A little detour

I am waiting for the sun to move a little bit so my work area will be in shade, so I will tell you about yesterday.
Margie and Dave are in town again so she can attend a PEO convention and he can play. I joined him at sunrise yesterday and we drove down to Madera Canyon to do some bird watching. It was a typical Tucson day, clear sky, moderate temperature, slight breeze. We parked at the trailhead at the uphill end of the road. We checked the board to ascertain that my "old farts' card" would cover the parking fee, and headed a short distance up the trail. We spotted something interesting and dropped into the dry creek bed for a look. It turned out to be a great spot. We just sat or stood around and the birds came through as if the waterway was also a flyway. Other people came by occasionally to have some birder chat. The big question was "Have you seen him?" They meant the Elegant Trogon male who overwintered in the canyon. Normally in May and June they inhabit the area, but this one stayed all year. Well, we did. See him. We heard this strange call that sounded like a raven doing its dog impression. "aarrk, aarrk, aarrk" coming from down canyon and getting closer. Then a brilliant flash of red and he landed in the tree overhead. He just sat long enough for us to confirm it was him, then he continued up canyon. So right away, the day was a success. I won't recount all the birds we saw, but they were numerous and pretty. Eventually, we headed to an area where the creek runs above ground, and the water attracts a different variety of birds. We were again holding still and observing, when we heard a distant "gobble, gobble." Well, every kid knows that that is a turkey. We could tell from the occasional call that he was getting closer. Finally, I could tell that he was going to be passing on the far side of the creek and across the road. So I climbed up there, saw some other people heading in what I thought was the right direction, and there he was. Just a big tom, all alone, heading downhill. I remembered my camera was in my pocket, so I walked along the edge of the road parallel to old tom and managed to snap a few pictures. Then it occurred to me that he was trying to get to the water. So I stopped walking. Some other people were about a hundred yards away and the turkey fanned his tail feathers and gobbled angrily, circled a bit, then strutted across the road between me and the other folks. Headed for the creek.
Dave had joined me by then, so we crossed the creek again and headed back towards the car. On the way we stopped to admire a pair of painted redstarts. They do not stay still long, but for some reason, perhaps a nearby nest, they cavorted just above my head for a while before I moved on. Just a few feet up the trail, I turned my head to see what was rustling the dry leaves and saw a small doe heading in the opposite direction. About the time I saw her, she froze. She held totally still for several minutes with her ears turned straight ahead. She was more alarmed about something ahead of her than about us. Eventually she resumed walking, she was joined by a fawn and then we saw that she was joining another pair of does in a low meadow. As we watched she turned and walked right towards me. I could tell she saw me, but she was not overly alarmed. Living in a public area like this had reduced her fear of humans. She was joined by the fawn and they browsed no more than 25 feet from either of us. It is always special to get to share space with wild animals. Finally, the deer began to move, and we saw that there were six of them, altogether. As we headed up the trail again, they were also heading up the creek parallel to us, about 50-60 feet to our left. We came to a spot where another family was sitting on some rocks by the creek watching the deer approach. Then a really funny thing happened. A car came whizzing by on the road, and the deer quickly retreated toward the creek. The fawn was in full run when she saw the people on the rock. Wham! She set her brakes! Then is when you see that animals can have facial expression. Her eyes were huge, and you could clearly see the confusion in her mind. Where is the greatest danger? That noisy vehicle behind, or those people on the rock ahead? She probably stood frozen for 20-30 seconds. Then she kind of shook herself, looked around, saw mama was not panicked, and nonchalantly nibbles some grass.
On our way out we saw another tom turkey who wanted to cross to the creek. He was really displaying his tail and voicing his objection to the the people who seemed to be in his way.
It was a fabulous morning. We saw the trogon, two turkeys, six deer, and a whole bunch of other birds we hadn't seen before. Then we had some really good chile con carne at Guillermo's on south 4th.