November birds in Southern Arizona

Pictures of some common birds in the area around Portal, Arizona. And some landscapes. November 2007. Portal is situated in the South-East of Arizona, at the feet of the Chiricahua mountains and in between two deserts. It is a well-known birding hot spot. See for instance the description given here. I have been in SE Arizona before and made pictures, see here and here. November is not the best month for birding in this area, but it is still pretty decent and the landscape is very pretty with autumn colors.
Autumn colors at Ramsey Canyon.

I don't know what species of Maple this is but the autumn color is quite spectecular.
I start with birds at Cave Creek. This White-crowned Sparrow is abundant here in winter.
Cactus Wren.
Canyon Wren, very pretty.
Same bird.
Next images are of woodpeckers, this is an Arizona Woodpecker, a real forest bird.
Northern Flicker. You see and hear them a lot, but they are shy and difficult to take pictures of. This bird is a female.
Ladder-backed Woodpecker, a bird that we see mostly in open landscape. This bird seems to have seen something.
Red-naped Sapsucker. There is white on the chin, which makes this a female. The white nape is unusual according to Sibley. The Juniper tree attracts many birds.
Cedar Waxwing.
Juniper Titmouse, one of those little birds that never sit still for more than 0.01 second. Fortunately, the camera needed only 0.00125 seconds to take the photo.
Michael's feeders attract even more birds than the Juniper. This is a White-breasted Nuthatch.
This cute thing is the red-breasted cousin of the previous bird. Very shy and fast moving.
Same species. We had some of them there, which was a bit surprising as they are supposed to be at higher altitudes.
Yellow-eyed Junco.
At night, when most birds are asleep, Michael's feeders attract other animals, like this Striped Skunk.
Same species, though it's unstriped.
Here is a spectacular bird.

They may have a sense of humour.
They seem to be quite sociable and nice animals.
We visit Whitewater Draw, near Bisbee.




The Vermillion Flycatcher is here in winter.

On the way back to Cave Creek, we see this train.
As of here, I show birds that you see in the desert. In particular, San Simon Valley, a valley shared by Arizona and New Mexico. We see 2 quails in this area, this is Gambel's. Abundant.
And this is Scaled, aka Cottontop. Less common.
Pyrrhuloxia. The desert cousin of the Northern Cardinal.
Crissal Thrasher, the rare one. People come to this place from all over the USA to add the species to their life list. Compare with Curve-billed (next image): longer bill, longer tail, black stripes in white throat, paler eye, rufous under tail, greyer overall, no trace of white wing marks.
The very common Curve-billed Thrasher. To our surprise, it dominated the larger Crissal at the feeders.
Phainopepla, very nice.

Another Pyrrhuloxia, nicely in the evening sunlight.
And another one, eating berries.
The Loggerhead Shrike is common, often sitting in high places. We see them often at State Line Road, the road at the border between Arizona and New Mexico.

One second after I took this picture, s/he jumped down and put the insect on a thorn. It all went too fast, too bad I missed it.
Cactus Wren is also here.
Meadowlark sp., probably Western. No white malars, sides dotted, not streaked.
Black-throated Sparrow, picture looks a bit like a painting.
The San Simon Valley and beyond, seen from the Chiricahua mountains.
Sunrise over the valley.
A storm seen from State Line Road.
A favorite desert bird. I always thought they are very clever with traffic but this time, two got almost killed by cars I was in.

It has seen something.
Scrub Jay, nicely fluffing up for the photo.
Raven sp., probably Common Raven. In this area you see also Chihuahuan Raven. Whereas most birds here are more spooked by a fast car than a slow one, the ravens show the opposite reaction. They get worried especially when the car stops. Higher IQ?
Another Cottontop.
A hawk flew over, the whole Cottontop group went into hiding, huddled together. You can count 5 of them here. They stayed hidden for a long time.
Maybe this was the hawk that scared the Cottontops, though I admit that there are many possibilities, the Red-tail is very common here. As Michael observed, telephone poles must be a real boon for these birds.

A juvenile RT at breakfast.
It looks as if it has indeed caught a quail, difficult to see what species.
I end with a rare bird, a White-tailed Kite. Quite spectacular.