Birds and Why Not

On our way west, starting our trek back home, we stopped at Granny Macs Kitchen in Why, AZ. We had eaten here before when in the Why area earlier in our travels. They have excellent food. The little store next door is called “Why Not” and they have this sign on the front wall. The city of Why is a wide spot in the road between Ajo and Organ Pipes.

Just to the right of the Why Not store is this fountain. It is a neat old car spewing water in several directions. It is very well done.

Almost directly behind the fountain there is this wall mural, almost hidden back in a corner. Our guess is that it is depicting Dia De Los Muertos, Day of the Dead, a prominent Mexican Holiday. The colors are quite vibrant.

On one of our treks around the area south and east of Patagonia we took a back road over Canelo Pass. It is a fairly remote area. In a ravine, that was dry, there was a fascinating small flock of Western Bluebirds. This is the female of the species.  

The blue color on the male was a very vibrant color. You could spot them at quite a distance merely because of the strong blue coloration. The bird’s color was quite a contrast to drab greens and browns of this country.These are certainly Bluebirds.

Patagonia has one gas station. This is on the front of that Gas Station.

On our drive through Patagonia there was this sign in front of what looked like someone's home. Not sure I have any need for Camel Parts, new or used, cheap or expensive, fun sign nonetheless.

Here along the Colorado River waiting in a thicket of reeds perched above the river was this Belted Kingfisher. We never did see him dive for a fish but he certainly was watching. 

Black Phoebe are very common flycatchers here in Arizona. They are not the least bit shy and certainly more interested in getting something to eat than worrying about you.

We found this sign along a road out in Las Cienegas. It seems pretty obvious to me that if there is a horse in the road you stop, obviously that is not apparent to all drivers. Maybe it should be a drivers license test question. “If you see this animal (insert picture of a horse) on the road what should you do?”

We found this Greater White-fronted Goose up at the lake in Wilcox behind the Golf Course. We had not seen them before on this trip. There were also lots of Sandhill Cranes in the sky. Also on the lake were many Northern Shoveler, Widgeon, Coots and a variety of other water fowl. In the drier areas around the lake was a large flock of Horned Larks. Wilcox is near the northern end of the Sulphur Springs Valley.

We are, until February 14th staying for a few days at Buckskin Mountain State Park, it is right a long the Colorado River. Across the river is this large Eucalyptus tree that Great Egrets use for a roost in the evenings. The day after we took this image a crew came in and did a major trim job on the trees but the Egrets still came back in both that night and subsequent evenings to roost. There are four of the Egrets in the tree.

Ready, Set, Dive. This Bufflehead is going underwater to look for something to eat. Sometimes to get a decent image, timing is everything and luck certainly helps.

Here are 3 Greater Scaup. They are one of the many ducks that can be seen around. We saw quite a few of them on a recent visit to Bill Williams NWR just to the north of here.

This is a really common bird seen virtually everywhere. Fortunately it is aptly named and you should not have to guess regarding the birds name. It is a Yellow-rumped Warbler. How convenient for it to display the field mark that was used to name the bird.