In this post we will look at a colorful Bunting, Some Queen Butterflies, a couple of Barn Swallow Chicks, and a brown backed wodpecker. We will see some wildly colored feathered friends and show some interesting behavior for some shorebirds. Come along with us and have a look around.
This is a Great Blue Heron. They are quite common and are typically wading birds. You see them along the shallows in ponds waiting for a fish to swim by so they can pluck it from the water or looking for a frog leg supper.
This also is a great Blue Heron but we have never seen one that appears to be swimming. They do not swim as their feet are not webbed but this Heron certainly looks like he is trying. He waded across the pond and finally emerged on the far bank among the reeds.
This wild looking fellow is a Male Ruddy Duck and he is in breeding plumage. The bill is not the bright blue most of the year. He also uses it to thump his breast and make loud noises in a display to attract the ladies. Most of the year the Ruddy Duck is much drabber in coloration.
Here are two Queen Butterflies. They are a species found in the southern part of the US and in Florida and Mexico and further south. They are a strikingly beautiful butterfly
This is a Killdeer. It is a widely distributed shore bird found most often around ponds and bodies of water of all sizes. They have a characteristic large, round head, large eye, and short bill. They are part of a group of birds called plovers. They are especially slender and lanky, with a long, pointed tail and long wings.
They are similar in size to the American Robin, but with longer legs and wings. The Killdeer often makes a broken wing display which is a type of distraction intended to lead a predator away from a nest or it’s young.
Feigning injury, the bird hobbles a short distance, and then pauses while making a shrill, trilling sound. When the predator approaches, the bird quickly moves further from the nest, over and over.
This also is a Killdeer but it is doing an odd display. Not a broken wing as described above rather a fanned tail type of posture. We could not see a nest nearby or any young that needed protecting but it sure appeared the Killdeer was doing a display trying to distract us.
Here are two Lucy’s Warblers. They are small gray birds and do not get very far into the United States staying in Arizona and parts of Southern California. They are a warbler that uses cavities for nesting unlike most warblers that will build their own nests not using cavities. The female will build a nest in an unused woodpecker hole or any type of crevice. She will use twigs, straw, leaf stems and other items to build and line the small nest inside the cavity.
This also is a Lucy’s Warbler but it is a Male as identified by the reddish cap seen on the head. Lucy's Warbler was named in honor of Lucy Hunter Baird, the daughter of ornithologist Spencer Fullerton Baird. So if your dad is an ornithologist maybe you have a warbler named after you as well.
Here are two Barn Swallow chicks resting in the reeds beside a pond. They had been out catching bugs but tired from the chase and the heat. They needed the rest.
This is an adult Barn Swallow. Note the long deeply forked tail. They are the most widespread swallow in the world. They are a bird of open country that typically utilizes man-made structures to build their nest and raise their young, consequently they have spread with human expansion.
The Arizona Woodpecker has a brown back as can be seen here, which is very differnt from other Woodpecker Species in the Unites States.. Like many woodpeckers the male has some red feathers on his head while the female does not. Their distribution in the United States is limited to southern Arizona and part of South West New Mexico. It is mainly a Mexican species and prefers pine oak forests.
We titled this image cooperation. The four ants were dragging or carrying or somehow moving this moth down the sidewalk. They pretty much proceeded in a relatively straight line. It was not clear who was in charge but it appeared, through their cooperative efforts, that would get this large meal to their destination.
This Varied Bunting does not get very far into the United States. It is found in Southern Arizona, a small part of Southern New Mexico, and South West Texas close onto the Rio Grande. The male in this image is colored in purples and reds and blues, it is quite wild in its coloration. The female is a much less colorful, plain brown. The Varied Bunting seems to like deep brush and hides in and under trees somewhat secretively.
We hope you enjoyed the images and information in this post. Lots of different coloration in the variety of birds.
Please let us know if you have any questions or comments.
All the best – George & Deanna
