Go West old man!: Arivaca back road hiking

It was a comfortable warm sunny day so we went exploring the side roads off our gravel road. On foot. With a dog since this is the Buenos Aires Wildlife Sanctuary and not a park. The first one was the same road I went out on yesterday right behind camp. We presumed it would go on for a while but was a disappointing half mile long. But Skye found a deer leg bone that she proudly brought back to camp.

We got in the truck and went south on our road. Without the bone.

The first road had an easy parking place and we went walking to the end of the road. It just wasn’t as far as we thought it would be. So we just went past the truck and onto the road across the street. We knew it was shorter but didn’t care since we were already out walking. St the end of that road we found an elaborate water system, a big 40x20 foot shallow something covered by tin roofing. a pipe leading to a covered round water source, a type we have seen before. That in turn piped to a trough. But this trough has steps leading down into it, and it’s only about 5’ long. Across from that is a fabric hunting blind. And we know there are deer here!

So back to the truck and south to the next road. That was about 3.5 miles from camp, so not a long drive at all. That road looked to be a good 3+ miles to the next intersection. Turns out there is a nice campsite out there too. I have lots of them mapped now. We walked 2 miles out this road, found some good views and Skye found another large bone, this time a bird bone. It was hollow and about 8” long. She also took off on a scent and was gone for a few minutes, her bell out of hearing distance. She came back on a fast run all panting. Must have been a great scent chase! We never heard anything moving, didn’t see anything. Further up the road we saw a Mexican Jay. Not a very unusual sighting around here, but the highlight of our birding today!

Back at camp we sat out in the sun with our books, and Skye got her deer bone back, she was very happy!