Summer birds in southern Arizona

In May 2007, my brother-in-law Michael and me stayed at his cabin at Cave Creek. This is close to Portal, Arizona. Map see below. My main objective was bird photography. I had done that at the same place over Xmas (see here) and now I wanted to see some of their summer birds.

See below for a map of the place and some landscape pictures. Use the links above to open the pages with the bird pictures.

Map of the area. The red numbers indicate the places where all except 3 pictures on this website were taken.

For each picture, if you hover over it with the mouse, it will tell you some details including the place where it was taken.

1	SR 80 south of Rodeo, it's 50 miles from Rodeo to Douglas where the nearest supermarket is.
2	Rodeo, a village with about 200 inhabitants. Said to have 286 sunny days per year. Elevation about 4660 ft (1420 m).
3	Gin Road, a dirt road connecting State Line Road to Rodeo. Good place for finding Roadrunners.
4	State Line Road, a dirt road.
5	Portal Road, connecting Portal to SR 80.
6	Dave Jasper's place. Dave is a professional birding guide. He maintains some bird feeders that one can visit.
7	Portal, a little village, number of inhabitants about 100. Half of these are naturalists, I estimate. 4800 ft (1450 m).
8	Paradise, a very little village.
9	Cave Creek Ranch, a lodge for birders. 5000 ft (1525 m).
10	The cabin of Michael and his wife Jessie. Right at the creek. 5000 ft (1525 m).
11	South Fork, this place is most famous for Trogons. 5300 ft (1615 m).
12	Southwestern Research Station, where we saw hummingbird banding. 5400 ft (1650 m).
13	John Hands campground, also a good place for spotting Trogons. 5600 ft (1700 m).

The general landscape here is desert grasslands, with mountain ranges. This is SR 80 from Rodeo south to Douglas. You meet about 1 car per minute on this road.

View eastward from State Line Road.

Behind each mountain range, there is more desert and another mountain range.

It is not always bright and sunny in Arizona.

Right after I had taken the above picture, I was stopped by a border patrol officer who was suspicious as to why I had stopped the car. These patrols are all over the place here. They search for illegal immigrants and drugs smugglers.

The Chiricahua mountains seen from State Line Road, in the early morning.

South Fork, place renowned especially for Trogons.

Ocotillo.

(7) Place: not on the map, more south in the Chiricahua mountains

A gopher snake. Non-venomous, prey is killed by constriction.