BIRDS, continued

RARE BIRD FINDS

These sightings were reported, confirmed, and included on the Maricopa County Rare Bird Alert list. If you spot any of the following birds in Desert Mountain, consider yourself lucky for setting your eyes on these rare birds.

1.)Mountain Chickadee – The Mountain Chickadee can be found in the mountainous West. They flit through high branches, hang upside down to pluck insects or seeds from cones and give their chickadee call to anyone who will listen. Due to their usual high elevation habitat, a sighting in Maricopa County is rare.

2.)Broad-billed Hummingbird – The Broadbilled Hummingbird is a beautiful bird with the males having a vivid red bill, emerald body, and a glittering sapphire throat. Most of the species’ range lies in Mexico, but it reaches the mountainous canyons of the southwestern United States during its breeding season. Any sighting in Maricopa County is considered rare. A brightlycolored male was spotted hanging around the C/G Clubhouse last year.

3.)Wilson’s Snipe – Traditionally known as a shorebird, the Wilson’s Snipe is a medium-sized, pudgy bird intricately patterned with buff and brown stripes, short stocky legs, and a straight, long bill (several times the length of their head). They use that long beak to forage for earthworms and other invertebrates. They live in muddy pond edges, and other wet, open habitats. They can be found in Desert Mountain hiding among the reeds along the golf course pond edges in the winter. They are so well camouflaged, you often can’t find them until they move.

4.)Red-naped Sapsucker – The Red-naped Sapsucker is industrious with a taste for sugar. They drill holes in aspen, birch and willow to tap into the sugary sap that flows out. A presence of sap wells is a good indication that they are around, in addition to the wailing cries and stuttered drumming. Mostly found in the Rocky Mountains, a sighting in this area is rare.

5.)Elf Owl – The Elf Owl is the world’s smallest raptor. Not much larger than a juice box, the owl lives in dry, thorn forests, deserts, pine oak forests and riparian woodlands of the southern border of the United States and Mexico. They’ll often nest in old woodpecker holes and similar cavities. At night, they emerge to hunt insects and other small prey. Elf Owls can be found in Desert Mountain in the summer. Considered uncommon, but if you’re lucky, you can hear it call during summer nights.

6.) Western Tanager - The Western Tanager is brightly colored with reddish-orange, yellow and black feathers. These birds live in open woods all over the West, particularly among evergreens, where they often stay hidden in the canopy. Nevertheless, they’re a quintessential woodland denizen in summertime, where they fill the woods with their short, burry song and low, chuckling call notes.