One of my favorite sounds is the call of the cactus wren; no sound is more distinctive of the desert, at least as far as my ear is concerned. I’ve been so fond of it and them for so long that Lynn found a woodcarver to sculpt one for me: life-sized, painted exactly right, and looking ready to call. Yesterday as I walked, I heard it and saw the bird atop a high saguaro (someday someone will tell me how they do that, considering the spiny surface). The ravens are louder but since they’re everywhere distinctive of nowhere, which does not prevent my admiring them. The phainopepla I saw and heard just before the wren has a sweet but subtle call that I have to be near to distinguish. The wren is perfect in all ways: just where they need to be, sounding just as Nature wanted them to, a large part of what I look forward to in coming out here.
Click Below to hear the Cactus Wren.
473937 from All About Birds, Cornell Lab on Vimeo.
