Brown Pelican may not be the first bird to spring to mind when you think of the Sonoran Desert, but it turns out that this species regularly makes early summer incursions into southeast Arizona. The size of each year’s invasion probably reflects food availability in the Gulf of California: the more birds we see here, the worse the conditions there. Two years ago, we saw more than 300 birds move into the state, pretty exciting for the birders and pretty bad news for the birds, most of them juveniles and nearly all of them likely doomed.

So far so good, this spring, with only a few birds reported in the southeast part of the state. One of them, a juvenile, discovered by Dave this morning, is on the lake at Tucson’s Kennedy Park, where Alison and I had no difficulty relocating it after we got the word: pelicans aren’t exactly hard to see when they’re around! The bird was simply floating around in the center of the water, ignoring the many fishermen and the handful of birders who had showed up to see it; hard to know whether it was tired or sated, but the abundance of fish in the pond makes us hope for the latter, and that this might be the rare Brown Pelican that finds its way back home.

Ruby-crowned Kinglets, Winter Wrens, Cetti’s Warblers: they’re all loud, but for sheer sonic volume to body mass, you just can’t beat Costa’s Hummingbird. Most males here in Tucson seem to have fallen silent these last couple of weeks, and many have probably already made their post-breeding migration to the deserts to the west, but this afternoon there was one singing his fast-beating heart out from one of our mesquites, his bright purple mustaches glowing in the sun.

John, Darlene, and I made an early start for Marana, where the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher continues to dazzle an appreciative and growing audience. The beauty of the bird, and its unusual ‘tickability’ in a state where they rarely linger more than a day or two, are a large part of the appeal, of course, but as the domestic situation becomes more and more, shall we say, complex, some of us might be forced to admit to more prurient motives: birders truly do like to watch.

The bird is most certainly attached to a Western Kingbird, and to the telephone pole where that kingbird was adding fluff and trash to a new nest this morning. The scissor-tail’s defensive instincts are quite strong: we even saw him chase off a Mourning Dove today (though a Gila Woodpecker managed to land on the pole for a moment without incurring tyrannid wrath). What is interesting is the presence of a second Western Kingbird, obviously interested himself in the nest and its fetching architect; the scissor-tail chased this second bird relentlessly this morning, diving at him and methodically displacing him from perch after perch until he was so far down the telephone line as to be nearly invisible.

It’s like a Russian novel in the Sonoran desert.

Darlene and I did see some birds in Madera yesterday, of course, and didn’t spend our entire time spenglerizing about North American birding.

Proctor Road was magnificent in the early morning, with Townsend’s, Wilson’s, and Black-throated Gray Warblers moving through the flowering ocotillo. As if they weren’t colorful enough, there were also Lazuli Buntings, Blue Grosbeaks, and Summer and Western Tanagers moving through. Everywhere you looked it was blue and green and red and yellow, as if the flowers had sprouted wings.

Even so, the best birds there were brown. The habitat right at the ramada is a bit gentle for the species, but that hasn’t stopped a fantastic Rufous-crowned Sparrow from spending the last couple of weeks there, often perched up and singing, giving outstanding views for a bird otherwise so often elusive among the rocks and thornscrub of the steeper slopes. If you haven’t seen a Rufous-crown, or haven’t seen one well, or haven’t seen one lately, or wonder why I settled on the name Aimophila, drop in on this guy! Just as exciting was my first Botteri’s Sparrow of the year. A pair seems to nest pretty much every year near the little shed just down from the ramada, but yesterday a male was right up there with us, using the ramada as a sounding board for that marvelous song. Sally and Steve told us they’d heard one down in the grasslands, too, so this extremely local and extremely beautiful sparrow is obviously “back” for the season.

We walked the road a little, hoping for some Black-capped Gnatcatcher action, but had to content ourselves with raptors overhead. First, a Zone-tailed Hawk soared over low with a flock of 13 Turkey Vultures. A short while later, a Red-tailed Hawk showed up and started diving furiously at something out of sight; when the second bird crested the ridge, we found ourselves looking at an adult Golden Eagle, which bore the smaller bird’s harrassment for several minutes before rolling and showing its talons. There’s drama in the skies if you just look up!

I can’t go to Madera without hitting the warbler pools, so we spent a couple of peaceful hours up there, perched in the shade eating cookies and watching the birds and the butterflies (lots of butterflies, even a few this lep-agnostic could identify!). Surprisingly, there was fairly little activity around the water, but what there was was fancy even by the standards of southeast Arizona: a male Elegant Trogon flew in and perched, silent, in the shade, while Grace’s Warbler sang overhead and Dusky-capped Flycatchers mourned in the distance. The first Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher of the year gave a couple of squeals, and a pair of Yellow-eyed Juncos, those maniacal emberizids of the pinelands, shuffled through the leaves at our feet. Magical place, magical day.