Arizona once again in 2024...

Went to Arizona in late February and had a great time catching up with the western birds.  The birds were showing up in pairs this year.

Pair of Gila Woodpeckers before they descended to the suet feeder.

They live in a hole in this cactus at the neighbors house.

Later a pair of Ladder-back woodpeckers showed up.  These are mostly all every day visitors to my sister's backyard.

The female Phainopepla 

The male phainopepla.  Beautiful birds with red eyes.

This Costa's hummingbird is very striking with its purple face mask.  It had a couple of perches nearby it liked to visit so I got quite a few photos of it,  but had trouble getting the face color.

A glint of the purple in this one!

The Lesser Goldfinch male.

The little Verdin showed up every day to see if there were any fresh trumpet vine flowers to pierce and get the nectar.  Not much was blooming yet so he didn't have lot of choices.

A pair of Curved-billed Thrashers

Abert's Towhee....a very drab bird.  

Gamble's quail male standing guard while the flock was eating.

Such fat funny little birds.

The female

A Round-tailed Ground squirrel

Vermillion Flycatcher....one of my favorites.  Fortunately we find it every year in the same park picnic grounds.

Cactus wren.....he was up on this wire just singing his heart out.

A pair of them visited at the house, as well.

Gila woodpeckers out rank cactus wrens at the feeder.

Pied-billed Grebe

Finally!  A shot of the purple face mask on the Costa's.  So stunning!

And the Verdin is back doing his "vampire" act again

I believe this is an Anna's hummingbird.  I can see the face mask but not the color which should be red.  But it is a smaller mask than the Costa's and other things point towards Anna's.

A small herd of deer jumped out to surprise us while we were walking a trail through the desert landscape.

Roadrunner up in a tree taking a sun bath.  Apparently this is common behavior.

Sure looks funny to watch it.  There were a pair and they ran off soon after I took the photos.

Making a mad dash across the road.

This one visited my sisters front door area.

And a little scenery below to end with.

I love the poppies!

Lupine

Ocotillo 

Arizona...

We are currently in Arizona and I finally got a photo of my "nemesis"....I've tried to get a photo of this bird for years!

A Roadrunner!

....the lizard was a bonus!

Short-eared Owl!...

 Very seldom do I ever see an owl and even less often can I get a decent photo.  One evening last week we went to an area where Short-eared Owls were reported.  We were about to give up when Mike spotted one sitting right at the edge of the field next to the road we were on!  It sat there and posed like it didn't even care we were there!  I was very thrilled!

I just love the eyes!  So gorgeous!

It sat there patiently and just kept swiveling its head back and forth.

A profile

Across the road one lone deer was grazing.

More recent finds....a Harrier hunting and sitting on the ground, as well as some nice ducks...

 I've had some lucky encounters lately.  A local birding group reported that there were some interesting ducks at the local soccer field lake, so we went to check it out.  Not only were there Canvasback and Redhead Ducks, but there was a Harrier sitting in the field and skimming it for prey.

I've never seen one sitting where I could get a photo before.

And....take off!

Skimming over the field.

Canvasbacks

Redheads

There was one Ring-billed Duck mixed in.