The Vermillion Flycatcher is a small flycatcher of our desert riparian zones. You can find them as far north as Phoenix (and a couple near Palm Springs) but otherwise, they are found mostly south of the border. Their name fits them to a Tee! This male has its full vermillion plumage that just glows. And they fly catch for their meals. They launch from a perch heading towards their prey, snatch it in mid-air, and then land on their perch looking for their next meal which might be just seconds away. They are most active early morning, and late evening when their prey is active. This basic biology helps you find them but photographing them, you just need a little more trivia.

As the series of photographs below depicts, they can be predictable. As in, I photographed this same individual five days in a row at the same time of day working the same series of perches. The top photo is one perch and the bottom series is another. If you look closely at the bottom photos, you can see the tiny gnats it’s feeding on. So once you find the flycatcher, you just need to watch its pattern and you’ll know what perch to set up on. They are so cute, so much fun to watch, and enjoyable to photograph. You’ll quickly get hooked on our fierce little fireball flycatcher.

The desert is called a desert because typically when looking for critters it can seem pretty deserted! This is so true in the winter. There are thankfully some exceptions and we’re at one of those right now. The Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch is this man-made oasis that has the most amazing collection of birds in the winter. A water reclamation facility, it was turned into a birding paradise attracting some incredibly photographable birds. I’m so far up to 43 species in four days! One of the reclusive birds is the Gamble’s Quail. They are all over the Preserve, you see them dart from bush to bush, and you hear them in their hiding place chuckling as you go by, but actual glass time is rare. This male “guard” picked this perfect perch after we’d been standing in place for a while photographing a Verdin. Not sure if it knew we were there, didn’t care we were there, but there it stood as its brood ran across the area moving from the safety of one shrub to another. It would look over its shoulder every so often to make sure we weren’t moving otherwise seemingly giving us to never mind. Once all the females were moved, he hopped down and followed them. It was a great moment making the whole Adventure just so sweet. We all felt we had won the winter desert gamble.

Months and months have passed since the ewe band has been with the ram band for any long period. It’s late fall, early winter, and the snows have signaled the time to make their down slope migration to “warmer” and less snow-covered grasses. As they come down, the topography and biology bring the sexes together and that’s signal time to start strutting their stuff. In late October, the rams closely follow the ewes, as in, noses up the butt close as they try to determine if any are receptive to their advances yet. The Rams at the same time size up their perceived competition. This involves many things including pushing down on the backs and flanks of a possible competition, kicking, and at times, light head butting. You will often as they have checked out all the ewes, huddling up like a football team. When in the huddle, they move very little, lifting or lowering their heads which means they’re rubbing those curls into their possible competition. When finished, they wander off feeding until they run into either the ewes again or other rams and begin the process all over again. At least what it appears to us, nothing much accomplished but with sex on their minds, they ignore us as long as we are good guests in their home. But I my doubt that with all this time, much gets truly accomplished by this meeting of the minds.

They mate for life and seemingly spend much of their time at play. We came upon them perched in the fresh snow on a boulder. Both were banded with the one on the right wearing a telemetry pack so they knew about humans. That’s why it was probably easy to walk up to them handholding the camera rig. I’d seen the feathers which appeared to be buried in the snow. The male picked them up and played with them, the female picking one. It took the one it picked and flew off to another boulder to eat the flesh attached to the feather, the male was left holding the rest, I guess the looser of their camera, pick a feather, any feather.

I’m talking about me, the Rocky Mtn Bighorn Sheep I don’t think even notice it! It’s that time of year when they are down from their high mountain range and herded up in their annual rut. The yearlings were bouncing around off the rocks, ewes were grazing while the rams checked them out. This pair of rams I honestly think were wondering why I was standing out in the driving snow as it pilled up on me and the gear. The snow kept getting heavier and heavier to the point the sheep disappeared from view. Just that start of a promising winter frolicking in the snow!

We’ve become quite spoiled now that we have three Pileateds in our trees nearly every day. We have an adult male and female (pictured above) and a HY female. Other than when the Goshawk is about, they are incredibly fearless, totally ignoring Maggie as she sniffs about or when we’re out doing chores. Of late, they have been debarking this one tree foraging on grubs that have burled into it. The tree is to the left of the hide at such an angle, I can’t get a clear shot of them from the hide. With their seeming lack of fear of us, I decided just to talk up to it, handholding the camera rig to photograph its activity. It could care less I was there continuing with its foraging without missing a hammer.

This is the second dead tree that they have attacked this fall in our Back 9. It’s fascinating to watch the large pieces of bark fly off as they pound away. Even with their size, they prefer dead wood for forage and nesting. She was pounding away at times, cocking her head until she would stop. Then she would appear to kiss the tree and then move on to a new spot. I knew she was pulling out the bug she was after, but she was incredibly fast. I was able to get a couple of shots of her tongue in the hole, but not what she was pulling back. It was bigtime fun and now with three on the property, we have high hopes they’ll nest here this coming spring. We have a lot of food for them here, plenty of forage for the winter.