Posted by Jim Hackley on February 10, 2012 at 1:38 PM
I thought I would share an encounter we had last week. We were hiking out of Sonoita creek in Patagonia Lake state park when we spotted the Elegant Trogon in a tree. For the next hour I followed this bird around trying to line up the best angle. To my surprise this bird was very approachable and friendly. It would fly from one tree to the next tree but really never tried to fly away from us. I would slowly approach the next perch (3 steps, stop, 3 steps, stop) and take pictures. The amazing thing was how approachable this bird was as I was getting many full frame images. One interesting observation was that the trogon seemed curious about the shutter noise. On several occasions after hearing the clicking of the shutter it would move it's head back and forth like it was trying to figure out where the noise was coming from. After an hour of slowly following the trogon and taking pictures we decided to leave the bird alone and started to slowly back away. We circled around a large bush trying to quietly leave when the trogon gave us one more surprise. He left his perch and flew around the large bush and landed in another bush right in front of us. I slowly raised the camera and fired off a burst of images and to our surprised the trogon answered back and flapped his tail. I took another sequence of images (click, click, click) and the trogon answered back each time flapping his tail up and down. I could not believe this was going on, so I continued firing out a burst of images and each time the trogon would answer back flapping his tail until I got tired of holding the camera. I turned to my wife and said something like, 'Can you believe this is happening!'. At this point I had all the images I wanted so we just watched the bird for another couple of minutes and decided to leave it alone. I took off my hat and thanked the bird and we slowly backed away again. It was an amazing encounter because this was the first time I have ever had a bird interact with us and the added bonus was that it was a Trogon. Posted images below show some of this encounter.
I do not know if this type of interaction happens a lot in birding so I would be interested to hear if others have experienced something like this.
Posted by Jim Hackley on February 10, 2012 at 1:38 PM
Checking out shutter clicking.
Posted by Jim Hackley on February 10, 2012 at 1:39 PM
How does my back side look?
Posted by Jim Hackley on February 10, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Answering back after the shutter clicks.
Posted by Jim Hackley on February 10, 2012 at 1:40 PM
Answering back and flapping tail up and down.
Posted by Brian Gatlin on February 10, 2012 at 3:26 PM
wow, Jim! that would be a cool experience with any bird, but with a trogon!? how amazing--what a treat. beautiful shots.
Posted by Richard Ditch on February 10, 2012 at 6:06 PM
Awesome stuff. Sounds like an encounter that will stay with you for a very long time.
Posted by Ron Dudley on February 10, 2012 at 8:18 PM
Simply amazing Jim. What an experience. I really enjoyed reading your account and the photos are lovely.
Posted by Sharon Lane on February 11, 2012 at 8:15 AM
Just plain ol' WOW!
Posted by John Tobias on February 11, 2012 at 8:22 AM
Jim,
Great story---great photos! This is the type of experience which makes nature photography such a great adventure. Thanks for sharing this.
Discussion
15 repliesI do not know if this type of interaction happens a lot in birding so I would be interested to hear if others have experienced something like this.
Great story---great photos!
Sandy
Patagonia Lake State Park, is just south of Patagonia, AZ in southeast Arizona. This would be about an 1 1/2 hour drive SE of the Tucson area.