Hackberry Heaven

The hackberries I knew growing up in the midwest were tall trees with hard black fruits that yielded a surprising amount of sugar when cracked by young teeth. It’s taken some getting used to here in the desert, where Celtis is most commonly represented by a dense, thorny shrub with soft red fruits that can be charitably described as insipid. But the birds do love ‘em, both the “berries” and the thick foliage that provides shade and cover all year around.

Working inside this morning, trying hard (and failing) to catch up with all that has accumulated in my weeks away, I managed still to do some birding by watching the hackberry thicket out my window. Lucy’s and Orange-crowned Warblers joined the resident Verdins and Black-tailed Gnatcatchers in studiously picking eggs and caterpillars from the leaves, and Anna’s and Costa’s Hummingbirds kept busy collecting spiderwebs from the branches. A flycatching Phainopepla took the thicket’s highest perch, while the shade beneath the low-hanging branches was cover for White-winged and Mourning Doves, Gambel’s Quail, and White-crowned Sparrows.