Birdland: Tiny Songbird

The Black-Tailed Gnatcatcher is one of the smallest songbirds in North America, weighing about as much as a nickel. These gray birds have neat white eye-rings and flashes of white on the underside of their tails. They live in the arid deserts of the Southwestern U.S. and Mexico, at home in the arroyos and scrubland amid the mesquite and thorny cactus. They get most of the water they need from the insects they eat. This gnatcatcher was photographed in Tucson by Park Hill resident Mark Silverstein.