On my recent trip to New Mexico, and while at the Bosque del Apache NWR south of Socorro, I encountered a Green-tailed towhee.  I’ve probably only seen one of these birds less than half a dozen times, with all sightings having been in Texas before I was seriously into birding photography.  While I’m sure there are places where the birds can be reliably seen, I just haven’t discovered those places yet. I consider myself lucky to have seen and photographed this bird.  I first encountered it where the habitat had been seriously altered by the erection of a large tent which was to be used in the Festival of the Cranes, an annual celebration that was to take place the following week.  This bird was backlit and with a lot of sparrows, but as I find often happens, it separated itself from the rest of the group and garnered my interest by its behavior.  I managed a few photos in bad light (see below) and managed to follow the bird for a couple of hundred feet before it disappeared over a fence in the headquarters complex.

In addition to the thousands of Snow geese and Sandhill cranes, the refuge is the winter home to many other shorebirds and waterfowl.  At one of the ponds we were fortunate enough to be able to position ourselves directly over a group of about eight Wilson’s snipes and a Least sandpiper.  There was also a small flock of what might (or might not) have been Dunlin.  I wasn’t close enough to them to obtain good photographs.

Wilson’s Snipe

Wilson’s Snipe

Least Sandpiper

In addition, we saw a single American avocet in winter plumage on the refuge.

American Avocet, Winter Plumage

The most common sparrows on the refuge were the White-crowned and the Lincoln’s.  In general the two species didn’t seem to mix… each group had their respective small areas of habitat.

White-Crowned Sparrow

The Bosque holds an annual event that they name the “Festival of the Cranes” and our visit was, fortunately, a week before the festival.  As it was there was considerable disruption of some of the habitat areas, chiefly the cactus garden, by erection of a giant tent for the celebration.

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!

On Monday, Nov 8, I drove up the Skagit River to meet friends for lunch and to see if I might be able to photograph an American dipper.  It was not to be so, somewhat disappointed, I decided to drive back through the Samish Valley.  There I encountered a very large population of Canada geese which I usually see on Fir Island.

I pulled off of the road to photograph some of the geese and almost immediately noticed a couple of very small geese (noticeably smaller than the Snow geese) that looked very similar to Canada geese.  I didn’t have a bird book with me but did have my Sibley app on my phone.  I guess it’s good I didn’t have the book with me because it didn’t have a listing for what I was seeing… a pair of Cackling geese!  Not only had I never seen one of the birds but I hadn’t even heard of them!  No matter… it is apparently a new classification, a life bird for me and, most importantly, I was able to obtain photos!  I’m not proud of the photos… the light was bad and the geese were wandering through a plowed farm field, but photos of what I consider rare birds is still an achievement!

Cackling Goose

The following day I spent some time in the yard so I’m going to throw in a few of those photos too.

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Fox Sparrow… the first I’ve seen in the yard this season!

Dark-eyed Junco, Oregon Race

My wife hosted a women’s discussion group this morning so it was incumbent on me to disappear for at least a couple of hours.  Since I had been serving my 5th tour of jury duty in my lifetime (I have friends who have never served) I was glad for the opportunity to get a little time to myself and renew my acquaintance with my camera and the great outdoors.

The following photos were all taken off-island… some on Channel Drive and some on Fir Island, except for these first two which were taken on March Point.

Great Blue Heron

Golden-Crowned Sparrow

This isn’t the greatest of photos, but when processing this and several other similar photos I noticed that this Black-capped chickadee was actually feeding from a small seed cup on this plant.  I watched as several different chickadees made trips to the seed pods for seeds.

Black-Capped Chickadee

The following birds, an Orange-crowned warbler, presumably a male Spotted towhee and a Lincoln’s sparrow (nice find, Joe!) were all at the end of Channel Drive.

Orange-Crowned Warbler

Male Spotted Towhee

Lincoln’s Sparrow

And finally, one of these Ruby-crowned kinglets was on Channel Drive and the other at the Fish and Game HQ on Fir Island.

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

Ruby-Crowned Kinglet