A close call for my AZ continuity… on June 21 I had a pair of Cedar waxwings enter the yard and go to the watercourse.  And, unlike most such incidents, I had time to retrieve my camera from the house and seat myself very near the watercourse.  The waxwings chose not to linger on my staging sticks so I didn’t get the kind of photos I felt needed to be posted immediately, so I’m continuing with Arizona.

While in Portal I was made aware of a pair of Arizona woodpeckers‘ nest hole in a dead tree, so I staked it out with a considerable sacrifice of both time and comfort.  I was rewarded with the parents making several trips to the nest that I was able to photograph.  I was amazed that the adults could squeeze into the small nest hole, turn around inside and emerge head first.  These photos are both of the male.  (I believe that this woodpecker used to be known as the Strickland woodpecker.)

Here’s a photo of the woodpecker looking out the nest hole… 

This is a photo of a Black-throated sparrow and I was very happy to get it.  As it was we had several sightings and I was able to obtain several photos of a quality better than I had hoped.

I photographed this male Blue-throated hummingbird in the Portal, AZ area.  It’s the largest hummingbird in North America.

This White-breasted nuthatch was in Madera Canyon back on the west side of the mountains.

In writing this blog, I have to have a field guide on my lap due to some unfamiliarity with some of the birds I photographed.  This is especially true of this bird… a male Phainopepla, a striking flycatcher of the southwest deserts.

An unidentified female hummingbird feeding on a blooming ocotillo plant.

At our final destination in Tucson, a resort golf course, I was surprised to find a very habitable wildlife habitat.  I discovered two Cactus wren nests, one of which is pictured here.  I would have to say that this nest is about as safe from predators as nests can be made.  I just wonder how many chicks are lost in fledging.

The place we were staying just outside Portal had a very heathy population of Acorn woodpeckers and most had already laid claim to holes in the many large trees on the property.  These birds are simply adorable and fairly tolerant of human presence.

You might assume that this woodpecker has a hole in the side of a tree, but to obtain this photo I had to lay on my back and shoot directly overhead.  The hole was in the bottom of a large limb and this woodpecker is hanging its head out looking down at me.

The facility where we stayed had a lot of feeders out and attracted a lot of birds, but the conditions were rather poor for photography.  However I did manage to photograph this Scott’s oriole in the vicinity of the feeders.

One of the nicer features of the place we were staying was that each of our cabins was provided one or two platform feeders with sunflower seeds, and I moved our feeders around to take advantage of sunlight and places from which I could photograph.  Here a Pine siskin sits in the area of one of the platform feeders.

A Lesser goldfinch…

Here’s a Bridled titmouse, a bird found only in a narrow range in NM and AZ.  I think this one is having a bad hair day!

There’s a very generous birder who lives in or just outside of Portal who shares his property with the public for birding purposes and maintains several different feeders and watering stations.  He even provides a picnic table, chairs and a shade tree for birders!  There are many species of birds that can be seen on his property.  Pictured below are Western Scrub-jays at his viewing area.

A bird I really came to appreciate, and which I have rarely seen on my travels, is this Green-tailed towhee, also at the aforementioned viewing area.  The harsh lighting doesn’t do this bird justice.

And finally (remember, there is always a ‘finally’), this Great Horned owl had a nest in a cavity of a tree at Portal’s only restaurant.  Not to worry… I’m not nearly as close as it appears!

It’s been an exciting spring for photography.  I’ve traveled to AZ, TX and Winthrop (WA) on birding expeditions and have been hampered in my photo processing by wanting to record visitors to our own yard in Anacortes.  The diverse flow of migrants to our yard has slowed and I’m hoping that I will now have more time to devote to processing what is a very large backlog of photos from my trips.  The photos appearing in this blog post were taken in Arizona on April 10 and 11.

We were staying at a B&B just outside of Sierra Vista and this seemed to be the predominant hummingbird on the premises.  I’m very much outside my range of bird identification knowledge in AZ but I believe that this is a male Broad-billed hummingbird.

There were many female hummingbirds in the yard and I didn’t even try to sort them out.  Here is one of the females of an unknown species.

The B&B featured a wetland area and I photographed what I hope is a Marsh wren adjacent to the pond.

This Vesper sparrow was also beside the pond…

A Western Scrub-Jay also visited the property…

Moving on towards Portal, AZ, we saw this Horned lark on a fence beside the road.  Not a great photo, but those of us living in western Washington don’t get to see this bird and you have to admit, it is interesting-looking!

Our accommodations at Portal were inundated with Acorn woodpeckers.  This is a male and a very cute bird that’s fascinating to observe.  All of the ones we saw were paired and already in nest holes… you’ll probably see more photos in my next post.

Some fellow guests at our accommodation site alerted us that a full moon would rise behind the surrounding cliffs.  I couldn’t resist including this photo of the moon rising.

As I mentioned in a prior post, we have begun to see the results of a successful breeding season in the area.  And thus far it’s even more successful because we have yet to see any cowbird juveniles in the yard.  Interestingly, all of the juveniles we’ve seen so far are the product of year-round residents, which presumably had an earlier start at breeding and nest building.  So this post will feature some of the juveniles we are seeing in the yard.

Here are photos of juvenile Pine siskins, the first sitting on a branch and the second being fed by an adult.

This is a Dark-eyed junco (Oregon race) that has been around the yard for a week or so now. It has been operating fairly independently almost from the day it arrived.  I have one photo of the parents in attendance but after that day the juvenile has been on its own with no attention from the adults.

If it were not for that first photo I took I would have had a difficult time determining the juvenile’s identity.  I think this is the cutest of the juveniles we have.

Here’s a juvenile House finch begging Dad for food…

And later after the parent has left.

A juvenile House sparrow…

And several photos of the male Downy woodpecker feeding a juvenile male suet.  Interestingly enough, I haven’t seen the female involved in any feeding activity.  The juvenile male finally managed to access the inverted suet feeder after two tries about 5-6 days after these photos were taken.

In this photo the young woodpecker joined the father on the peanut feeder but was only obtaining food that he was fed by his father, not directly from the feeder although the food was right in his face!

I saved this photo because of the story behind it.  The young Downy had been sitting on this branch being fed by its father.  Its father was away from the perch when a crow flew into the yard.  The young woodpecker, already mindful of its safety, immediately moved to put the branch between himself and the crow. 

I was only able to spend about an hour and a half in the yard late on the afternoon of June 2, but I obtained some very nice photos of some of my visitors.  I’m just going to post some of the photos I took without much explanation.

Male Bushtit…

White-crowned sparrow…

Female Brown-headed cowbird.  (I later saw the male through the kitchen window.)

European starling…

Male American goldfinch…

Spotted towhee.  I’m fairly certain that this is a male but I sometimes have difficulty distinguishing the sexes of the pair I have in the yard unless I see them together.

And just about when I had given up on warblers, I had an Orange-crowned warbler and a male Yellow-rumped warbler (Audubon’s) visit the yard in fairly quick succession.

These weren’t the only birds I photographed and of course they aren’t the only photographs I have of the birds I did photograph.  Habitat rewards!