An Owling Milestone: The Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl

My Lifer Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl
Southern Arizona March 2021

Better late than never. That's what I'm telling myself about this terribly delayed post. With this post I want to memorialize an observation made back on March 25th of 2021. Better late than never, right?

There are 19 owl species that are established breeders in the United States.  Seeing each of those species naturally becomes a popular goal among birders. Some birders attempt to see all nineteen in a single year. I wasn't aggressive in achieving the goal. I chose to enjoy the journey that led to achieving that goal over several years.

At the beginning of 2020, two US owl species remained undetected by my eyes. Those species were Boreal Owl and Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. I observed my first Boreal Owl perched near a bird feeder on Admiral Road at Sax-Zim Bog in Minnesota in February of that year, a month before the COVID-19 pandemic began. It would be just a little over one year later when I observed the last of the nineteen species, the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl, in southern Arizona. The subspecies that barely ranges into the southern part of Arizona and the southern tip of Texas from Mexico is called Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl. They have declined in numbers due to habitat loss. They have been listed and delisted as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act. They are about six inches tall, but these tiny carnivores can take prey nearly twice their size. They nest in cavities, typically excavated by woodpeckers such as flickers.

After receiving a tip from a field herper (one who studies reptiles and amphibians in the field) nearly a year earlier and scheduling a trip to visit my daughter's family in the Phoenix area in March of 2021, I found myself driving along a dusty, rutted, and sometimes rocky road along a desert wash. I was taking in the beauty of the Sonoran Desert scrub habitat as I slowly made my way to the area where I had placed my hope of finally seeing US owl species number nineteen. When I found myself in a mix of  mesquite trees and scattered saguaros bordering a wash, I decided to exit my truck and listen for a singing owl. I timed my arrival to be right at sunrise during the breeding season in hopes of hearing a male singing on his territory before the temperatures got too hot. 

I didn't hear a singing bird initially, but after moving to a different location the magic happened. It was faint at first, but as I made my way in the direction of the sound, I captured my first look at the bird. It looked very similar to the many Northern Pygmy-Owls I'd encountered in northern Utah, but its song was noticeably different. I was able to navigate through some sporadic trees to get to a better vantage point and front-on view of the bird. In the binoculars, I could see the orange-brown/rusty coloring, which gives the bird its "ferruginous" name, along with white streaks on the crown where a Northern Pygmy-Owl shows white spots. I was able to capture the image shared at the beginning of this post.

I decided to make a return visit in February of 2025. During that visit to the same general location, I was able to locate a pair of Ferruginous Pygmy-owls that were engaged in courtship behavior. At one point, I had a view of both birds perched side by side in the same tree.

A Mated Pair of Ferruginous Pygmy-Owls
Southern Arizona February 2025

Male Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl
Southern Arizona February 2025

Male Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl
Southern Arizona February 2025

As I was standing in the partial shade of a mesquite tree that morning, I watched the male fly over my head and straight into a cavity in a nearby saguaro. It was only in the hole for a few seconds when it poked its head out. I raised my lens to capture that fortuitous sight, but it left before I could focus and release the shutter. While I missed "the image", I captured the moment and the scene in my mind's eye, never to be forgotten as long as I have my memories. If I had to guess, I'd say that the male pointed me to a potential nest site for that season. May they and their posterity continue to breed successfully.

At the Edge of the Fall: Photographing a Nesting Black Swift

I want to share a bit of the story that led to me capturing the following images of a Black Swift as it was arranging pieces of its nest while incubating at least one egg at the top edge of a waterfall.

Black Swift on Nest
Duchesne County, Utah  June 2024

Black Swift on Nest
Duchesne County, Utah  June 2024

Black Swift on Nest
Duchesne County, Utah  June 2024

I've become more fearful of heights with age. I was reminded of that fact when my friend James talked me into letting him put me in a harness and hold my life in his hands at the top of a nearly-100' waterfall on June 26th in 2024. Another friend, Terry, opted for a less precarious vantage point that day.

We were planning to do some informal research on Boreal Owls in the Uinta Mountains later that evening, but we went up earlier in the day to see if we could find a Black Swift nest at the top of a waterfall. I knew that James was skilled when it came to safe repelling because of having significant experience over many years. He knew the gear, the knots, etc., but that didn't settle my anxiety about what he was encouraging me to do--let go of my fear and trust in his skills and "the rope" while using my hands to briefly illuminate and photograph what few people in Utah had ever done before.

A light rain was falling when we arrived, so I put on one of those cheap plastic emergency rain ponchos to protect the camera gear that I had harnessed to my chest. I figured I'd remove the poncho right before descending to the potential nest site. With the camera gear on my chest, I was struggling a little to see beyond it to put my first foot into the harness. James saw that struggle and offered to hold the harness so I could simply step into it. As I was putting my right foot into the harness and James was lifting the harness up toward my foot, the toe of the boot got hooked on the harness and knocked me off my balance. I began to fall backward toward the water pooling at the top of the waterfall. I tried to regain my balance to no avail. James instinctively reached out to snatch me from the fall, but he ended up with a handful of cheap plastic from the poncho. The rest of the poncho and I, along with thousands of dollars' worth of camera gear, fell backward, onto the rocks, just shy of landing in the pooling water. Luckily, I escaped without injury, but my desire to hang by a rope from a cliff to photograph a bird quickly left me. James assured me that it would all be good, so after securing the rope, harness, and carabiners, I was sheepishly moving toward the edge of the cliff. I tried to intellectually calm the nerves, but the body was telling me "Danger, Will Robinson! Danger!" I'm sure that by the third time I asked, "Do you have me, James?", he was sure that I was a scaredy cat. But we prevailed!

Here's a view of the top of the fall. We anchored ourselves above the fall, just around the corner of the cliff edge you see to the right of the fall. The nest was in the dark alcove on the left side of the fall, about 100' above the bottom of the fall.

James and Terry are men I met through birding, but they have become to me friends we all love to have. They are generous with their knowledge, skills, and resources, have their unique brands humor, confidence, and wisdom, are always up for an adventure, and push me to stretch myself.