Hereford Bridge

March 10, 2015

The San Pedro Riparian National Conservation covers around a 40 mile stretch from the Mexican Border north to St. David, and you can hike along the river the whole way.

Today we parked at Hereford Bridge

And walked north for 2-1/2 hours on the east side of the river. 

We were hoping to see gray hawks and warblers migrating up from Mexico, but we did not see anything new.We did see lots of vermillion flycatchers, black phoebes and gila woodpeckers, and more song sparrows than we’ve ever seen in one day before.  Therefore we declare the song sparrow the Bird of the Day.

We couldn’t get a good picture of the song sparrow, so here is a lesser goldfinch, also present in abundance, and singing sweetly high in the cottonwoods.

As I mentioned before, the San Pedro was subject to serious flooding last Fall, so the trail wound circuitously around driftwood and new channels cut into the banks.  Eventually we came to a big logjam where we crossed over to the west side and back to our truck.

  

Tomorrow we leave Sierra Vista and head north to Picacho Peak State Park south of Phoenix.  We’ll be going to Phoenix for the weekend where Leo will be running a trail race in the White Tank Mountain Regional Park