This is my second post on Agua Caliente, the first was on April 5, 2025, on two birds in the air over Pond 1, the Violet-green Swallow and the Neotropic Cormorant.  In this post, I will cover some of the songbirds at the park - some seasonal regulars, others migrants. 

​Let's start with a winter favorite of the desert southwest, the Phainopepla.

The male is silky black with a flash of white on the wing, which can only be seen in flight, as shown below. The female is grey to brown with the same brilliant red eye.

Below, likely an immature male in flight, with a  black head, gray/black back and a hint of white in the flight feathers.  

Below an immature male captured at Sabino Canyon in December of 2022. Note that immatures have a hint of yellow on the bill, in addition to the incomplete body coloring.

It is rare in Tucson to see any two Phainopepla together, aside from breeding in the spring, when I have seen breeding pairs together. However, this month has brought a veritable Phainopepla convention to a water feature in our backyard in midtown Tucson.

The image below is one of hundreds I have captured recently of groups of as many as three males and 5 females all flocking around the water. This cluster of four are all in the same focal plane and sitting reasonably still! The difference in coloration of the males vs. the females is evident in the photograph.

For the photo geeks: These birds move very fast, and although the top of the waterfall is not that deep front to back, it is difficult to get a group in the same focal plane. I got lucky on this shot, they were close enough that at f/7.1 there was enough depth of field.

For the bird nerds: When it gets really hot, birds are drawn to running water in preference to feeders. Granted, both are a good idea for your backyard, but when it gets to 100 degrees, this fountain is a bird magnet! 

Phainopepla are year round residents of SE Arizona. They have two nesting cycles, the first in the sonoran desert between February and April, and the second beginning in May in oak and sycamore canyons where it is cooler and there is adequate fruit supply. It is uncertain if one pair breeds twice in two separate locations, or if some members nest early and some late, in different habitats.  (Ref: Birds of the World). 

For an example of early breeding, in March of 2019 a breeding pair nested in the far eastern end of Agua Caliente Park, right next to the utility yards. I was able to find one clear viewing lane that put me well away from the nest and out of sight, yet offered a clear path to mom and her nestlings. Below, mom sitting on ther nest. 

Below, mom looks down at a hungry chick. I was only able to identify one nestling, although there could have been a second off to the side.

I was set up well away from the action on a tripod. Mom started this feeding run with a clump of insects. Protein first for a growing chick! 

Above, mom pauses, then below hacks up a berry she has stored in her crop. Almost certainly a mistletoe berry that is abundant on trees in the park.

Above and below, mom feeds her nestling. 

Above, she pauses and below brings up a second berry. Yahoo! Two scoops for dessert! 

Let's finish up this section with images of an unusual male Phainopepla who by local reports wintered repeatedly in Sabino Canyon around the time of the photographs below, 2016. 

​This male is partially leucistic, a genetic mutation where the bird lacks melanin in certain areas, in this case the top the head and crest, creating a striking appearance. Note that the bird has the usual white wing patches, seen in the second photo, below and right. Partial leucism is in contrast to albinism, where there is a complete lack of melanin. (Ref: Bird Leucism, Avian Report). 

Yellow-rumped Warblers molt twice a year, once after breeding in the summer and a second time beginning in January on their wintering grounds in preparation for breeding. The western Audubon variant sports a yellow throat, yellow streak on the head, yellow patches on the flanks, and a yellow rump. The yellow-rump accounts for the common nickname, "butter butt."  Males and females are similar, although females may be more muted. This time of year the males are strikingly brilliant. 

Below at a suet feeder in our mid-town backyard this past week, we see three warblers, two Yellow-rumped Warblers on the left, with a Yellow Warbler sitting on the right. My guess is that the Yellow-rumps are probably both males.

The suet/nuts mixture is popular.*  In the images above and below, the upper male Yellow-rumped dives down for his share of the food showing off his breeding plumage including the bright  yellow rump. The male below shows off his yellow throat and flanks. 

