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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]

Early last spring, Gambel’s Quail started sniffing around the owl box I’d installed in our front yard. Those guys will nest anywhere, it seems, and while I was amused to see them looking domestic 20 feet above ground, I was worried, too, about what would happen if they hatched chicks: the entrance to the box [...]

In the midwest it’s the cardinals, in the east it’s Fox Sparrows: every landscape has a birdsong that means spring to me. Here in Tucson, it can only be the slightly raspy three notes of the Verdin, the first a full tone higher than the second two, endlessly repeated on these bright, warm days.
And it’s [...]