Guide to North American Birds

Since the 1890s, the possibility of seeing a trogon has lured birdwatchers to southern Arizona. With its brilliant metallic colors and odd croaking call, the Coppery-tailed Trogon brings an exotic touch to the wooded canyons and streamside sycamores where it lives. The observer who finds one may get to watch it at leisure: rather sluggish, the trogon may sit upright on one perch for several minutes. This species was previously considered a conspecific of the Elegant Trogon.

Long regarded as a rare and elusive specialty of the Mexican mountains, this big trogon stunned birders by appearing north of the border in 1977, with a family group in Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains. Since then it has occurred several more times in Arizona, in at least four ranges, and has been found nesting. Only a distant relative of the Elegant Trogon, this species is more closely related to the quetzals of the deep tropics.