The forest service road into Agua Caliente Canyon passes a lower parking area (see yesterday’s post) and then an upper parking area, which is the trailhead for the main trail up the canyon into Mount Wrightson Wilderness. With copious grass and trees, it’s a great spot for Coppery-tailed Trogon and Montezuma Quail. Number of Trogons spotted on this field trip: zero. Number of Montezuma Quail: 1 male and 1 female. Number of usable BirdingPI.com photos of said quail: zero.
From that same picture (cropped), the red arrow points to the MMT Observatory:
[Editor’s note: see this eBird link for a picture from this field trip of the male Montezuma Quail.]
What a wonderful field trip in MMT1! You have such great pics of all
those colorful birds! Good to see the other pic of Montezuma quail!
JRK
Thanks! Glad at least one person on the field trip was able to get a photo!
Montezuma Quail are notorious for laying low in the grass. If startled, they fly in different directions and try to get as far away as possible, quickly, for taking to ground again. So, it’s very chaotic! Lucky to see them at all, which was the most important thing.