* The mixture consists of ground peanuts, rendered suet, soy meal, dried mealworms, raisins, cherries and calcium. It is made by The Wild Bird Store at 3160 E. Ft. Lowell, in the shopping center on the SE corner of E. Ft. Lowell and Country Club, in the Winterhaven area.

The male on the feeder stands his ground, and his competitor eventually gives up his approach. 

The male at the feeder appears to get quite vocal! Note that the Yellow Warbler on the far side is oblivious to the ruckus.​

Birds are born to do four things: Eat (find food), don't get eaten (avoid predators), make more birds (breed), and molt! In addition to avoiding predators, birds will spend much time and energy fending off competitors, who compete for food, lodging (nesting sites), and mates. 

The minor kerfuffle seen here appears to be over food, but likely also over dominance during breeding season.

For the photo geeks: This series was shot on April 10th at 5:30pm in my backyard with the sun low in the sky. The house was casting a rapidly advancing shadow. The intruder dove into the shadow, while the intrepid suet defender stayed in the sun. There was not much I could do about the lighting! 

Above and below this male frantically hops from branch to branch for food, grabbing something in  his mouth in the process. This sequence of 8 images were shot over a span of 6 seconds.

For a review of warblers, worldwide and local, see my post from November 2020, Mt Lemmon October Wrap-up: Warblers, Woodpeckers, Vireos, and a Brown Creeper comes out of hiding.

For the photo geeks: This series was shot early in the morning in deep shadows, accounting for the high ISO. 

Below, three images of a male Lucy's in my backyard in midtown Tucson in June of 2021. We can see the cinnamon crown patch and rump in this series, shot in the late afternoon against a distant shaded background that fades to black with one stop of underexposure. 

And, just in case you were wondering who the other cavity nesting warbler is . . . .

That is all for now.
​Stay tuned - I have a trip to the Chiricahuas scheduled for next week! 

Happy trails! 

Spring is rolling into Tucson! A great place to follow the progress is Agua Caliente Park in the Tanque Verde Valley off of Roger Road.

This is the first of two posts on spring at Agua Caliente, this one focused on two species that I recently captured in the air over Pond 1.

Neotropic Cormorants are in the order Suliformes, seabirds found throughout the world's oceans. There are four families in this order: Frigatebirds (Fregatidae)  that grab food from other birds, Boobies and Gannets (Sulidae) that plunge into the water for their prey, Anhinga and darters (Anhingidae) that swim and dive for fish, and Cormorants (Phalacrocoracidae) that swim and dive for fish in both freshwater and marine environments. 

In North America there are six cormorant species, including the Neotropic, Tucson's "home team", a regular on lakes and ponds throughout the year. Neotropics live year round in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and south throughout Mexico, Central and South America. They were active in the air and on Pond 1 on March 22, 2025.   

​Above, a male or female (they look alike) circling the pond.  Below, preparing for a landing.

The Neotropic Cormorant has featherless yellow skin in a distinct pattern on the lower jaw and at the corner of the mouth. Its cousin the Double-crested Cormorant is larger in size, with yellow skin extenting over the eye. More on the Double-crested Cormornant later in this post.

Below, our subject stalls just above the water, tail down, webbed feet out in front. 

Below, splash down! 

Cormorants have feathers especially adapted to allow the entry of water, decreasing their buoyancy and facilitating underwater swimming for feeding on fish. This lack of buoyancy is clear in the frame below as our subject works to keep his head above water.

Below, a photograph of one section of a large flotilla of Neotropic Cormorants at Reid Park on February 17, 2017.  Being less buoyant, cormorants sit lower in the water with only the top of their backs evident. At times the long neck will look like  a snake, swimming upright in the water! 

If a cormorant's total body water gets above 6% of its body weight, it is too heavy to fly, and must climb out of the water and dry its wings. (Ref: What It's Like to be a Bird, David Allen Sibley, Knopf, N.Y. 2020)

​Below, a Neotropic Cormorant drys off at Agua Caliente on July 20, 2017.

