Rock Wren in the Devil's Garden at Arches National Park, Utah

I was in the southwest for the last couple of weeks, so our birds for the next few days will be some of the desert species that I observed during our trip. I didn't have a lot of time for birding, but a few made themselves known. An example would be this Rock Wren (Salpinctes obsoletus) that introduced itself while I was walking along the Landscape Arch Trail in the Devil's Garden area of Arches National Park in Utah.

The wren was hunting for bugs on the sandstone fins that form the framework for the park's many beautiful arches (more than 300, the largest concentrations of arches on the planet). The birds do well in desert environments because they get all the water they need from the insects that they consume.

Pine Tree Arch on the Landscape Arch Trail