Cactus wren

The other day I was hauling trash out to the dumpster, and I saw a bird I’d never seen before.

Our dumpster is way the heck in back of the apartments, and there’s a nice view of the mountains and deserty trees on the way. I always enjoy the hike.

Anyway, there’s a power pole out there, and there’s usually some doves or mockingbirds hanging out on it. But this time there were two birds I couldn’t identify. They were the size of mockingbirds, and made a twitter like mockingbirds, but they were shy. They hid behind the pole and made this rawr, rawr, rawr sound. I’d never heard that before.

I stood there and watched them with the trash can in my hand. The light was behind them, so I couldn’t see any distinguishing field marks. Then one flew down to check out the dumpster.

Mostly brown, white spots. A lot of spots on the tail.

I dashed inside and typed the description into Google, along with “desert southwest.”

Cactus wren! I even listened to their calls, and it was the same sound.

This makes me happy. This is the first new bird I’ve identified since we moved here. 🙂