I hadn't seen an elegant trogon in almost four years - not since I'd spotted a nesting pair in Cave Creek Canyon located in the far southeastern corner of Arizona. Before that, it was six years ago in Madera Canyon that I'd encountered one of these beautiful migratory birds. In fact, in that sky island habitat only a two-and-a-half hour drive south from my Phoenix home, I hadn't seen any trogon at all on my last visit four years ago. Nonetheless, I remained hopeful that I'd spot one when I returned to Madera over this past weekend.
This spring was an especially excellent time to visit the mountains of southern Arizona because melting snowpack has been feeding streams at the same time migratory birds have started arriving from Latin America. Lots of water meant lots of blooms and bugs and the birds that feed on them. Madera Creek was actually flowing as strongly as ever while the towering peaks of the Santa Rita Mountains, rising over 9,000 feet, shed the last of this winter's snow.
I documented a number of avian arrivals including seasonal warblers like painted redstarts, Townsend's and even a black-throated gray. A few members of the cardinalidae family were in the canyon, including black-headed grosbeaks along with hepatic and summer tanagers. My favorite visitor - not counting a trogon - might have been the Rivoli's hummingbird, one of the largest hummers to nest in the state. But the star member of that particular bird family this week was a berylline, a rare stray from Mexico I saw at a feeder at Kubo B&B on the main road into the canyon. Of course I can't even begin to list the variety of flycatchers, a number reaching as high as twenty-five throughout a typical year.
Amid the sounds of rushing water and the gobbles of wild turkeys, it was the barking clucks of the trogons that drew most of my attention over the weekend. I wasn't checked into my cabin at the Santa Rita Lodge long before I heard the calls from the oaks and sycamores lining Madera Creek several feet away. Alas, a hasty walk along the creek's trail didn't reveal any additional calls let alone a sighting. However a fellow birder revealed to me that he had seen a male elegant trogon earlier that day along Carrie Nation Trail higher in the canyon. In fact, I had already been told there could be four in that area.
While I overnighted with my husband in the cabin, friends of ours stayed in their travel trailer at Bog Springs Campground, a short distance away on the eastern slope of the canyon. When we all rendezvoused to start our next morning's hike up Madera Creek, they informed me that a trogon had flown through the camp a little while before, creating a flurry of breakfast-time excitement for all the birdwatching campers.
We weren't as lucky where we started our hike, at the area's wooden-benched amphitheater near a bridge crossing the creek, where all was quiet except for the tweets of painted redstarts and the trills of flycatchers. We hiked the Nature Trail that rose along Madera Canyon's western slope, above the newly leafed sycamore trees whose cavities served as potential nesting sites for trogons. At least two separate oncoming hiking parties informed us they had indeed seen a male trogon in the direction of our route that very morning, above Mount Wrightson Picnic Area, near Carrie Nation Trail, our ultimate destination. One glowing birder even told me she had also heard one's calls much closer to where we were chatting, where the Nature Trail crossed the creek again near the Chuparosa Inn.
We didn't hear or see a trogon at that crossing, or near the inn, but undeterred, we carried on toward Carrie Nation. And low and behold, up the steep stairs past a cluster of picnic ramadas, not even a half mile into the walk, we heard the distinctive barks of a trogon. As soon I saw some hikers a short ways ahead, frozen and looking intently into the canopy of a trailside tree, I knew we had found our bird!
The trogon was a noisy fellow, calling repeatedly from his perch in an oak tree. He made frequent forays to a neighboring branch, then to another tree, and then the next, apparently nabbing a morning meal of insects at each stop. Over the next ten minutes, the bird didn't range further than forty feet away, never flying too high into a tree or too deep into its canopy to prevent a good view.
He was the perfect model, posing in various positions and in different lighting, the feathers of his green head, chest, and back transitioning from matted black to shimmering emerald depending on his location. Meanwhile his scarlet torso always shined bright. At one point he even perched below us, on a branch just above a dry stretch of Madera Creek. He was actually so close, I imagined I could reach out and touch him.
When the trogon finally flew out of sight, across the creek bed, only his clucks reminding us of his presence. We ten hikers, birders, and photographers - wasn't each one of us all of those things? - were so excited we could have high-fived each other as if we were on a sports field. We had communed with a special resident of Madera Canyon, one that draws visitors by the thousands praying for their own precious encounter.
The next morning I went back, a little earlier than the previous day, but didn't find any trogons, only a pair of hikers asking about the birds' nest which I knew nothing of. I determined our day-before lucky find was actually on Vault Mine Trail, just past the Carrie Nation intersection. Later, my camping friends told me that they had seen another male elegant trogon that morning on Dutch John Trail, above their campsite, after hearing his calls.
To me, it sounded and looked like a number of males were ready to begin their breeding season in Madera Canyon, at this very northern edge of their known range. Hopefully a few lady birds have received the same message by now.
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| Elegant trogon in Madera Canyon. |
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| Elegant trogon in Madera Canyon. |
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| Elegant trogon in Madera Canyon. |
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| Elegant trogon in Madera Canyon. |
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| Elegant trogon in Madera Canyon. |
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| Elegant trogon in Madera Canyon. |
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