I couldn’t resist the little word play in the title of this post, and in a few minutes you’ll see why!
I can now announce that we are freshly back from a week-long trip to New Mexico. On the day of our return it was raining at the airport in Albuquerque and the sun was shining at SeaTac when we arrived… go figure!
It’s always a treat to visit another area which offers different birds and different habitats. I think I added one new bird to my non-extant life list and, like the Cackling geese in my last blog, I managed to obtain photographs. But that bird will have to wait until a future blog since I’ve enjoyed myself with the little word play in the title of this post.
One of my favorite birding areas is the Bosque del Apache NWR just a few miles south of Socorro, NM. It’s a large preserve that offers good habitat and two long driving routes which in turn offer me the opportunity to use the car as a blind and steady platform from which to photograph birds.
On our first morning while driving into the preserve I spied this (presumably Western) meadowlark sitting on a fence post. My wife wanted to pass it by and look for others, but I insisted on circling back for photographs and I’m glad I did… we never saw another one nearly as close. In retrospect, the old adage about a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush would seem to aptly apply in this case. I think the series of photographs I took of this bird are my favorite of the trip!
The meadowlark was quickly followed by another couple of birds on posts. The first is a male Red-winged blackbird.
I have yet to decide on what the second bird is… you can influence my decision by emailing me with suggestions. I think we can probably agree that it’s a blackbird, but probably not a mature female.
The final bird of my ‘post’ series is a Common raven, much more common than the population that we have around here. This one was animated and kept vocalizing with us parked just a short distance away. It almost seemed like it was talking to us and didn’t seem at all afraid of us!
