As we go through the barren "stick season" in Vermont and see only a few hardy local birds, it is fun to think about what might be waiting for us out west. Here are a few of the photos I took of birds we encountered in Arizona. They are fun to look at anytime but especially on a cold windy damp night like this evening.
Last year, the first bird I saw at Gilbert Ray County Park, which is just outside Tuscon, was the Phainopela – which was a life bird. They are desert flycatchers and with their flashes of white on their wings, are fun to watch. They also are pretty songsters.
A few days later on the first morning at Patagonia Lake State Park, I saw these two Cinnamon Teal cruising along not far from shore. They were a handsome couple.
This Red-shafted Northern Flicker was one of many I saw. I also saw their cousin, the Gilded Flicker.
Northern Cardinals are vivid out here – as they are in the New England snow. It is a lot easier photographing without frozen fingers.
We plan to spend a longer time in Arizona this trip and hit some spots we have never visited. I’m getting psyched.
Have you figured out what dates you’ll be in Patagonia? That was my favorite birding place ever.
Not yet — likely mid-February. We loved it last year – great new coffee shop in town, lots of birding options.
That sounds nice… I never left the camp while I was there, nearly one week. A storm finally drove me down to warmer climes.
As you know, I rather tend to let the birds come to me, and there, they did. I was camped on the northern outside of the circle and sitting and reading with my doors open, a verdin flew in and perched on my coffeemaker! It was a lifer for me. I also saw my first broad-tailed hummingbird there, at the feeder I hung just feet from that door. Another lifer. I was hooked.