A peach-faced lovebird enjoys a free meal in the courtyard of a home in Paradise Valley, neighboring Phoenix in Maricopa County, Arizona.
Also called “rosy-faced lovebirds,” the birds are native to arid regions in southwestern Africa such as the Namib Desert. Males and females of the species, adored for their sleep position in which they sit side-by-side and turn their faces towards each other, are identical in outward appearance. These are two of many once-captive, now free and feral, such lovebirds that have made a comfortable life in the dry and often blazing-hot Phoenix area. Original image from Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress collection. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.