Just think sometime of how many birds there are that non-birders never see. Everybody notices Snow Geese and flamingos, but it takes a specialized eye–and a specialized ear–to pick up on the presence of many of the most charming birds in the neighborhood.

This Black-tailed Gnatcatcher was buzzing his way through the palo verdes outside my workroom window on a warm day last week.

It’s a common enough bird in Tucson’s scrubby suburbs, but one that is rarely noticed–and if so, then dismissed as a Verdin or a hummingbird, I’d guess.

I have yet to discover a gnatcatcher nest in our yard, but everytime I see one of these voracious little guys, I hope.

After a stretch in which both desert cardinals seemed to avoid our yard, I’m happy that both Northern Cardinals and Pyrrhuloxias have returned to feast on the bounty we scatter each morning beneath the magical hackberries.

Distinctive as these two species are in plumage–from each other and from eastern Northern Cardinals–their voices can still confuse me. I’m getting better at it, but even so I have to check sometimes when I hear a bright chip coming from the foliage; I’ve got a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right just by guessing, but on a bad day my performance can fall below even the modest level predicted by mere chance.

There are worse things to have to do than sit in the yard on these warm spring days and practice Cardinalis calls, though!

There’s a great deal of movement among Tucson’s ponds this time of year. Warmer temperatures and stronger winds inspire a real restlessness in our wintering waterfowl, but before they take off for good, many of them do the rounds of the water features in city parks and in aquiprofligate gated “communities,” making it tough to find a given bird on a given day.

So it has been with this fine drake Wood Duck at Fort Lowell, apparently in part-time residence for several weeks now. Only Monday did I finally manage to catch up with him as he preened on the bank and occasionally dipped into the water with the remaining Mallards, American Wigeon, and handsome Ring-necked Ducks.

The historical status of Wood Duck in the southwest remains a puzzler to me. I know that the birds in central New Mexico are the products of an introduction half a century ago, but the ones that show up in southeast Arizona could as easily be of wild origin. On the other hand, the frequency with which “blond” birds and birds with clipped toes appear casts some doubt, emotional if not logical, on the wildness of the others, too.

The Fort Lowell drake has both halluces intact and flight feathers in good condition. His tameness might speak against him were it not for the fact that the wintering Ring-necked Ducks on the same pond mob passersby in the hopes that they come bearing bread! At least this pretty duck retains enough dignity to slip quietly into the water when approached too close.