Avian Paradise

The Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve is a sanctuary for people, too

BY Morrigan DeVito

Photography by David Anderson

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Not far from the bustle of Boulder Highway, a Marsh Wren trills from the reeds, and a family of Gambel’s Quail dashes away from a roadrunner, clucking and chittering as they scurry through desert scrub. I share this moment with these birds and some 270 other species at the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve. The sanctuary has nine ponds fed by treated wastewater from the Henderson Water Reclamation Facility and provides critical habitat for migratory and resident birds seeking respite from the city’s many challenges. Since its opening in 1998, the Henderson Bird Viewing Preserve has become a refuge for people too, a place to connect with the rhythms of nature, as birds move through this urban desert. ✦

American Avocet: Far left, swishing their bills back and forth in the water to pluck out small invertebrates, American Avocets are just one of the migratory shorebirds that depend on the preserve’s shallow ponds to refuel on their way to and from breeding and wintering grounds.

White-crowned Sparrow: Opposite page, bottom, White-crowned Sparrows are a chorus of cold weather, arriving in the fall and staying throughout the winter, buzzing and whistling from saltbushes to claim their territory and defend the seeds they gorge on.

Yellow Warbler: Left, is that a bird or a blossom? Yellow Warblers, far-flung travelers who stop at the preserve on their thousand-mile journeys, emerge from acacias’ and palo verdes’ golden flowers in the springtime.

Northern Shoveler: Below left, congregating by the hundreds across the preserve’s nine ponds, Northern Shovelers swim together in dense circles, dipping their heads and stirring up sediment for insects and plants in a communal feast.

Verdin:

Below right, these tough year-round residents are always busy hopping around thorny acacias and mesquites, gleaning all the water they need from the insects they snag — just one of the ways they survive the sweltering heat.