Recent Sightings

One of the species inexplicably missing from our desert yard is Greater Roadrunner. We’ve seen it as close as Pima Wash, which runs (and this time of year actually flows) just behind the house and crosses the road a scant quarter mile away; but the extravagant ground cuckoo has always avoided our yard, perhaps the […]

We bought a new thistle feeder yesterday, and were happy to find it accepted by the Lesser Goldfinches right away.

Today, though, everybody else found it, and the goldfinches have been hanging around on the margins of avian society, waiting for their greedier cousins to take a breath.
It’s the ground feeders who profit most from the […]

As the trees and bushes of the Sonoran desert green up with the monsoon, the softball-sized clumps near the tips of many of their branches become more obvious. Most people assume that they are witches’ brooms or some other pathology, but birders know: this is where the Verdins hang out.

These unsightly clumps of twigs and […]

What a great morning we had today! It started with the arrival of Darlene, Starr, and Marcee, right on time and smiling; by the time Alison and I had put on our boots and wandered out to greet them, scopes were already up and admiring approval uttered of a splendid male Purple Martin perched on […]

Intending to save the best for last, I decided to go to Bald Mountain and Mirror Lake on Saturday, the last day (for me) of the Utah convention. It was an early start, but well worth it as we stood in the morning light, scanning the snow cantilevered over our heads for movement.

Gray-headed (and a […]