Ducks aren’t the first avian group most birders think of when they think of the Sonoran desert, but the diversity of waterfowl species here in the winter is matched only by their concentration: because water is scarce here, the birds mass in big numbers on whatever ponds and puddles they can find. Many of them [...]

Never have I been so close to Northern Pintails as in Tucson’s Reid Park. Mid-February–just about the time the first birds are arriving on their Great Plains staging grounds–seems to be the best season for them, and drakes and a few hens can show up on the smallest, most urban ponds, where they quickly adopt [...]

Ideas? The photo was taken in southeast Arizona last week.

A post-prandial stroll anywhere in Tucson can be counted on for a flycatcher or two. This time of year, the commonest are also two of the prettiest, one a feathered ember, the other shaped of reddish clay.

Vermilion Flycatchers are common enough, but demanding in their habitat choices, stubbornly refusing to leave the cemeteries, irrigation ditches, [...]

There’s nothing like a walk in Reid Park or Fort Lowell to break up a day at the office. This time of year, both localities are full of flashy, colorful birds, but somehow I always find myself lingering over the icterids.
Brewer’s Blackbird is exclusively a winter resident here in southeast Arizona, where it tends to [...]