On The Road – Albatrossity – Ash Canyon, Day 2

The backyard of the former B&B has some hummingbird feeders, but also seed feeders in a nice wooded habitat. One of the seed-seekers was this spiffy male Lesser Goldfinch (Spinus psaltria). A much less abundant and less-studied congeneric of the familiar American Goldfinch (the state bird of New Jersey, Iowa and Washington), this species has been expanding its range northward and eastward in recent decades. So maybe one will be in your neighborhood at some time in the future! Click here for larger image.

Another seed-seeker was this Bridled Titmouse (Bæolophus wollweberi). These little cuties are one of my favorite Arizona birds, but this one looks like it partied a bit too hard the previous evening. Click here for larger image.

I often see Blue Grosbeaks (Passerina cærulea) in my swath of Flyover Country, but they are nice to see anywhere anytime. This male is in a transitional plumage (don’t tell DeSantis!), and by the end of this molt will be more quickly recognizable as a full-fledged adult male. It takes two years for a male Blue Grosbeak to achieve fully adult plumage, and some of the in-between stages can be a bit raggedy looking, like this one. Click here for larger image.

Another member of the genus Passerina, this adult male Lazuli Bunting (Passerina amoena) is the western counterpart of the Indigo Bunting, and hybrids of those two species do occur in regions where the species coexist. This one skulked around the back of the yard most of the time I was there, but finally perched in the open long enough for me to get a decent picture. Click here for larger image.

Although for birders in the USA it is mostly an Arizona avian specialty bird, the Mexican Jay (Aphelocoma wollweberi) can also be found in a few places in the Big Bend region of Texas. This species is non-migratory and very social; a family group of 5-25 individuals defends a common permanent territory. Within that group one or more of the females “may breed simultaneously and somewhat monogamously”, and the young are cared for by the other members of the flock. The oak woodland behind the Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary is perfect habitat for this species. Click here for larger image.

There are lots of flowers planted to attract hummingbirds at Ash Canyon, and this flaming red one was a favorite. Here is a Broad-billed Hummingbird nectaring on flowers and ignoring the many hummingbird feeders. Click here for larger image.

Those flowers also attract insects, which in turn attract insect predators like this little lizard. It was wolfing down a dark skipper butterfly when I took its picture. I believe that this is a Desert Grassland Whiptail Lizard (Aspidoscelis uniparens). As you might have guessed from the specific epithet, this is an all-female parthenogenetic lizard. There are no known males, although the females do have courtship rituals and pseudo-copulation behaviors similar to those in related species. Again, this is not a situation that your average GOP voter or presidential candidate would be happy about. Click here for larger image.

The hummingbird feeder along the back fence of the sanctuary was the best place to see another destination bird, Rivoli’s Hummingbird (Eugenes fulgens), formerly known as Magnificent Hummingbird. This is a very large hummingbird by North American standards, and among hummingbirds found in the USA, it is the second largest (Blue-throated Mountain-gem, aka Blue-throated Hummingbird, is the largest). This is a female, who is frankly less magnificent than the male, but the male was being coy that day and I got no decent photos of him. Click here for larger image.

I spent some time later that day looking again for Montezuma Quail, Scaled Quail, and Greater Roadrunners. I did find the latter two species, but they skedaddled before I could focus on them. I also came across many Western Kingbirds (Tyrannus verticalis), Bizarrely, this species of the western US was originally called the Arkansas Kingbird, despite the fact that its historic and its present breeding range does not include that state. Go figure. Click here for larger image.

The evening was highlighted by a nice set of thunderheads and a lovely rainbow against the Chiricahua Mountains. Since I only had my telephoto lens with me, I had to figure out how to shoot this landscape and sky with that lens. This is the result. Click here for larger image.