Although we live less than fifteen miles from the road going up into the Santa Catalina Mountains, it's been a very long time since I've been to Mt. Lemmon. Yesterday morning, M. drove me up there. Before going on a relatively easy hike (the only level I'm capable of these days), we had lunch at the Iron Door Restaurant at the Ski Basin at an elevation of about 8000 feet. While we were eating on the terrace, this beautiful bird came begging. I've identified it as a
Yellow-eyed Junco*. This was a first sighting for me. (The photos were taken with a point-and-shoot camera that I had in my pocket. Click on each photo to enlarge. )
A little later, he was joined by a second one.
*The Yellow-eyed Junco can be distinguished from the gray-headed form of the Dark-eyed Junco by its bright yellow-orange eye and black lores and the colour of its bill (dark upper mandible and pale lower mandible). According to the field guides and web sites I've looked at, the Yellow-eyed Junco is resident in southeast Arizona, the extreme southwest of New Mexico, and down through Mexico to Guatemala. Mt. Lemmon is much farther west. Any local birders know whether this junco is common to the Santa Catalinas?
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