Thanksgiving Fowl

We’d planned a day trip to the Gulf of California today, but waking to heavy rain, we decided to stay home instead. Late in the afternoon, the skies lightened a bit, so we went into Tucson for a walk around Reid Park.

The roses were even more beautiful after the rain.

And we agreed that this one offered the best combination of color, form, and fragrance.

The birds enjoyed the brief dry spell, too. The bare ground beneath the rose bushes was covered with lovely White-crowned Sparrows, among them at least one black-lored oriantha, a subspecies normally rare at this season this far north. Every once in a while, the spirit would overcome them, and they’d burst into song, buzzing and whistling at the tops of the zonotrichian lungs.

The rain was more welcome to some of the other common park residents.

Great-tailed Grackles were patrolling the moistened ground, and were having a ball in the newly filled ditches.

Of course, the weather was water off a duck’s back to others. A drake Canvasback:

And a drake Ring-necked Duck, even showing his brown collar:

Both species were vastly outnumbered by American Wigeon, grazing nervously on the lawns and whistling on the water:

It’s a fine time of year to be in the desert!