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Bird Brains


At the AZ Sonora Desert Museum

The Cardinals at our bird feeder are lovely, but fairer still are their relatives who patrol the patio near the gift shop at the Desert Museum. 
They are like models, I suppose, strutting while the rest of us merely shuffle, or lumber about.  




Our decade in Minnesota taught me to love the Common Loon,
equally as beautiful, and like many another beauty, with a dreadful and unforgettable voice.

The merit of the Common Loon is its name.  It is impossible not to apply it to more deserving critters.


Birds have wonderful names!  The Greater Pewee, and the Invisible Rail.  Firewood Gatherer.  The Olive Warbler, which is neither olive nor a warbler.  The Lazuline Sabrewing Hummingbird.

The Tits deserve a paragraph of their own:  Tufted Titmouse.  The Sombre Tit, the Blue Tit, the Great Tit, and in a related family, the Agile Tit-Tyrant.  (It is neither modesty nor disinterest that causes me not to comment, but fear of retribution.)

Umbrella Birds, and Cock-of-the-Rocks.  The Paltry Tyrannulet, and the Spectacled Tyrant.  Nordmann's Greenshank, and Van Dam's Vanga.  (I intend to look up "Vanga" when I am alone.)

And whenever I hear, unexpectedly, the rolling chirp of a Roadrunner, I first look at my feet for the rattling sound, before I remember to look up and around for a bird.







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