Looking for Something to Eat

We are presently staying at Lost Dutchman State Park in Arizona. It is near Apache Junction on the east side of Phoenix. There are a lot of great birds here and wonderful hiking trails. The mountains are the Superstition Mountains where the legend of the Lost Dutchman Gold lives. We will not be looking for the gold this trip. In this blog we will show you some birds, some in conventional poses and habitats and some in non-conventional situations.

This is a Brewers Sparrow, a little brown bird of the desert. They are very common here in Arizona, though not so much at Lost Dutchman this time of year. The white back ground was from a pool that the park has put in place to provide water for wildlife.

Here is an Anna’s hummingbird. We had shown one in an earlier post. We have a hummingbird feeder up and we are having a tremendous amount of activity. Lots of birds are getting nourishment from the feeder.

This is a Female Costa’s Hummingbird. The male has quite different coloration and we will try to get an image of them as we travel about. The Anna’s has become a bully at the feeder and is chasing any other hummingbird that tries to get some nectar. This Costa snuck in briefly.

Not every bird that comes to the feeder is a hummingbird. This is a pair of Gila Woodpeckers, denizens of the sugar water as it were. The male has the red cap. They can take the feeder down really fast. Amazingly the bully Anna’s did not try to chase the pair off the feeder. We guess that discretion is the better part of valor even in the bird world.

This is just a fun image. I tried to get a picture of the Anna’s while he was sitting in the Palo Verde tree. He was way back in and hiding, obscured through the branches.

I apologize for the quality of this image. The bird was a long ways off. It is a Gilded Flicker so named for the gilded color or yellow under his wings. I just wanted to show you the under wings that you don’t often see. They are very similar in other markings to the Northern Flicker up at home.

We also have a Niger (thistle seed) feeder hanging. The finches really like the Niger seed. Here is a male Lesser Gold Finch that is on the sack. There were house finches and a lot of Lesser Goldfinches eating the Niger seed.

Unfortunately there are also other birds that will latch onto the hanging sack and feed. Here is an Abert’s Towhee that is normally a ground feeder. Guess it is best to eat where you can find the food.

Not to be left out of the party, the Cactus Wren decided not to pass up a free and easy meal. Not sure how the sack will hold up with all this non finch activity.

Since we mentioned Cactus Wren, here is an image of a Cactus Wren in the cactus. This is prickly pear cactus and he seemed perfectly at home flitting about in and amongst all the thorns.

Here is a Black-throated Sparrow on a Cholla Cactus. They really are a beautiful patterned bird and extremely common in this part of the desert.