Tag: canyon towhee

Morning Ablutions

A canyon towhee pauses while preening at sunrise on the Chuckwagon Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona on September 18, 2022. Original: _CAM5336.ARW

Another in my series exploring light as it arrives or departs the desert. If it looks like the towhee puffed out its feathers to protect against the cold, it hadn’t, this was mid-September when cool hasn’t yet entered the desert’s vocabulary, much less cold. I was watching it preen before sunrise and luckily it was still at it as the light peeked over the mountains, the hills behind it still in shadow.

Reminders

A canyon towhee perches on saguaro flower buds on the Latigo Trail in McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona on May 15, 2020. Original: _RAC3218.arw

From last spring in the early morning light, a canyon towhee finds a soft perch atop a saguaro courtesy of its large flower buds. A pleasant reminder that spring is coming and a not-so-pleasant reminder that the already cruel sunrises will only get earlier. I’ve managed zero sunrise hikes so far this year so I’m not off to a promising start.

Bookends

A white-winged dove and a canyon towhee bookend a fruiting saguaro before sunrise on the Latigo Trail in the Brown's Ranch section of McDowell Sonoran Preserve in Scottsdale, Arizona in July 2019

A white-winged dove and a canyon towhee bookend a fruiting saguaro before sunrise on the Latigo Trail. The morning lows are in the 80’s now, even I am wearing short sleeves on the trails. Normally I prefer long sleeves to physically keep the sun off my skin but for the next couple of months I’ll rely on sunscreen and being off the trails early before the sun gets too bright. Still wearing long pants though, too many things in the desert want to poke you when you get down low to photograph lizards.

One of Three

A canyon towhee looks directly at me as it perches atop a saguaro along Brown's Ranch Road in McDowell Sonoran Preserve

We see a lot of overlap between the birds of our backyard and the birds of the desert but not with towhees. I’ve seen three species of towhees in Arizona, Abert’s towhees all summer in our yard and just recently a spotted towhee, but the canyon towhee shown here I only see on the trails.