Took a bird walk this morning around 8:30 a.m. with a visiting colleague from the East coast. More birds are beginning to return to the wash for spring—the wash was alive with song. We heard the same call I heard a few days ago, which I am feeling more certain is a Bewick’s Wren. It was no longer just a solitary call, we heard a number of them as we walked up the wash. Also the Verdins are getting more numerous. I think one of the hummingbirds we saw was a Blackthroat; it looked to me as if the color did not cover the entire head, and my colleague reported the purplish color. We saw a small hawk fly over the was as well. We also saw Anna’s Hummingbirds, Phainopeplas, Gila Woodpeckers, Mournign Doves, House Finches and House Sparrows, and heard Gambel’s Quail.

The photo shows my favorite spot in the return walk down the western side of the wash, when you turn a corner and that beautiful many-branched cactus appears, down a cool corridor fringed with palo verdes and desert broom.

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