Yellow-Eyed Junco

Before leaving for southeastern Arizona, one of the birds I really wanted to see was the yellow-eyed junco. Those yellow eyes really jump out from what is otherwise a fairly unremarkable bird. I was walking with my guide, Jake Thompson, in Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains. We'd been on a trail as high as we were going to go at the end of the canyon and had started back. Jake spotted the junco and I twisted myself in knots trying to get a photo of it. The junco went from the ground, where it had a nest, up into a tree, then into another tree, and another, then back to the ground, to the nest, then back up into a tree. A couple of other nearby birders, friends of Jake, laughed at my contortions. Referring to my moves, one of the birders remarked that that was the reason he left his camera at home. Ultimately it landed on the ground quite close to me and I rattled off a bunch of photos. That time it was on the ground, so close to me, those yellow eyes staring back at me like the Turkish evil eye (albeit it the wrong color), were intoxicating. As I finished the photography, Jake and I talked about those eyes for awhile as we walked down the trail. 

This photo particularly jumps out at me. That eye, centered in the middle, dominates the photo. 

Note that it is collecting materials for its nest. 

There are four subspecies in three morphologically distinct subspecies groups. I saw ssp. palliatus, referred to as the Mexican junco. It is found from southeastern Arizona and extreme southwestern New Mexico south to northern Jalisco east through Chihuahua and Coahuila to San Luis Potosi and southwestern Tamaulipas. The head is ash gray, the mantle deep chestnut, the rump gray, the belly and flanks white and the outermost rectrix white. The other subspecies groups are the Chiapas junco and Guatemala junco. It primarily inhabits pine and pine-oak forest and also scrublands and brushy pastures and fields in the upper subtropical and temperate zones. One 2006 field guide notes that it is found from 4,100 to 11,500 feet in elevation and a 2020 publication says it is mostly found above 6,600 feet in elevation. That is probably about where we were when we saw it. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. Note that this junco, like so many other southeastern Arizona birds, is basically a Mexican and Central American bird, with a slight blip into southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. 

Lucifer Hummingbird

On my recent trip to southeastern Arizona my guide Jake Thompson scheduled time at Ash Canyon Bird Sanctuary, in Hereford,  south of Sierra Vista and near the base of the Huachuca Mountains, primarily for the purpose of seeing a lucifer hummingbird, because that is a place that has been regularly seeing them. I was not disappointed as a female came to the hummingbird feeders first, then was later followed by a male. It is also known as the lucifer sheartail. 

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World.

The males really pop out. 

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World. It primarily breeds on the arid plateaus and mountain slopes of central and northern Mexico, entering the U.S. in west Texas, southeast Arizona and southwest New Mexico. 

Rivoli Hummingbird

Toward the end of May I spent three days in southeastern Arizona on a birding trip. That area is a birding hotspot and I encountered lots of hummingbird feeders. One of the birds I came to love was the Rivoli hummingbird. I first encountered it at the hummingbird feeders at Santa Rita Lodge in Madera Canyon in the Santa Rita Mountains. For quite a while I was watching it without realizing what it was. 

This is what it looked like at the feeders. This photo has not been cropped or worked on in Lightroom. A very black head with spider man eyes and long black sword bill. I was looking for a hummingbird with a purple crown and green throat. 

This may or may not be the same photo, but it is cropped and lightened in Lightroom. A pretty amazing change. 

Then get it in better light and watch out - it is eye poppingly gorgeous. 

The adult male is bronze-green on the back and the head is black apart from a white spot behind the eye. The chest is bronze green and the belly is grayish. The female is bronze-green on the back, a dull gray in front and a white stripe behind the eye. 

The female is not as beautiful, but is very striking. 

Illustration of a female from Birds of the World.

Illustration of a male from Birds of the World.

Range from Birds of the World. Note that it only has a small range in the U.S., in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico. It is also found in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. 

This is a favorite. 

Canyon Towhee

On February 20, 2025, with my son Sam, up Arch Canyon in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument in southern Arizona, I saw my first canyon towhee. 

Warm reddish brown crown and undertail. 

It often has a dark spot in the center of the breast. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World. There are ten subspecies. Ssp. mesoleucus is the most widely distributed U.S. ssp. - found throughout central and southern Arizona lowlands, except the lower Colorado River valley, the Grand Canyon, the lowlands of New Mexico and extreme western Texas, south into Mexico to northern Sonora and northern Chihuahua. 

Bachman's Sparrow

On May 12, 2024 I was with my sons, Sam and Andrew, on the Patsy Pond Nature Trail in Carteret County, North Carolina, near the Atlantic Ocean. Sam is very interested in woodpeckers and was looking for the red-cockaded woodpecker in the pine forests that are found there. I photographed a sparrow and identified it as a song sparrow on iNaturalist. I had two different identifiers disagree and labeled it as a Bachman's sparrow. 

It is most common in mature, open pine forests, and was called the pine-woods sparrow for years. It is now rare in many areas it used to be common. It now is found in restored pine lands managed for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. 

It is endemic to the southeastern U.S. Range from Birds of the World. 

Abert's Towhee

Abert's towhee is almost entirely located in Arizona, but for a small bump into California, a sliver of Nevada, a small bump into Utah, New Mexico and a small sliver and bump into portions of Mexico. It is concentrated in the lower Colorado River and Gila River watersheds. It looks quite a bit like the California towhee, which we have lots of where I live, but it has a darker face and their ranges only slightly overlap. I've only seen it on three occasions, all three at the Sonny Bono Salton Sea NWR in southeastern California. 

Illustration from Birds of the World. 

Range from Birds of the World.