more information check out the hummingbird monitoring information here.

Bird Shots and more....

A recent acquaintance of ours told us her husband (the birder) and she (the photographer) are referred to as "Point and Shoot".  I thought that was pretty clever.  One time, at Bosque del Apache, Sraddha and I were photographing the cranes & talking with a bystander and I said "She spots them, I shoot them".  Another bystander, who overheard us, appeared to be mortified until they realized I meant shoot them with the camera.  Here are some photos I shot the past two days for your visual enjoyment.

Female Rufous Hummingbird

Anyway, I biked down to Portal Cafe in the wind to send you this blog.  Not much to say.  We felt lucky to find a spot 3 days ago as the campground is full, full, full.  Mostly returning happy campers who love this place and tend to stay for a while (limit 14 days).  Yesterday we thought our favorite spot would become available.

Maginficent Hummingbird

As we were preparing to move, we heard the current inhabitants had renewed for 4 more days.  They are 2 of our favorite people but I have to say I was a little disappointed.  Sraddha asked me whether I was and I shrugged it off thinking, "Oh well, maybe later in week".  Well that was a big hiccup! It wasn't until later, I realized how attached I was to that getting that spot.  The resultant internal kerfuffle resulted in my dropping my big camera on my new little camera and damaging it.  Yikes.  Now I have to send the 3 week old camera into repair shop and will be without it for several weeks.  Sigh.  Harsh lesson sometimes but I hope I am learning which is what life is all about.  Back to living in the moment, or at least focusing on it.

Black Chinned Hummingbird

We are meandering here in the Southwest, deciding each day whether we remain camped in our current site or move on.  We have a basic idea of the direction (SE New Mexico to Carlsbad) but won't take a straight line.  We don't know when we will depart here (sometime within the 14 day limit) and we think we will head next to Silver City less than 100 miles away.  In the meantime, we will enjoy where we are and if, tomorrow, we decide to move on, we will.  If we decide to remain, we will.  And work around the rest.  We will "develop a plan to fit the circumstances" as General Patton would say.

This last shot is of a Swainson's Hawk.  First one we have ever seen.  Flying high in the sky on the winds I was lucky to get this as it was far away so I had to crop it severely.  Beautiful bird but not a great shot.

Swainson't Hawk High up in air

Chiracahua Moments

Getting in some bird photography. We remain in same campsite which is in shade so it is a little cool, not conducive to photos. Hope to get some hummer shots tomorrow. Here are a few shots from today and yesterday.  This morning it was 33 degrees when we arose.  After first cuppa, I went outside and shot this time  lapse of the morning sun and clouds.  (99 shots at 1 second each).

Morning Clouds	Acorn Woodpecker out back of our camp
Morning Coffee	Breakfast of Champions

Some more photos. Saw this partial 737 body on side of road in Rodeo.  Apparently it is too high to travel freeways so has to take backroads.  Just crossed over border into New Mexico and waiting for Overload escort east to Texas.

737 to No Where

loggerhead Shrike

Sunset over Chiracahua's

High country hike - Greenhouse Trail

the other day we decided to hike to higher elevations.  Our Sunny Flat campground in Cave Creek Canyon is 5180 ft.  we drove up this jeep trail west of campground about 4 miles to 6500 ft.  We wanted to see Winn Falls which drops 400 ft.   Here are some iPhone shots.
Thought we could reach base of falls on this GreenHouse trail.

Started out quite pleasant through forest glens into the Chiricahua Wilderness.
Across streams


And up, up, up, more up!  Turns out a whole bunch of switchbacks through the 2011 burn.  However we finally made it to the crest and saw this view which was worth the hike.

We sat in the shade eating out nuts and fruits.  I drank from my "sippee cup"

We finally saw the falls.  Turns out we saw it from above not at the base.  Still beautiful.  Falls 400 feet!


- blessings from the road

Back to the Chiracahua's

We enjoyed our three nights in Silver City, NM.  We stocked up on good grub from the local Coop, and stuffed ourselves with good food at the Curious Cumquat, and Sheveka's along with spicy New Mexican chile Rellenos at Jalisco.  Now back to the Chiricahua mountains and Portal, AZ, a birding mecca. (Surprise surprise).
Driving down the 100 miles from Silver City we recalled how we have driven across I-10 several times and looked south at these mountains.  From a distance they look like many of the other mountains around the area.


As we moved closer we begin to see the definition and the cliffs of Cave Creek Canyon.


Driving up Cave Creek Canyon we begin to see just how beautiful this area is.

And of course, we put out the hummingbird feeder.  Already seen 6 different species and migration has hardly begun.  We are early for the April-May migration.

We make up for it in the Sunny Flat Campground, arguably one of the most scenic forest service campgrounds anywhere in USA.  These photos are from my iPhone and seem a bit washed out compared to the actual visual.


We are surrounded 360 degrees with magnificent cliffs and mountains.  And, while no Stellars or Scrub Jays, we have plenty of Mexican Jays, Juncos and Orioles keeping the Hummers company.  more about Hummers later.


- blessings from the road

White Lined Sphinx Moth

Up at Massai point in Chiricahua National Monument , there is a short half mile interpretive nature trail where you can learn all kinds of things about the flora and fauna of region. As we hiked the trail, we noticed some flowering Pointleaf Manzanita bushes and spotted, what we thought was a hummingbird.  So we trained our binoculars and my camera on it and....

No.  It was a White Lined Sphinx Moth.  It is sipping through its probiscus.  I had my portable hummingbird camera kit set up with the 70-200mm and 2X extender on the 5D3 camera body.  Shooting at 1/2000 exposure f5.6 so the wing is a little blurry.

Click on any of these to see a larger version