Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
My goal is to photograph every animal on a saguaro, I can now add red-tailed hawks to the list! This adult was keeping an eye out for potential prey moving about on a sunny winter morning in the Sonoran Desert. Hard to believe this is the same species that I watched so often on rainy winter mornings in the Pacific Northwest.
I only saw the aftermath but it looked to me like this verdin had grabbed a free meal from a spider’s web, but the web was so strong it kept the meal tethered to the cholla. Eventually by beating its wings and attempting to fly the webbing broke and the little bird was able to fly away.
The desert offered up a little winter surprise this morning when I met this Costa’s hummingbird on the hike back, it’s a new species for me. They are one of our smallest birds, weighing about 0.1 ounces. It had already been a lovely morning, this little fellow was the icing on the cake.
One of the birds I hoped to see after we moved to Arizona was the phainopepla (pronounced fay-no-PEP-la) but after not seeing one for months I thought it was unlikely. In October I got some distant looks at a black bird with white under its wings and after hitting my field guides realized I had finally seen one of these silky flycatchers. It took a bit longer to see them up close but in late November I got a long look at this female early one morning on the Marcus Landslide Trail. Yesterday I got a long look at a male, they were thick as thieves around the desert, but this morning it was cold and windy and I didn’t see a one. According to one of my guide books they should be common from now until early spring so I’m looking forward to our next meeting.
I was delighted to find ash-throated flycatchers in the desert, a new species for me. They were delighted to find bees attracted to saguaros blooming in the spring and summer.
Verdin remind me of ketchup and mustard with their yellow heads and red shoulders. On this summer morning there was an extra dose of red as one of the diminutive birds perched to feed on an open saguaro fruit.
Saguaro fruits provide a handy perch for a young cactus wren, now fully fledged, born in a nest in the arms of this self-same cactus.
Early on a summer morning, a white-winged dove uses its tongue to eat from deep within the fruit of a saguaro. The red covering many of the spines atop the cactus is not blood but rather pulp and juice from already-eaten fruit.
A cactus wren sings amidst mostly eaten fruit atop a saguaro on the Latigo Trail. Its feathers were looking rather ragged, understandably so, it had just raised its young in the harsh desert environment.
Boolie 