Phoneline Trail

January 14, 2024

The plan for today was to drive out to Sabino Canyon, with Susan and I hiking the Phoneline trail while Scott would wander around the canyon hoping to find a new bird. Unfortunately, Scott started coughing in the night and wasn’t feeling well so Susan and I went without him. We really missed having him around but we had a wonderful hike with perfect weather.

The giant crested saguaro behind the visitor’s center is the most elaborate we’ve seen anywhere.

While chatting with the couple below, I asked the man about his British accent and he laughingly responded that his is the original English and ours is the accent! What a great encounter.

Crossing Sabino Creek. Last time Scott and I had to take off our boots and wade across this spot. We sent the photo to Scott so he knew we made it across!

It’s so beautiful, I think I’ll take flight!

How wonderful it is to have a great photographer around!

The rock formations are so colorful on this hike!

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Before I withdrew myself from the day’s activities the plan had been for us to all drive out to Sabino Canyon, with Rachael and Susan planning to hike the Phoneline trail while I wandered around the canyon hoping to find a new bird or three - including, I hoped, a curve-billed thrasher. Last winter I came out here on a day too cold to bike and found a birding bonanza - thrashers, bluebirds, black-throated sparrows, gnatcatchers, and even a Townsend’s solitare - three of them lifetime firsts for me.

Instead, while they were out hiking I was out picking up a Covid test kit and some cold medicine from the nearby CVS pharmacy. Sometime in the evening last night I started coughing, and by this morning it was clear that I’ve picked up something. Cough, sore throat, possibly a mild fever - typical cold systems. Or Covid too, I verify when I read up on the symptoms of JN.1, the newest strain that’s taking the country by storm. I’ve had the latest booster just a few months ago, and I read up and learn that rates in Tucson and am encouraged to see that they’re still quite low here, but I’m taking no chances so I head off to the pharmacy for a test kit.

An hour later I’m back home and the results of my Covid test are in: negative! So, from the evidence so far at least it’s just a cold. I call Rachael to let her know the good news and then settle in for a lazy afternoon mostly filled with napping. And in the evening I stay home while they walk over to the nearby Time Market for dinner and bring me back a nice hoagie and kale salad.

There is one more thing to say about my day though: I saw a new bird! I’ve had my eyes and ears out ever since we got here for a curve-billed thrasher, one of my favorites of the local species and one I’ve been expecting to see before we leave with any luck at all. They’re not particularly common, but they’re unmistakeable because of that bill shape; and they helpfully announce themselves with a complex, melodious song unlike any other bird around.

This one revealed itself while I was walking back from CVS, just two blocks from home. He was singing away somewhere up near the top of a large, dense mesquite tree just two blocks from home, but it took five or ten minutes of me craning up into the tree and walking around it to see it from multiple angles before I finally spotted him, his backlit profile barely discernible in the shadows up near the crown. No kind of shot at all, but I didn’t even get that much because he went back into hiding before I could find him with the camera.

Still though, I persisted. With plenty of time on my hands and a located species I’ve been looking for, I wasn’t about to leave until I got my shot or he flew off. And eventually patience was rewarded when he and his mate dropped to the ground and started foraging for treats at the edge of the curb.

That’s better. Nice that he finally moved into the sun for a minute.

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