Elegant Trogon

We first tried to see the Elegant Trogon outside of Tucson, Arizona at Lake Patagonia in March of 2011. But on the day we had scheduled someone to take us up to find it, a huge wind storm arrived. We met our tour guide in the WalMart parking lot just prior to dawn nervous that he would cancel. And woe, he did. It was just far too blustery to drive a long way to look for the two (yes, just two total representatives living there) trogans that were themselves probably hiding for shelter. It was a sad morning. This is one of the birds we were planning on seeing and the reason we bought the ticket. We did, however, see many other amazing birds on that trip, and even on that day. But alas, no Elegant Trogon.

So we were pleased to be able to get another chance when we booked an excursion with the famous guide Alejandro when we traveled to Puerto Vallarta in January of 2012. Thanks to him, we saw many many many birds. On one day we drove through La Bajada and saw the Elegant Trogon!

We were also lucky enough that day to share the tour with Mark Patry, a bird enthusiast from Ottawa. Thanks Mark for the photo! Ours never looked quite right.

This picture is cropped a little for the sake of the blog, the full photo is below that.

Photo by Mark Patry

Photo by Mark Patry