It’s a wonder the birds can fly this time of year at all. This raggedy adult  Western Kingbird was perched on the fence at Willcox this morning, concentrating hard on growing some feathers. These swallow-tailed birds are always good for a late-summer quiz, and I shudder to think how many of them get called Tropicals….

Bryan and I had planned a day in Madera Canyon yesterday, but when it came time for the sun to rise, we discovered that the entire Santa Rita Mountains had vanished, hidden behind a shroud of heavy rain. So we improvised, dodging rain drops and thunderstorms, sometimes getting wet but always getting our birds.
The rain […]

It’s here, it’s here, the newest Supplement to the AOU Check-list. No great earth-shattering surprises this time, but a few changes of note to us amateurs.
First, the Bean Geese have been split; the species that has occurred in the 48 contiguous US states is Anser fabalis, the Taiga Bean-Goose (hyphen copyright 2007, AOU Committee on […]

A great day in my favorite Arizona range, the Huachucas. These richly forested scarps are said to have been called by the Apache “thunder mountains,” and the wisdom of those long-vanished people was apparent today, when Bryan and I wandered the canyons beneath skies lit by lightning and darkened by rain.

The weather wasn’t so helpful, […]

Elizabeth, Beth, and I had a great time driving around the Willcox sewage ponds this afternoon, getting one of us a lifebird, one of us a state bird, and one of us (me) an Arizona year bird.
The adult Ruddy Turnstone continues, vigorously turning mud (and yes, the occasional small stone) as it waddled around the legs […]