surrounded

Today I took a hike up Huachuca Canyon to see if anything new was around. I enjoyed having the whole place to myself, to study the wildlife, relax in its tranquility, to experience reflective solitude, and savor the peace and beauty away from human disturbance. Then I found myself surrounded by a large group of women (I didn’t say a group of large women, I didn’t say that), busily engaged in voluminous discourse . When asked, the leader told me they were members of The Tuesday Women’s Hiking Club. One of them asked me: “What are you doing here?”, since membership in The Tuesday Women’s Hiking Club is reserved exclusively for who? Right – women. Should I try to explain to her what a Big Year is? About the thrill of the chase, the excitement of adding each new species to the list, the challenges of bird identification, the adventures by car, plane, boat, and train. Forget it. “Lady, I’m just standing here”, I feebly replied.

After they scared off every bird within 5 miles, they went their way and I went mine. No new birds were added although I did get good looks at Hepatic Tanager:

So the bird list holds at 236, 2 new ones were added to the butterfly list, Zela Metalmark and Arizona Hairstreak, bringing that list up to 17, and the mammal list stands at 12, plus unidentified bats.