The sun was just disappearing over the Tucson Mountains, the Catalinas deep purple, when I turned home tonight from the post office and grocery store. As I lowered the sun visor in the car, it occurred to me that the same last rays of sunlight that were making me blink were probably warming a Western Screech-Owl in his saguaro cavity roost. And sure enough, there he was, eyes closed against the glare and feathers raised in gratitude for the warmth.

Here in our yard, our beautiful new owl box is still unoccupied, but I’m sure it won’t be long before one of the locals moves in again.

The damp drizzlies haven’t affected the action at the hummingbirds feeders at all. A glorious male Costa’s Hummingbird has set up house at one of them, and he has divided his time all day between sucking down the sugarwater and singing his little zippy song from the nearby oleanders. Don’t know about the females, but I’m impressed!

The weather, the light, and the birds this time of year in southeast Arizona often remind me of a midwestern spring: the temperatures warm, the skies often dull, and the birds full of song.

I stepped outside this morning to the wonderful sounds of Mourning Doves and Cactus Wrens, the one sympathetically lamenting the failure of the other to get its vehicle started. Curve-billed Thrashers and Anna’s Hummingbirds chanted and scritched, and as I stood enjoying it all, that tri-tone whistle that truly means spring drifted out of the mesquite above my head: the Verdins are singing! It’s only hours now, I’m sure, until a neighbor or a friend stops me: “I’ve been hearing this bird….”

Spring means warblers, too, of course, and Darlene and I supplemented the usual wintry complement of Audubon’s Warblers with a late-afternoon jaunt to downtown Tucson. Like lilacs in a midwestern May, the African sumac filled the air with what is literally an intoxicating fragrance, but I awoke from my vernal stupor long enough to enjoy the star of the unprepossessing little patch of mesquites and salt cedars. A flash of black and white caught Darlene’s eye, and soon she, Vita, and I were enjoying good looks at a male Black-throated Blue Warbler, my first for Arizona and all that was missing to make this mock spring complete.