Loggerhead shrikes are more common in the winter out where we live in Cochise County, Arizona. Some winters and springs it seems there is a shrike on every other fence post or power line here in the grassland. A favorite field guide says they are an “uncommon to common transient in open situations throughout” southeastern Arizona. So it seems some shrikes will move about seasonally to different elevations in the borderlands. Must be nice.
I took the photographs of my Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds purchased in 1970. I was inspired to bring it out of retirement after doing some birding with my family and I realized that many of the birds we were seeing had checks by their pictures in this old guide. Some of the scientific names and even common names have changed, but the birds don’t know that and they still look the same. As you can see it has been rebound…did that myself… and it’s ready to go onto the truck seat with my binoculars.
The scientific name of the black swallowtail is Papilio polyxenes. Papilio is from the Latin for butterfly and the specific epithet polyxenes is from...
The photos are mine. Fruit tree in woodland and blue palo verde in grassland.
The villain in this show is the grass Enneapogon cenchroides or soft feather pappus grass. There are many invasive exotic grasses that have changed...