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For more on spring migration on the Texas coast, See Birding Hotspots, Texas Coast.

The male neotropic picks the nesting spot, the male and female build it together. The nest and hatchlings are cared for by both the male and female. 

Below, a male and female Neotropic Cormorant at their nest at the rookery with their fledglings. 

In the sequence that follows, both parents feed the young by opening up their mouths wide for the offspring to venture down their throats and feed off of fish held in their crop. For birds like the cormorant that harvest fish underwater, this is probably the most efficient way to feed their young. 

Although we see the Neotropic Cormorant commonly in the Tucson area, the most abundant and widespread cormorant in the U.S. is the Double-crested Cormorant, shown above (Cape May, New Jersey, October 2021) and below (La Jolla Cove, La Jolla, California, January 2018). In Tucson we may see the Double-crested occasionally in migration.

​The Double-crested Cormorant gets its name from two distinct tufts of long white feathers, one above each eye, which appear only in breeding season, evident in the image below captured at the La Jolla Cove in January of 2018. In addition to the feather tufts in breeding season, the Double-crested Cormorant's bare yellow skin extends above and around the eye, evident in both photographs.

All totaled there are 30 species of cormorant world-wide, with 6 species living in North America: The Neo-tropic Cormorant that we see in Arizona, the Double-crested Cormorant, shown above, as well as four coastal species, Great Cormorant, Brandt's Cormorant, Pelagic Cormorant, and Red-faced Cormorant. 

The Great Cormorant lives along the Atlantic coast, the Red-faced on the Alaska coast,  with the Pelagic living along the Pacific Coast up into Alaska and west to coastal Asia. Brandt's cormorant lives on the west coast from Baja, Mexico up to the Alaska Coast. 

Below, an image of a Brandt's Cormorant sitting on his/her nest at La Jolla Cove in January of 2018. The bird is in breeding plumage with a vivid cobalt-blue throat patch and eyes with wispy feathers on the head.  Brandt's Cormorants nest and forage in the California Current and can dive deeper than 200 feet in pursuit of fish and shellfish. ​

The second species in the "Spring Agua Caliente Air Show" was the Violet-green Swallow. The morning of March 22nd there were multiple swallows feeding on insects over Pond 1. They were likely migrating north.      

Photographing any bird in flight is a challenge, but even more-so for swallows  who fly continuously and fast, darting and dodging to catch  flying insects in rapid succession. I was fortunate to get these images of the birds hustling over Pond 1. 

All swallows have long, narrow wings with a shorted boney arm structure and very long flight feathers to facilitate prolonged flight and rapid changes in direction. For more on wing and feather structure see David Allen Sibley's What it is like to be a bird. 

In this sequence she may be calling to her mate. In these images we can see the long pointed wings that when folded are longer than the tail.

Above the violet rump is evident, with white on the sides. Note that in the images of the swallows captured at Agua Caliente in March, the rump appears red, perhaps because of the angle of the light.

Colors in bird feathers are created by pigments, either carotenoids (red to yellow) or melanins (black to gray to brown to buff), combined with structural colors generated by the reflection of light off of specialized microscopic features of the feather. There is no blue pigment in bird feathers, rather blue is a structural color. Since violet is a combination of red and blue, it is possible that the rump color is a combination of pigments (carotenoids for red) along with structural color (for blue). If the angle of light is right (or wrong) red (pigment) may dominate over blue (structural) creating a red rump. (Ref: Sibley, What it is like to be a bird.)

In this sequence, either mom or dad arrives at the nest with food for the kids! 

The specialized wing structure with very long primary flight feathers is evident in the images above.

As April turns to May, keep your eyes open, there will be lots of nesting going on, perhaps including swallows in a few really good dead trees! 

That's all for now! 
Stay tuned, busy breeding season ahead! 

​Happy trails!