Male Phainopepla High in a Mesquite Tree — Image by kenne
The phainopepla sits in the mesquite
like a drop of ink that refused to dry.
My naturalist mentor would say
some creatures are born already knowing
how to keep their shine.
When it lifts,
white flashes beneath its wings—
a secret lining
only shown in motion.
— kenne
Male Phainopepla — Image by kenne
He is so high in the mesquite
I must squint—
An ace of spades caught in thorns.
Yet I feel the small red spark
of his eye
fasten to me.
The branch yields, does not surrender.
My grandmother said
real strength makes no announcement;
it simply remains.
He falls—
a swift stroke of black—
and rises again
to the same waiting limb.
Nothing altered, it seems.
But the desert keeps a breath
between his leaving and return,
and in that held silence
my heart shifts,
quiet as sand
after the wind.
— kenne
Male Phainopepla — Photo-artistry by kenne
— Raffaello Palandri
Male Phainopepla In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
— A Proverb
Male Phainopepla — Image by kenne
Naturalists in Sabino Canyon have been photographing a partial albino phainopepla for at least eight years.
He is known by the name “Luke” for leucistic, a condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal.
— kenne
Male Phainopepla In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
— kenne
Male Phainopepla — Grunge Art by kenne
Most phainopeplas spend the summers feeding on insects up in the nearby mountain only to return to places like Sabino Canyon feeding mostly on desert hackberry, wolfberry, and desert mistletoe berries.
— kenne
Male Phainopepla In Sabino Canyon — Image by kenne
A Male Phainopepla — Images by kenne
A black cardinal,
At first glance; the desert prince,
Phainopepla.
kenne
The Phainopepla is a common bird in the Sabino Canyon Winter.
