New Birds in the Neighborhood Patch

There are three new species to report in the Palo Verde Neighborhood for 2014! On Sunday I went on a bike ride, exploring some streets that I hadn't seen before. I had despaired of finding a cactus wren in the neighborhood, even though there seems to be plenty of little patches of cholla cactus for them to build their nests in. These patches seem all to be full of curve-billed thrashers.

However, on Sunday I located a pair of cactus wrens on North Chrysler Drive. Funny thing was that there was not a patch of vegetation there of the sort I associate with cactus wrens. I'm betting there's one nearby though. I didn't get a photo of them because I was shy about pointing the camera at a house whose owner I didn't know. But more about cactus wrens can be found here at AllAboutBirds.org.

Male house sparrow in front of a hole in a saguaro

On North Dodge Blvd., south of Seneca, I pulled into the parking lot north of the high school--near the pool--to look in some patches of vegetation. There was a saguaro there growing next to a tree. For a while I watched the house sparrows enter the holes in the saguaro--one female had nesting material in her bill at one point. In our urban areas often non-native house sparrows and starlings dominate the saguaro holes that might otherwise be used by native species.

White-crowned sparrow

There aren't a lot of white-crowned sparrows in our neighborhood this winter but there are a few, and I found one feeding on the ground near the same saguaro. I had to photograph it through the chainlink fence since there didn't seem to be any way to enter the area from the parking lot.

Then I heard a whistle. I immediately knew it wasn't something I'd seen before in the neighborhood. It was a Say's phoebe. This is a phoebe found from Alaska to Mexico but restricted to western states in the U.S. It was too far in to get a good photo through the fence, but again go here for a photo and more information.

Say's phoebe likes open spaces--much like the vermilion flycatcher that's also found around the athletic fields north of the high school. Schoolyards and parks with lots of open grass and trees or fences to perch on seem to work well for both of these species, with both also tolerating somewhat drier areas as long as there are bugs to eat. These two species are closely related flycatchers.

Black phoebe on a wire over a neighbor's yard, visible from my yard

A third flycatcher closely related to vermilion flycatcher and Say's phoebe is the black phoebe. It is not usually found in schoolyards and parks in Tucson because--of the three--black phoebe likes the wettest environments. It's usually found around streams and ponds where there is actually surface water, and the kinds of bugs that are associated with wet areas.

Black phoebe, poorly lit but clearly showing the upside-down
V where the black breast and white belly meet

Imagine my surprise then when, sitting in my back yard last this afternoon, I heard and then saw a black phoebe. It was over the wall of the yard hunting and perching on wires and branches in the back yards of two neighbors. How did it find its way here? I'll be watching for it to see if it sticks around or moves on in search of happier hunting grounds.

List of 30 bird species in the neighborhood so far in 2014:

Gambel's Quail
Cooper's Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove 
White-winged Dove 
Mourning Dove 
Great Horned Owl
Anna's Hummingbird 
Broad-billed Hummingbird
Gila Woodpecker
American Kestrel
Black Phoebe
Say's Phoebe
Vermilion Flycatcher
Common Raven
Verdin
Cactus Wren
Curve-billed Thrasher
Northern Mockingbird 
European Starling 
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Abert's Towhee 
White-crowned Sparrow
Northern Cardinal 
Pyrrhuloxia 
Great-tailed Grackle
House Finch 
Lesser Goldfinch
House Sparrow