Chiricahua Mountains of Southeast Arizona

I spent two days in the Chiricahua Mountains of southeast Arizona. Today, I thought I would share with you the woodpeckers I was able to find and photograph:

Acorn Woodpecker

Downy Woodpecker

Arizona Woodpecker

Gilded Flicker

Ladderback Woodpecker

A few more from Ash Canyon

One of the other delights from Ash Canyon are the woodpeckers. Often you'll see the Arizona Woodpecker, the Ladderback Woodpecker, the Acorn Woodpecker, and the Gila Woodpecker. Here are a few photos from my trip the other day:

Acorn Woodpecker

Ladderback Woodpecker Female

Ladderback Woodpecker Male

Chiricahua Mountains - a few more

Lots of trees means lots of woodpeckers. The main ones are the Acorn Woodpecker, Arizona Woodpecker, and Ladderback Woodpecker. I didn't get a very good photo of the Arizona Woodpecker this time but the others were okay:

Acorn Woodpecker

Ladderback Woodpecker

Florida Canyon, Arizona

A quick trip yesterday to Flor --- ee -- da Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains got me a little excited. I went because there had been reports of  Rufous Capped Warblers. These would have been a wonderful find. Like some of the small flycatchers, many of the warblers have very similar plumage and can only be correctly identified by their song. However the Rufous Capped Warbler is unmistakable. This is a rare visitor to the US with only occasional sightings along the Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico borders with Mexico.

It reminded me of the movie The Big Year (2011) which is about birders and birding. I could just see Owen Wilson hearing about the Rufous Capped Warbler and immediately dropping whatever he was doing, drive to the Minneapolis Airport, taking the next available plane to Tucson, renting a Jeep, driving to Florida Canyon, getting out of his Jeep, finding the Rufous Capped Warbler before reaching the trailhead, taking a photo, jumping back in the Jeep, driving back to the Tucson Airport, taking the first flight back to Minneapolis, driving to his office, and updating his bird finding list   --- all in the course of two hours. But, as any birder would tell you, IT'S JUST NOT THAT EASY!!!!!!!!!!! The Tucson Audubon Rare Bird list comes out weekly. There are other birding lists that are updated daily, but often a sighting is at least a day or two old -- maybe a week old. And usually they don't tell you precisely where the bird was sighted, or what time of day it was sighted. And, even if it did, birds often don't hang out in precisely the same spot every day all day long. They often move around and often move up canyon as the day gets warmer.

So, it wasn't the first time I went out looking for a specific bird and not finding it. Reminds me of another quote from the movie Zero Effect:  "When you go looking for something specific, your chances of finding it are very bad. Because of all the things in the world, you're only looking for one of them. When you go looking for anything at all, your chances of finding it are very good. Because of all the things in the world, you're sure to find some of them."

So, I didn't come home without any photo.  Here are a few photos from Florida Canyon:

Dusky Capped Flycatcher

Gray Flycatcher

Arizona Thristle

Ladderback Woodpecker

Ash Canyon Revisited

A quick trip down to Ash Canyon to see if the migrating hummers had arrived yet. And, while the answer was "no" I was able to get several other nice photos:

Acorn Woodpecker

Bushtit

Ladderback Woodpecker

Rufous Crowned Sparrow

Scott's Oriole

Spotted Towhee

White Crowned Sparrow

Return to Ash Canyon

Ash Canyon has proved to be a great birding spot for the past month. Barring any important interruptions, I'll cover the various species for the next few days. Today, the Woodpeckers. An Acorn Woodpecker showed up and and wanted to have his photo taken. I had not seen one there before -- but, I am sure they are occasional visitors. I find them more in a little higher altitude. Next the Arizona Woodpeckers, both male and female. They have a wonderful milk chocolate back made of fine corinthian leather -- I mean feather.  And, as always the Ladderback Woodpeckers, again male and female posed for photos. There were also Gila Woodpeckers, but we have so many of them here at the Azure Gate, I passed on trying to photograph them. Anyway, here are todays photos for you:

Acorn Woodpecker

Arizona Woodpecker - Male

Arizona Woodpecker - Female

Ladderback Woodpecker - Female

Ladderback Woodpecker - Male

Ash Canyon Part II

Yesterday was the Arizona Woodpecker, today the Ladderback Woodpecker. The Ladderback is found in much of the Southwestern US, throughout Mexico, and as far south as Nicaragua. It is one of the smaller woodpeckers at 6 inches which means a bit smaller than a Cardinal. As you can see the male has a bright red crest on the head. As I was at Ash Canyon on Tuesday, both the male and female seemed to have a favorite tree they kept boring into. So I sat myself down about 10 feet away and waited. It wasn't too long before they came back and gave me some very nice photos:

Female Ladderback Woodpecker

Male Ladderback Woodpecker

woodpeckers: Part VII

Another Woodpecker we see occasionally here at The Azure Gate is the Ladderback Woodpecker. When they come around, they usually come in pairs. The Ladderback is fairly common in the Southwest Sonoran or Scrub Desert environments. Its range extends north to the extreme southern tip of Nevada as well as southwestern corner of Colorado. Its southern limit is Mexico and Central America as far as Nicaragua. Like most other woodpeckers in the southwest the Ladderback bores holes into tree trunks and saguaro cacti both to hunt for insects and to create a nest. And, like the other Arizona woodpeckers feeds on fruit produced by cacti. Below are photos of both the male (first) and female (second) taken here at The Azure Gate:

Male Ladderback Woodpecker in African Sumac

Female Ladderback Woodpecker in Mesquite Tree