Roads Less Traveled: Part 3
Along the way, I got lost in the discoveries. Sometimes I'd sit for hours in warm breezes on a winter day in the grasslands waiting for a longspur to show up, only to find a herd of Pronghorn coming to get a sip of water. And I'd forget what I was chasing. The magic and beauty of southeastern Arizona is a wonder to behold any time of the year. The stories you'll read about today were some of the most impactful chases on this journey to AZ 500. We begin in May of 2017 with an accidental find while on the hunt for a super rare bunting. And it came with drama. There is controversy, the kind of birding story that reminds you that not every bird on a list comes with a simple story. By this point in my journey from 400 to 500 state birds, I was beginning to understand that chasing a bird wasn't always going to be about finding a picturesque trail, standing quietly beneath towering trees, and having a magical encounter with nature. Sometimes the road was complicated as all t...
