Elegant Trogon at Patagonia Lake

We have guests from Boston that have stayed with us every year for the last eight years. For the last couple of years they have enjoyed going to Patagonia Lake which is about an hour and a half's drive from us. The highlight is finding the Elegant Trogon. This a large and rare bird that can only be found in most southern mountains of Arizona: Baboquivari, Santa Rita, Huachuca, Dragoon, and Chiracahua Ranges. The Elegant Trogon is larger than a Mourning Dove but with a shorter wingspan (so it can fly rapidly through the trees).  Back to the story. Our guests went to Patagonia Lake yesterday and came back reporting that they had indeed found this very colorful bird. To put this in perspective, I was looking for the Elegant Trogon in the Chiracahua Mountains several years ago and was talking with a wildlife photographer from Australia. He had been coming to the  US every year and one of his stops was always the South Fork of Cave Creek in the Chiracahuas. South Fork has the reputation of being the number one birding spot in the US (according to surveys from Birders World magazine). And, in particular he wanted to photograph the Elegant Trogon. But this -- his sixth year -- was the first time he had been able to find and get close enough for a photo. I didn't want to tell him that I have seen and photographed the Elegant Trogon in all of the above mountain ranges except the Baboquivari and Dragoon's. This photo of a male Elegant Trogon was taken last year at Patagonia Lake in the Santa Rita's.