On Tuesday, January 25, after Dale Birkenholz and I finished birding at Patagonia State Park and Paton's Yard, Dale and I returned to his home at the Canoa Vistas. Dale had mentioned that the desert scrub surrounding the golf courses and homes in his neighborhood were very good for desert birds. So I asked him if we could bird the area for a while until my family picked me up. Dale agreed and seemed as energetic and enthusiastic as he had that morning. So we set out with a new vigor to locate some desert birds near Dale's home, and we would not be disappointed with the birds that we would see, nor with what more we would see.
Walking from the road into the scrub, I photographed this House Finch. These birds were as numerous in Dale's neighborhood as they were at the Green Valley Country Club. We were hoping to see some Gambel's Quail as we walked along the edge of the golf course, but we saw a pair of Phainopepla instead shown below. The Phainopepla have been described as black or gray Cardinals, but they are actually members of the Silky Flycatcher family. They are tall birds with crests similar to that of Cardinals and bright red eyes. The female of the species is gray, while the male is black. These beautiful birds can be seen perched in the trees along the road as you drive through Green Valley. It was wonderful to see them up close.
If you read my last blog, you are probably wondering what Dale and I saw near his house other than birds that day. Well here is your answer. This pig-like creature of the Southwest is called a Peccary. When I saw this animal, I called it a wild pig, but Dale set me straight. Although it resembles a pig in many ways, it is not a member of the pig family as it has many anatomical differences. The local name for these animals is "javelina," pronounced "havelina." There were probably over 25 Peccaries running around in the scrub, including the babies, which I saw but was not able to photograph. The babies followed closely behind their mothers at all times. The Peccaries seemed very affectionate. I'm not sure if this was actually affection or grooming.
As Dale and I started heading back, we got some good looks at this Verdin. We did finally see some Gambel's Quail off in the distance. They were too far away to see very well or to get very good shots. I did take this one shot of a male Quail shown below the Verdin, and I managed to get another shot of a Green-tailed Towhee--my favorite bird of the day--and one of an adult White-crowned Sparrow--the last bird of the day. When Carrie saw the picture of the Green-tailed Towhee below, she said that it looked like it had a red mohawk.
On Thursday, after birding with Dale at Madera Canyon, I asked if I could explore the same area a little more to try to add something else and get some more pictures. Dale showed me where to go, and I headed off toward the scrub. One of the first things I saw was this Greater Roadrunner walking around on one of the greens on the golf course. What makes the Greater Roadrunner entertaining to watch is that it moves a little bit like the Roadrunner on Looney Tunes. It runs a little bit. Then it stops and looks around. Then it runs a little bit further and stops. It is hard to watch long without laughing. Unfortunately, I did not see a Roadrunner kill a songbird while I was in Arizona, but I have seen this on Youtube. This is also somewhat comical unless you are the songbird. The Roadrunner takes the songbird and bangs it on the ground over and over again.
I saw some new birds for this location that I had seen earlier in the week such as Pyrrhuloxia. I followed a flock of at least eight of these birds for several minutes, but had a hard time getting close to them. This picture of the female in the cactus was the best I could get. The males were far to wary to allow a good shot. This was my first time seeing a Lark Sparrow (below) at this location. The Curve-billed Thrashers had been almost everywhere I went, but this one, also shown below was in a good position for a shot so I took it.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this Rufous-winged Sparrow walking around in the middle of a Cactus. I saw a few more before my walk was over. The rufous on the wing can be most clearly seen in the last Rufous-winged Sparrow picture below. These Sparrows are easy to confuse with Chipping Sparrows, which were extremely common in the valley, or Rufous-crowned Sparrows.
Although I missed the Cactus Wren the first time I birded at this location, there was no shortage of them this time walking around on the cacti and on the ground by the road. At times these beautiful Wrens looked to me like miniature Roadrunners.
I followed a flock of White-crowned Sparrows and Green-tailed Towhees without getting any good pictures. They were moving around pretty fast. I did photograph this Abert's Towhee, but I did not even realize what I had photographed until I was looking through my pictures later in the week.
I chased Gambel's Quail around for a long time, but could not get a better picture than this. I could not believe how quickly the Quail would run underneath the scrub. I even got some cactus quills in my shoes, fingers, and legs because I was trying to follow them around and was not paying close enough attention to where I stepped.
When I photographed this Canyon Towhee, which was roosting for the longest time, I did not realize I was cutting the bottom of his tail out of the pictures. Notice this bird's bill is crossed.
This Verdin was scurrying around near the Canyon Towhee alongside a Bewick's Wren, which was moving too fast to photograph. Finally, when I got back to Dale's home, I saw my first and only Costa's Hummingbird at his feeder. If I had not birded in Dale's neighborhood, I would have missed out on a lot of species and a lot of pictures.
Written and published on March 2, 2011
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