A Pyrrhuloxia in Phoenix

There are a number of cardinal species in the Americas, with the brilliantly red-colored northern cardinal being the most famous in the United States. But the Arizona deserts are a year-round home to another cardinal, the pyrrhuloxia. Gray with red highlights, while sporting a pointier crest and stubbier beak than his famous cousin, he calls the American Southwest and the deserts of central Mexico home.

Phoenix doesn't get a lot of sightings of the pyrrhuloxia, unlike Tucson's surrounding deserts almost a hundred miles to the south. But a lone male seems to have taken up residence at the Desert Botanical Garden in the center of the metropolitan area's urban sprawl. He seems to thrive in the acres of habitat that showcase the world's heat-loving and drought-tolerant flora.

And this desert cardinal as he's sometimes called seems to be living at the northern-most limit of his species' range, providing a lucky chance for Central Arizona's birders to conveniently see a unique resident.