Mourning doves are all around the neighborhood, their soft coos calming us morning and night. The white-winged doves will arrive soon and push the mournings down the pecking order but for now the smaller doves can rule the roost.
Category: Birds
As the Phoebe Flies
In February I was headed up to an interesting saguaro in the last light of day when I stopped as I saw a bird flying straight towards me. I was a little surprised as I was wearing my bright orange jacket and easily visible on the trail though I had just rounded a bend. I feared I had inadvertently strayed too near a nest but the bird wasn’t agitated and landed so closely in the tree above I almost dared not look up. I walked back down the trail as quietly as I could until I got a better view of what turned out to be a Say’s phoebe, a bird I first identified last June at the house but hadn’t seen since. It hung out in the tree for a while before it flew to the saguaro that had been my original target, trying a few perches before flying off for good. Pleased to meet you little one and thanks for the introduction.
The Neighborhood
The sun was rising, the ocotillo blooming, the cactus wrens singing, on a morning walk in the neighborhood last weekend. On my afternoon walk I saw a bobcat working its way down the hill. At night I heard a noise and for a second assumed it was one of the cats except they were all sleeping on me. I looked out the window to see a javelina rooting around in the yard. Lovely neighbors abound.
Shining Bright
Ringed in white, clothed by light, an ash-throated flycatcher is backlit by the rising sun in the Troon neighborhood of Scottsdale, Arizona.
Drum Major
Gilded flickers make their homes in saguaros but not metal ones. Nevertheless a cell tower disguised as a cactus is a good place to let the world know what an amazing drummer you are! From sunrise yesterday on a walk in the neighborhood, since I still have to go to work most days I decided to stay off the trails to minimize risk of virus exposure.
So, So Early
By late June it isn’t just the air that’s hot as even the ground radiates heat back at you before the sun is even up. That sunrise comes frightfully early but the desert is amazing as it wakes so for me deciding whether to get up or sleep in on my days off becomes a delicate act of balancing mental and physical exhaustion. The white-winged doves had been hiding from me last June but suddenly exploded into view one weekend when one seemed to adorn every saguaro. I met this adult in the blue light of dawn, the sun not yet peeking over the eastern mountains. Although the fruits upon which it perched were not yet ripe, the fresh pulp on its beak and forehead suggested that it had already breakfasted at nearby saguaros. My watch read 5:28 am, I had arrived at the park around 4:55 am, up before 4:30 am. Somewhere in Virginia my 20-year old self just had a heart attack hearing this, would someone check on him please? Only wait until after 1 pm and knock softly, just in case he’s still sleeping.
Baby Food
Another picture from 2011 and from another place near-and-dear to my heart, Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge. This white-breasted nuthatch had snared a multicolored Asian ladybeetle (not native to the Pacific Northwest, I don’t think I ever saw a native ladybug in our many years there). While nuthatches do eat insects this meal I suspect was destined for the hungry maw of the babies in the nearby nest. I wish the picture had more depth of field but I was shooting as wide open as I could since I had forgotten my tripod at home and the light was dim under the canopy so I needed as much speed as I could muster.
Blooming Ocotillos
When we first moved to Arizona I instantly fell in love with ocotillos, their long thin arms spiraling into the sky. Their tips usually bloom with an explosion of reds and yellows and oranges although sometimes it’s a more subtle mix of browns and grays and whites with a splash of rufous.
This Is My Mountain & I Have Climbed It
A xenolith provides a handy perch for a Gambel’s quail to survey the surrounding desert. This xenolith has tricked me many times as at a distance it looks like it could be a spiny lizard sunning on the boulder, and even though I know better I often can’t help from looking through the long lens, just to be sure. It’s not an entirely bad instinct, it’s how one day I went back for a second look and turned a cactus into a bobcat.
Reluctant Riser
This black-throated sparrow, nestled back in a buckhorn cholla, almost seemed reluctant to emerge and greet the rising sun but perhaps I was projecting.
Boolie 