Welcome to March everyone! Brad is currently between trips having recently returned from the field out east before he heads out west later in the month. In the meantime we are getting ready to make our spring migration south to Texas in a week or so. Busy, busy, busy here at Intrigued making sure we have plenty of material to keep our readers entertained through the rest of the year (and likely beyond at this rate). I hit you pretty hard with Texas posts through most of February and it is time for Brad to jump in and mix it up a bit. I was going through his queue and noticed one on a bird I just recently saw for the first time during our January trip to Arizona. Luckily Brad …and Jan are much more on the ball than I am and won’t make you wait until next year to learn about their encounter (honestly, I am trying to get better hehehe). I am going to head off and try to recover from this morning’s brutal training run (14 mile, 2,800′ ascent) and let Brad kick it back into gear.
Take it away Brad…
As most of you know Jan and I took a trip West last summer to see a few National Parks. Near the end of the trip, we met Allyson in Las Vegas to spend a few nights seeing the sights and do a little people watching. During one of our full days, we all took a Pink Jeep tour to the West Rim of the Grand Canyon. The Intrigued Legal department require me to mention that no endorsement was received for the mention of Pink Jeep tours. However, if Pink Jeep wanted to sponsor Wildlife Intrigued, please contact our Legal department. Our first stop at the West Rim was the overlook next to the visitor center. Actually, the overlook was in a side canyon off the Grand Canyon. Our tour guide pointed out that as we looked across the chasm at the wall of rock on the far side there is a dip in the rock structure. Once we stared at it for a little while, being birders, we saw the formation the rock is named after.
We had been looking out over the canyon at Eagle Rock (can you see it in the photo?) when a busload of tourists arrived.
Knowing hordes of people would flood the visitor center, Jan and I decided to walk around on a scenic path through the desert to avoid the crowds. I think everyone on the bus wanted to see the suspended walkway which lets visitors stand 4000 feet over the canyon floor with nothing but a bit of glass between you and Isaac Newton’s best discovery: gravity. I knew that the Intrigued accountants probably wouldn’t let me expense the glass walkway experience, we took a pass.
At the furthest point on the path, away from the most people, Jan spotted a tiny brown bird perched atop a cactus. The sun was very bright, and the scenery was a bit washed out, even with the red rocks all around. It felt like we were on a movie set filming a show about Mars. No poop-grown potatoes around, thankfully.
At first, the bird looked like just another branch segment on a Whipple Cholla cactus (Cylindropuntia whipplei). I threw in a little botany lesson for free. I know Brian, I know . . . back to the birds. Upon closer inspection, she found this little wren sitting on the cactus.
Hit the jump to learn more about this rather well named bird!
The Department of Obvious Names (DON) must have been working overtime that day, because this is a . . . are you ready for it . . . a Cactus Wren (Campylorhynchus brunneicapillus), the Arizona State Bird.
Actually, there were two of them sharing the cactus.
Neither seemed to be bothered by the diesel fumes from the bus, or the noise from the latest batch of tourists entering the building. Nor did they seem to care about the spectacular scenery all around them. Remember, a few dozen yards away was Eagle Rock, perched on the edge of a 4000-foot drop into the Grand Canyon. I don’t think the wrens cared one little bit, since they can, you know, fly over it.
This one seemed to be looking over at the noisy tourists. I’m sure the wren felt safe among the cactus. Cactus Wrens uses the Whipple Cholla cactus for nesting and security from desert predators. They are one of the few birds that use their nest, the size and shape of an American football, as a place of refuge year-round and not just for raising a family. A pair will incubate 2-7 eggs, up to three times per year. Eggs incubate for 16-17 days. Juvenile wrens imitate their parents from a very early age. Twelve-day old hatchlings have been known to collect nesting material, but they won’t actually build nests until they have been away from the nest for a couple of months. Maybe they begin to appreciate mom and dad a bit more at that point, after the food and laundry service has ended.
Jan’s camera seemed to be on fire that morning; cranking out a consistent 9 frames per second. I must have topped off the battery in the grip before our trip. Even though these old D300’s are rated at 8fps with the battery grip, freshly charged batteries will often tally up to 10fps based on timestamps from the photos. Either way, I think the camera noise was starting to get to this one.
Since Cactus Wren do not migrate, they can be quite aggressive defending their territories, fearing nothing. They have been known to destroy the nests of other bird species by removing or trashing the other bird’s eggs. Cactus Wren rarely drink water; they get all the liquid they need from juicy insects and any cactus fruit that’s available. Jan caught these Cactus Wren near the northern edge of their range in the U.S. Southwest.
