Some Birds at the Feeder

We are in Quail Ridge RV Park just north of Sierra Vista in South Eastern Arizona. These images were taken out the window of the trailer. We are parked on a corner of the RV Park with no one beside us to the west and no one behind us. We have set up bird feeders and oranges at the back of the trailer.

The images here show some of the birds that have been seen coming into the feeder. Some birds were in the trees coming in and some were on the fence line next to the trailer. As you will see we have a seed feeder, some oranges skewered on a tree, a suet cage and a niger sock. There are also birds on the ground picking up the many scraps that are dropped.

In the tree up behind the feeder was this Common Raven. It is a different and somewhat interesting image. The raven is just starting to leave. They always seem to leave when you point the camera at them.

This is a male Ladder-back Woodpecker feeding on the suet feeder. The female of the species would not have the red coloration on the head. We have only seen the male while here, the female is certainly somewhere close by

They can hang upside down and feed, interesting position.

In Arizona you see a lot of Cactus Wren; they are quite common and very noisy. They will sit high in a tree and chatter at length.

They also come into the feeder and eat seeds but they really seem to like the suet.

The small gray bird is a Black-throated sparrow. They are a very common desert dweller in the south west. We have seen four of them in at once on the seed feeder.

In this image there are 9 Chipping sparrows at the feeder. There were a few more in for breakfast but they are all not shown in the image. These sparrows will migrate north in the spring and the rusty looking cap on their head will turn red in color.

This is a Canyon Towhee. He is sitting close to the feeder on a post top for the fence. These also are another common desert bird and are grayish color overall with markings around the face and a rufous color under the tail.

The Curve-billed thrasher are seen almost everywhere around here. They have a wonderful call and song, very beautiful to hear. Note the piercing color of the eye. They will eat from the seed feeder, the oranges, and will tear into the suet feeder.

This Lark Sparrow did not come into the feeder but stayed in the trees around watching the goings on. The facial markings are quite striking and unique making this sparrow fairly easy to identify.

This bird is often called a Desert Cardinal because it looks a lot like a Northern Cardinal. This is a Pyrrhuloxia and this is the male of the species which has quite a bit more red coloration than the female.

Notice how drab and void of strong coloration this bird appears. It is a female Pyrrhuloxia.

These birds, true to their name, run around in the RV Park. This is a Greater Roadrunner. They are not seen all the time but are neat to watch when they do show up.

These ground feeders are Gambel's Quail. They look similar to California Quail but have different markings. There have been 6 of them under the feeders searching for the scattered seeds dropped from the feeders.

Some of the doves will come in and feed on the seed that is scattered on the ground. We have Mourning Doves as well as this White-winged dove seen here.

We don’t often see this bird at the feeder. They are fairly common but feed mainly on bugs and insects and work the surrounding trees. This Yellow-rumped warbler probably came in close to the feeder to see what all the goings on were about.

This small gray bird with a yellow-gray-green head is a Verdin. We see them frequently at the feeder and they are common throughout the Southwest.

The Verdin especially likes the oranges and will devour the contents of a quarter of an orange in no time at all.

The white bag is a Niger Seed Sock. You fill it with Niger seed which is a very tiny black seed that the finches really like. The yellow and greenish colored small birds are Lesser Goldfinches and they hang on the bag and pull the seed out. They can go through a lot of seed in a quick hurry.

The reddish bird in the upper left is a House Finch and we have another image of them next.

Here is a pair, male and female, of House Finches. The male is the reddish colored finch in the back. They will eat from the seed feeder, the niger sock, and here we see them on an orange.

This White-crowned Sparrow is predominately a ground feeder and here we see the sparrow staying in a tree out of the feeding fracas.

This gorgeous red bird does not come into the feeder but we see it often in the trees around the RV Park. It is a Vermillion Flycatcher and fairly common bird in the south west. Their diet is mainly insects and bugs which they grab out of the air or capture on the ground.

When we were at Wilcox Arizona looking at birds around the water settlement ponds behind the golf course this large flock of Sandhill Cranes were flying around. Something had startled them from their afternoon roost spot. We just thought this was an interesting image of some birds even though they were not at our feeder.

One last non bird image - Just to clarify the weather here in Southern Arizona, it is not all warm days and blue skies. The above image was taken on February 12th from the kitchen table. Some mornings it is cold for both us and the birds.

That concludes our brief look at some of the birds coming into the feeder here in Southern Arizona. We are hoping to see some additional and different birds come through in March as the migrating birds head north for their breeding season.

We hope you enjoyed the look at some of these birds, many are quite common and certainly seen at your feeder as well, while others are limited to Arizona and the southwest.

Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.

All the best – George & Deanna