Jennie MacFarland and Richard Fray stalked up Lone Mountain Canyon in the Huachuca Mountains, near the U.S.-Mexico border in the early morning light, occasionally pausing to play a recorded trogon ...

Even a bicentennial bird, the mountain trogon, and plant, the owl agave. And of course the bicentennial fireworks extravaganza, planned to be the largest the country has ever seen.

Elegant trogon counts, by mountain range, 2021 and 2020: Atascosa Highlands: 25 trogons found in 2020, 6 in 2021. Santa Rita Mountains: 56 found in 2020, 20 in 2021.

Enjoy the elegant trogon, a longtime summer visitor to Southern Arizona that now is increasingly staying for the winter. But don't get too attached to the purple finch, because that mountain bird ...