The other wren is still ignoring us, but seemed to be keeping an eye on the tourists looping around the far end of the trail.
Time to go. Our own tour is taking us to a lesser travelled part of the Grand Canyon West Rim; to a place where the large tour buses are loathe to travel.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Cactus Wren photos, please visit here.
Credits:
Thanks again to Jan for proofreading and editing. Thanks to Jan for all of the bird photos in this article.
Wildlife Intrigued 
Big nest for a little bird? Must be tricky fitting it in a spiky cactus.
The first shot of the two wrens together, what’s the mystery bird in silhouette bottom right finch or sparrow?
Suspended walkway over a 4,000 ft drop? ‘Scuse me I think I’m going to be sick!
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Thanks B. I think it must have been a sparrow because those are the only other birds we spotted at the West Rim. I didn’t even notice it until you pointed it out. Perfect camouflage for the desert. LOL on the walkway. The mind puts the fear factor in high gear when it can’t see below your feet. The rational side of my brain would be analyzing how cool it was to be suspended on nothing by glass (about 6-9″ of it I think) four thousand feet in the air. The other side would be screaming “Get me the heck outta here!”
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My inner Bri would just say “Nope”…especially if Linda was anywhere nearby.
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With you there B.! …nobody needs a drop like that nearby and you can’t even get me on a suspended walkway a mere 100 ft in the air – that is mostly due to Linda, but that is a story for another time.
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A wonderful post. I love these beautiful cactus wren images and can’t imagine how challenging it must have been to spot them. Really good binoculars?
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Thanks. No binoculars, just my bird whisperer and editor (Jan) with a fully loaded camera and she was eager to use it.
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Nice sighting!!
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The Cactus Wren is a cute little guy.
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Thanks Tim. Cute, but fierce. You must have them near you and can speak from experience.
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They are only in the extreme south of NM, we don’t get them up here. They do look a bit lit roadrunners.
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Great post! I enjoyed reading it. The little brave Cactus Wren is wonderful. I learned today that it doesn’t migrate and defends its territories fearlessly. Thank you!
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Thanks Kaya! Jan did all of the photography work on this one. I was ready to walk by the cactus when she spotted one of it’s ends moving and began firing away. I was also surprised by the number of LBJ’s that call the West Rim home year-round. Thanks for stopping by.
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What a terrific experience! Just think about exploring that canyon on foot. Never mind. I’m already exhausted just typing about it.
Great photographs of the Cactus Wren in actual cactus. No matter the specific species, it seems all wrens possess that “small bird huge attitude” attribute. Your title says it all: No Fear.
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Thanks Wally. Kind of like small dogs, these cactus wren do not know they are small. I bet they would attack anything that threatened their families. Thanks for stopping by Wally.
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Our boys can relate.
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Especially the tiniest one, he’s not afraid of anything, well, nearly anything.
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TDS – tiny dog syndrom
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Really enjoyed this post, lovely photos of quite the feisty little wren (and the cactus). I had to laugh at the comment from blhphotoblog asking the identity of the third bird silhouetted at the bottom right of Jan’s photo – I had only seen two birds in that photo, the one on top, and the silhouette at bottom right, I never saw the bird to the left!
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Thanks Sam. I didn’t see the second wren in the original photo for a while. I still didn’t see the shadow until B commented on it. I’ll blame it on the overload of orange in the background. Thanks for dropping by, always appreciated.
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Lovely. I enjoyed the bird’s.
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Thanks Sherry. Jan does a nice job seeing birds I don’t always pay attention to.
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Stunning photos but, no Pink Jeep?
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We rode there in a Pink Jeep, but I think they get enough advertising so I left them out of the photos. Thanks.
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Nice post and good team work, Brad and Jan. The times I visited the Grand Canyon I wasn’t a birder yet and now I wonder if I missed the Cactus Wrens. They are so pretty and blend in so well into their prickly world. I have only seen one Cactus Wren in my life and would love to get to know them a little better Anybody who lives in a cholla deserves a lot of respect!
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Thanks Tanja. I probably would have missed them as I’m usually looking for larger birds further away. Hope you’ve seen the condors at the South Rim, truly spectacular. Thanks for coming by.
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Fascinating post, yes the Cactus Wren is an interesting creature. Adaptions to allow it to fortress in a cactus home are an amazing example of utilizing the strengths of the environment to one’s advantage. The desert can be a tough place to carve out a niche. Thanks for posting.
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Brad did a great job of getting these Wrens in the tin. It is absolutely amazing how those desert critters have adapted to their environments, thriving in conditions we would eventually shrivel in. Thanks for dropping in!
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