Photographs of Pygmy nuthatch & plain titmouse and the birds on the Arizona desert and other parts of the state

titmouse

birdfotos.com

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TID-BITS

03-06-06

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Wanting to get out of the extremely dry and polluted air of the Phoenix area
I headed north toward the Grand Canyon's South Rim and the COCONINO PLATEAU.

I don't know which is worse, the polluted Phoenix air; or all of the tourist at the South Rim of the Canyon :-)).

Therefore on this trip I decided to spend time driving the dirt roads in the forest just south of the
Canyon's South Rim and just South of Tusayan a few miles off State route 64 and then West on road 306.

I was told to check out the TANKS. HUMM, tanks,
I started looking for metal tanks with water in them. I didn't know if they
meant big tall round metal tanks or low open top tanks with water in them.

Much to my surprise neither of the above tanks were correct.
I soon found out that a tank up here is no more than a big scraped out hole in the ground
to hold run-off water from the rains and snow melt.
I guess a tank could be anything that held something, thus qualifying a large
depression in the ground no matter how it got there as a TANK.

Many of the tanks were dry, parched, cracked dirt, and no water.
This also meant no wild life would be coming to drink so I kept on driving.
Some of the tanks were numbered and some named as you will see.

After several hours of being driven around with by my friend Don we came across this tank
with a smidgen of damp mud in the bottom of the hole, well, maybe just a bit more than a smidgen.

Inasmuch as there was no water any where else we started to see birds immediately coming in to drink.
Get out those cameras and let's start taking photos I said as I jumped out of Don's vehicle almost before it had stopped.

And this is what it called

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A very small bird kept playing under my van and when popped out I photographed it.

I think this is a plain Titmouse.

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Snuggling back into my blind I thought I would watch the limb out in the mud hole for a while.

Pygmy Nuthatches

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One very nice Pygmy Nuthatch flew in.

Inasmuch as they very seldom travel alone I was wondering where the others might be.

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About that time a pair of Robins joined the Nuthatch on the log.

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This Pygmy Nuthatch is really inspecting this log.

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AND, then it happened. It started raining Pygmy Nuthatches.
They came in from every direction and lit all over the place. Some were so close to me I could not photograph them.