All About Birds, Part 1

—Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, Red Crossbills & Painted Buntings

For some reason* the past 8 out of 9 weeks I’ve featured birds in my Perpetual Journal, so I decided to create a blog mini-series about birds.

* Gee, I don’t suppose this has anything to do with the fact that Southeast Arizona is a birding hotspot?!? 😁

I chose the title All About Birds for this blog series as a nod to the website All About Birds. In case you’re not familiar with that site, it’s a comprehensive resource about birds and birdwatching, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The site provides extensive information about 600+ North American bird species including photos, videos, & sounds; identification tips; range maps; and more; plus general information like feeding birds and using bird boxes & birdbaths.

Even though I’ve titled my blog mini-series All About Birds, it won’t be ALL All About Birds, as the birds will share the stage with other Sonoran Desert denizens, like the Javelinas and Lupine below.

First off, here’s my recent Perpetual Journal art of a Ladder-backed Woodpecker.

Perpetual Journal, week of Jan. 1-7: Ladder-backed Woodpecker (2025); Javelina Adult and Baby (2024); Red Crossbill (2023)

Ladder-backed Woodpeckers are found in deserts in the Southwest U.S.—mainly in California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas, as well as Mexico. We observe them fairly regularly in our yard, and often hear them before we see them. Coincidentally, I just saw one outside my window as I was writing the draft of this post. 😍

🧐 A Fun Fact about Ladder-backed Woodpeckers

• Ladder-backed Woodpeckers, like most Woodpeckers, have four toes that are arranged in an X pattern, with two going forward and two going backward ("zygodactyl"). This allows Woodpeckers to cling to vertical surfaces (like tree trunks) more easily.

You can learn more about Ladder-backed Woodpeckers at All About Birds.

As you saw, I also featured a Red Crossbill on that same Perpetual Journal page; we see these in our yard very irregularly, only in winter, and not even every winter.

🧐 A Fun Fact about Red Crossbills

• Red Crossbills eat conifer seeds, and their crossed bill shape helps them get into tightly closed, unopened pine cones to eat the seeds. Crossbills even feed conifer seeds to their young!

You can learn more about Red Crossbills at All About Birds.

Here’s my next week’s Perpetual Journal page, featuring a more rare and more colorful bird—a Painted Bunting!

Hubby learned about a rare bird sighting in Tucson: a Painted Bunting, which is normally found in Mexico, Texas, and the Southeast part of the U.S. This Painted Bunting was hanging out in a tiny urban park in Tucson. Hubby & I saw the bird, which was a Life Bird for Hubby (and for me, too, but I don't keep a birding Life List).

Perpetual Journal, week of Jan. 8-14: Painted Bunting (2025); ISS (International Space Station) (2024); Lupine (2023)

Unfortunately, as you see in my Perpetual Journal entry, our Painted Bunting friend came to a sad end right before our eyes. 😢

🧐 A Fun Fact about Painted Buntings

• The French name for the Painted Bunting includes the word nonpareil which means “without equal,” a reference to the Painted Bunting’s colorful plumage.

You can learn more about Painted Buntings at All About Birds.

💭 Comics Corner

Here’s an Off the Mark comic about woodpeckers! Note that Mark Parisi drew the woodpeckers’ zygodactyl feet correctly.

And here’s a bird-related quote:

“The world is burning, and there is no time to put down the water buckets. For just an hour, put down the water buckets anyway. Take your cue from the bluebirds, who have no faith in the future but who build the future nevertheless, leaf by leaf and straw by straw, shaping them into the roundness of the world.”

- Margaret Renkl, The Comfort of Crows

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