By this time next week, we will be home
in Bend. This part of the Amazing Bird Race, has been great with
dozens of colorful, interesting birds that are not found in our
state. This week's Bird of the Week is dear to my heart because I
have put in a lot of time and some hard hiking to get a great look. By
now, I hope your birding skills are such that when you see him, you
will know what family he belongs in. But here's a hint. Most of
them are small, mostly yellow, insect eating birds that love to sing.
I consider this to be the holy grail of this family because it has
only recently started nesting in North America and there are less
than half dozen pair known to be here, most of them in Arizona. And they are a challenge to find. I know of
three places they are being seen in Arizona and we went to two of
those places. The first place was an easy quarter mile hike along a
lake but it started raining and we had to call off the search. So
that left me with the challenge of hiking yet again, Florida Canyon
in search of the pair that has been up there for several years. I
went up there three times last year and did not find them. On other
years, I have had very fleeting glances. The canyon is very narrow and
steep and the trail is non existent in some places. But I persisted
and hiked farther than I have every hiked up there. I arrived at a
spot that opened up a bit and had lots of trees and immediately I heard
him singing. He gave me five minutes which is more than all the
previous sightings combined. It was a great morning. I hope you
like this guy as much as I do.
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