One of the difficulties facing birders is learning to translate “field guide poses” into real-life perceptions. Birds in the field don’t often face left with wingtips drooped, and rarely are they so considerate as to pose next to their close relatives and other similar species. But this morning I had an experience that made me feel like I had stepped onto the pages of a Peterson myself.

A great day with Hilary and Zahava included a couple of hours at the Mesquital Migrant Trap, west of Tucson. It’s always a risk taking people there: the trap is definitely a boom-or-bust kind of place. It was a little on the bust side this morning, but among the residents and common winter birds, Bendire’s Thrasher came through nicely.

We had great looks at two different birds, one of them a male perched at the tip of a dead mulberry singing his heart out, while a Curve-billed Thrasher caroled from the next tree. With both birds in a single scope field, we could compare bill shape, eye color, and the pattern of individual breast feathers; I even saw, for the first time ever, the difference in the gonydeal angle under the lower mandible.

All this while Lark Buntings streamed past and Brewer’s Sparrows warbled from the creosotes: how did we ever stand not living in Arizona?

End of February, and the spirit is upon them: the hummingbirds in our yard are bolder and noisier than ever. Female Anna’s and Costa’s Hummingbirds are busily scooping up cobwebs from neglected corners, while their males perch high and sing loud, chasing each other from the feeders like so many feathered dogs at so many sugarwater mangers.

And our female Broad-billed Hummingbird, faithful to our feeders for several months now, still lingers, stuttering through the mesquites and hackberries and occasionally giving chase to one of the smaller birds at the feeders. She has exhibited no nesting behavior yet, but that’s hardly a surprise: the species is uncommon at best here in the dry northwestern foothills, and we expect her to retreat to a more typical riparian habitat when she starts feeling broody later this spring.

Fond as I am of them, I tend to think of Loggerhead Shrikes as rather stolid birds, hunkered down on the wires and patiently waiting for something juicy to reveal itself in the ditch beneath.

Large numbers of shrikes are migrating through southeast Arizona right now, and today we found many in the Sulphur Springs Valley, including a beautiful individual perched near Willcox’s Lake Cochise. As we admired it, it suddenly launched into the air, flew almost vertically a good 75 feet, and fell like lead shot, swooping at the last minute to regain its perch. I suspect that it was a failed attempt at flycatching, but empty-handed or not, the bird took our breath away, and instantly became one of those canonical images that make up “the species” in my mind.