Scrub jays: check. Acorn woodpeckers: check. Nuthatches: check. Juncos: check. All birds are present and accounted for on another June day at the Prescott cabin as their familiar songs and calls give away their identities before I can spot them.
However I theorize that May might be a more active month than June for bird sightings in the area for a couple of reasons. For one, the weather starts to warm up after a winter of freezing temperatures. That's when I start making regular trips to Prescott where I spend most of my time outdoors re-familiarizing myself with the native bird population. But more importantly, it's the height of spring migration so a number of tanager and grosbeak species, to name just a few, pass through en route to area breeding grounds.
Once monsoon activity brings quenching rain to the area in July, bird sightings seem to pick up again as some species like rufous hummingbirds stop over as they make their long migrations back south. In addition, recently fledged nestlings, like bushtits in large flocks of extended families, add to the overall bird count.
But in general, June is mostly a month of ho-hum sightings around my neighborhood, where it would be easy to keep a roll call of the couple of dozen species you can predictably spot on any given day. So I was pleasantly surprised when I hiked up to the National Forest near my neighborhood and had some first-time sightings of phainopeplas before I had even placed a foot on the trail.
I observed a pair of birds flying closely together as they darted from tree top to tree top along the park's border. Distinctive white wing patches stood out in flight which helped me quickly identify the phainopeplas. At least two of them foraged along the start of Trail 317 for at least an hour since I noticed them at both the beginning and the end of my roundtrip morning hike.
To be perfectly honest, I have seen phainopeplas in Prescott before. Several years ago I was struck by the beauty of two or three male birds, with their glossy black feathers, regal crests and beady red eyes, when I hiked the northeastern trailheads at Granite Mountain Wilderness ten miles away. And around four years ago a lone male spent a day noisily scavenging in a thicket of trees in my next door neighbor's front yard.
He was difficult to see through the branches, but a couple of quick glimpses and frequent tweets helped me identify him. This week's birds made similar calls and harkened back to that first time neighborhood encounter. But on this occasion, there was at least one female present; she's the splitting image of the male except for a duller gray coloring.
One picture I snapped shows a male feeding the female in a courtship ritual not uncommon with many bird species. So my mountain community might have summer guests in the form of this nesting pair of silky-flycatchers, which is the familiar name for this small family of birds.
Phainopeplas are quite common in the open deserts of Arizona, where they thrive in the hot, dry climate. They find enough trees and vegetation in damp washes where they can forage for berries and feed on insects. And this week's sighting reminded me that they also migrate to higher elevations, close to 6000 feet, where they find pleasant breeding grounds in the scrub oak and pinyon pine trees just a few steps away from my own summertime escape.
However I theorize that May might be a more active month than June for bird sightings in the area for a couple of reasons. For one, the weather starts to warm up after a winter of freezing temperatures. That's when I start making regular trips to Prescott where I spend most of my time outdoors re-familiarizing myself with the native bird population. But more importantly, it's the height of spring migration so a number of tanager and grosbeak species, to name just a few, pass through en route to area breeding grounds.
Once monsoon activity brings quenching rain to the area in July, bird sightings seem to pick up again as some species like rufous hummingbirds stop over as they make their long migrations back south. In addition, recently fledged nestlings, like bushtits in large flocks of extended families, add to the overall bird count.
But in general, June is mostly a month of ho-hum sightings around my neighborhood, where it would be easy to keep a roll call of the couple of dozen species you can predictably spot on any given day. So I was pleasantly surprised when I hiked up to the National Forest near my neighborhood and had some first-time sightings of phainopeplas before I had even placed a foot on the trail.
I observed a pair of birds flying closely together as they darted from tree top to tree top along the park's border. Distinctive white wing patches stood out in flight which helped me quickly identify the phainopeplas. At least two of them foraged along the start of Trail 317 for at least an hour since I noticed them at both the beginning and the end of my roundtrip morning hike.
To be perfectly honest, I have seen phainopeplas in Prescott before. Several years ago I was struck by the beauty of two or three male birds, with their glossy black feathers, regal crests and beady red eyes, when I hiked the northeastern trailheads at Granite Mountain Wilderness ten miles away. And around four years ago a lone male spent a day noisily scavenging in a thicket of trees in my next door neighbor's front yard.
He was difficult to see through the branches, but a couple of quick glimpses and frequent tweets helped me identify him. This week's birds made similar calls and harkened back to that first time neighborhood encounter. But on this occasion, there was at least one female present; she's the splitting image of the male except for a duller gray coloring.
One picture I snapped shows a male feeding the female in a courtship ritual not uncommon with many bird species. So my mountain community might have summer guests in the form of this nesting pair of silky-flycatchers, which is the familiar name for this small family of birds.
Phainopeplas are quite common in the open deserts of Arizona, where they thrive in the hot, dry climate. They find enough trees and vegetation in damp washes where they can forage for berries and feed on insects. And this week's sighting reminded me that they also migrate to higher elevations, close to 6000 feet, where they find pleasant breeding grounds in the scrub oak and pinyon pine trees just a few steps away from my own summertime escape.
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| Female phainopepla at the start of Trail 317 in Prescott. |
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| Female phainopepla in pinyon pine tree on Trail 317 in Prescott. |
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| Male phainopepla feeding a female near the start of Trail 317 in Prescott. |
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| Female phainopepla on Trail 317 in Prescott. |
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| Female phainopepla on Trail 317 in Prescott. |
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