Winter holds on, even in southeast Arizona, but spring can’t be held back. This was the snowy scene from our yard just a couple of days ago.

But spring has made its inexorable advance, and the faces of round-tailed ground-squirrels have started to appear above ground again.

Things just happen faster in the desert!

It was still plenty cold yesterday morning when Poppe and I set out to prove that the Catalina State Park Rufous-backed Robin had in fact moved on for good. Though we missed that target, there were numbers of common birds around the trailhead parking lot, foraging actively in the chill of early morning.
This Rufous-winged Sparrow [...]

I noticed on reading the latest Nebraska Bird Review that the records committee no longer seeks documentation of Inca Dove in that state, and that, for the first time, Eurasian Collared-Dove was dismissed in the summary report with a terse “Routine reports.” Wonder what the next columbid invader will be–Red-billed Pigeon, anyone?