It's been well over a month since I last visited my cabin in Prescott. After a fifteenth consecutive year of bidding adieu in the early autumn, I knew I would miss the birds that inhabit the pine and oak trees that surround my forest retreat. No more bridled bushtits and juniper titmice until at least the spring. However shortly after I returned to Phoenix full-time, a quite familiar Prescott bird, a ladder-backed woodpecker, started paying regular visits to my desert hummingbird feeder for the very first time.
This woodpecker is common in my neighborhood and the wide expanse of desert that encompasses Phoenix. But the black and white creature is also quite common in Prescott where the elevation is over a mile high, creating a much colder and wetter climate: a welcome reprieve to the desert's unrelenting summer heat. Interestingly, the ladder-backed seems to be the one and only woodpecker species that calls both environments a year-round home. The flickers that also inhabit both biomes are actually two different species: the gilded in Phoenix and the northern in Prescott.
While gilded flickers and Gila woodpeckers frequently visit my Phoenix hummingbird feeder, the female ladder-backed woodpecker that's been visiting over the last several weeks is the first individual of her species I've ever seen imbibe. Like in Prescott before one munches on my suet feeder, she calls out in a slow metronome of sharp tweets. When they ring outside my home office window in Phoenix, I know she's arrived.
Another new local bird that has been stopping by my Phoenix back yard since I decamped from Prescott is a Say's phoebe. While I see plenty of these flycatchers on runs across my neighborhood golf courses, I don't recall every seeing one in my yard, and definitely never under my covered patio. The buff-colored, pink-bellied bird appears to be curious about something: my stationary ceiling fan, lamp sconces, a reflection in the sliding glass doors?
While I don't witness the same menagerie in Phoenix that frequent my Prescott home, thanks to sugar water and occasional handouts of sunflower seeds, I do see additional unique and interesting local birds on a regular basis. In fact - I can't be certain - I suspect in some cases the same individuals are returning throughout the day. There's one lone male cardinal along with a pair of scrappy Abert's towhees that beg for seeds almost simultaneously. Occasionally a curved-bill thrasher appears in the melee and demonstrates who's at the top of the pecking order. Of course, there's one, and only one, striking male Anna's hummingbird in control of the sugar water feeder.
Meanwhile, coveys of Gambel's quails scurry in lines along the top of my block wall, broadcasting their whining caws. Verdins investigate every branch of my lysiloma tree, feasting on bugs in between gentle peeps. Right now, white-crowned sparrows are visiting for the winter season, filling the neighborhood with long, whistling calls. Every once in a while a Cooper's hawk upsets the harmony, its appearance launching mourning doves into noisy escapes and house finches into frantic flights of terror. A strange quiet follows, peaceful in its stillness, but disquieting in the momentary pause of my back yard's playlist.
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| Female ladder-backed woodpecker in my Phoenix yard. |
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| Female ladder-backed woodpecker in my Phoenix yard. |
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| Say's phoebe in my Phoenix yard. |
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| Say's phoebe in my Phoenix yard. |
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