Feathered Friday - Two Arizona Birds

Here are a couple Arizona sightings for this #featheredfriday

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Here is a gila woodpecker looking ins some seed pods. I'm not sure if they eat them or eat the insects that might live in or around the pods.

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The pods serve as a nice platform for them to scout out other insects.

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It was a challenge trying to shoot between all the roughage to get good shots. Most of them ended up light this one. At least you can see its yellow underbelly feathers here.

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I spotted a nest too. This one pecked a hole in a cottonwood tree.

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I suspect maybe there was a baby in here but I couldn't get a shot of the little head poking out. Probably too young at this point.

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Little green hummingbirds were flying around wherever new wildflowers were blooming.

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This was about the clearest shot I got of one flying.

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I tried sneaking around to get a face shot of this guy but it didn't work out. They take off too fast to fight with other hummingbirds.
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You never know what bird might be peeking around the corner spying on you. This one might have been a drone keeping tabs on photographers.

That's all for now, thanks for looking :-)

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What an elegant woodpecker and quick flying hummingbirds.

Fortunately they are quite common in southern Arizona. Easy to find and good posers for shots.

The woodpecker has an interesting coloring, it looks like it's wearing a striped undershirt .

It has a nice bold pattern, and the red feathers on top of the head look like the red bellied woodpeckers I see in Illinois. Except this guy in Arizona has yellow bellied feathers.


Thanks :-)

The woodpecker's color is very beautiful, like the color of a zebra.

Kind of blends in well with mesquite trees too, though I mostly see them on other trees sticking out like a sore thumb. They also make holes in saguaro cacti.

The Gila woodpecker reminds me of a Northern Flicker. I think the hummingbird might be an Anna's hummingbird. We had them at our feeders in Cali.

When I was younger and just starting birdwatching I always thought Southern Arizona was chock full of Northern Flickers. But it turned out they were Gilas. I suspect you are right about the Anna's hummingbird. I first learned their ID in Glen Ellen CA, lots of them were hanging around in wine country.

The woodpecker encounter is very cool! ☘️

Thankfully it was my wife who spotted it and told me as I was focusing on a squirrel eating a flower lol.
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