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.
Abert's Towhee....a very drab bird.
Gamble's quail male standing guard while the flock was eating.
A pair of them visited at the house, as well.
Gila woodpeckers out rank cactus wrens at the feeder.
Making a mad dash across the road.
And a little scenery below to end with.
