Photo ABCs

Yellow-headed Blackbird

Perhaps female Yellow-headed Blackbirds find the song of the male enticing. Many birders have compared the raucous sound to a bird being strangled... Here is a male singing, photographed in Sierra Valley in June of this year.

Rock Wren

The same Rock Wren as in yesterday's post, photographed earlier this summer in the Bristlecone Pine Forest of California's White Mountains.

Rock Wren

A Rock Wren, photographed earlier this summer in the Bristlecone Pine Forest in the White Mountains of California.

Western Tanager

Earlier this summer I spent one week in the California Sierra Nevada, north of Truckee near Sierra Valley. I will be posting a few photos from this trip in the coming week.

Here is male Western Tanager. I was walking next to a stream and he landed in a bush right next to me (too close for a photo!) and then flew up to the moss-covered branch in a beam of sunlight. Look closely and you will see an insect in his mouth, so he is likely returning to a nest.

Coyote

I will take a break from posting Arizona photos, at least temporarily.

I recently visited the Idyllwild Nature Center, one of my favorite spots to photograph southern California mountain birds. During the short time I was there, I found few birds willing to pose, but a pack of three coyotes sauntered through the area. I followed them, and took this picture of one while it crossed into a shaft of light in the dark forest.

Flower

I don't know the species name, but this small flower was photographed at the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve in Patagonia, Arizona.

Costa's Hummingbird

This is probably a juvenile Costa's Hummingbird. Photographed at the Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Preserve in Patagonia, Arizona.

Black-chinnned Hummingbird

This is likely an immature Black-chinned Hummingbird. Photographed in Miller Canyon, near Sierra Vista, Arizona.

Northern Cardinal

The Northern Cardinal is one of my nemesis birds (a very common bird which seems to elude my camera). This was as close as I got to one on my recent trip to southeast Arizona. I like how the eye is framed by the leaves, but I will have to return to Arizona, or further east where they are more common, for a better picture.

Is it just me, or does the bird in this picture seem molded by El Greco??

Pyrrhuloxia

A Pyrrhuloxia atop a saguaro cactus, in Saguaro National  Park, west of Tucson, Arizona.