Phainopeplas in the Biltmore

It's not every weekend I look up into a back yard tree and find a new bird.  After four or five years of avid birdwatching, there are fewer and fewer surprises in my Phoenix neighborhood.  Nonetheless on Saturday I spotted my very first phainopepla in the area, and it was in my yard's lysolomo tree.

Over the last couple of weeks, I've actually been paying a lot of attention to what birds are not in my yard.  Winter visitors like a lone Lincoln's sparrow and several white-crowned sparrows have probably already begun their migrations north.  Meanwhile a pair of northern cardinals have stopped indulging in my sunflower seeds.  However a  male does occasionally whistle a mating song from a couple of houses away, apparently in vain as there never seems to be a female in the vicinity.  

On my trips out of the city into the undeveloped desert, phainopeplas are frequently some of the first birds I see atop the palo verdes along the road.  They are members of a small New World avian family, the silky-flycatchers.  The phainopepla is the only species that ranges into the United States, where it resides in the Southwest.

They are sleek, active birds, so when I saw one in my back yard, I first thought it might be a mockingbird.  The noisiest of birds, the mockingbird is similarly sized, prone to comparable animated aerial displays, and - most importantly - abundant.  But the visitor was colored jet black, reminding me of the equally numerous great-tailed grackles, starlings, and brown-headed cowbirds: three other dark birds that regularly appear in my neighborhood.  However, the new bird's crest unmistakably defined it as a phainopepla, and a male at that because of his inky color. 

Unfortunately, I wasn't quick enough with my camera to get any good shots.  As a result I was eager to explore my community to see if any of these birds were still around or had actually taken up residence.  With camera in tow two days later, I headed to some of my favorite birdwatching spots: all easy walks from my front door.  It turns out finding phainopeplas was a cake walk; after ten minutes, across Lincoln Drive in the shadow of the peaks at Phoenix Mountain Preserve, I encountered at least two of the birds.

Not too long after, closer to my house and the Biltmore Resort, I discovered two more.  The first set seemed to be a male and a female.  With the second, I can only be sure of the female, as she alighted on the ground and allowed me to snap some good photographs.  

With beady red eyes and light brown coloring, she was an excellent subject thanks to the bright morning light.  What are the chances my three sightings were of three separate pairs of phainopeplas?  Is it possible these desert denizens are becoming city slickers?  Well, nature is full of surprises - even outside my back door - so I have to wonder.

Female phainopepla in the Biltmore, Phoenix.

Female phainopepla in the Biltmore, Phoenix.

Male phainopepla in the Biltmore, Phoenix.

Male phainopepla in the Biltmore, Phoenix.