Bird Nut's Blog

Christmas 2011

2011-12-27T08:27:00.000-07:00

Adult Ferruginous Hawk

I had a very good Christmas this year with lots of family and friends and even got to go out birding a bit. I went to the Las Vegas NWR with some family on the 26th for the first time in weeks and I was very surprised by what I found. Most of the lakes were completely frozen over and all the waterfowl were in fields adjacent to the refuge loop road. There must have been about 800 geese, 400 ducks and 4 Bald Eagles. The only thing not present were cranes (which was very odd for this time of year).

I also saw a couple Ferruginous Hawks and managed to get some good pictures of one of them (see above). But I have to say, driving at 30 miles per hour while hanging a big camera out the window is a bit nerve-wracking!

Adult Ferruginous Hawk


Adult Ferruginous Hawk


Canada and Snow Geese

Festival of the Cranes and 1st Day of Rosy-Finch Banding!

2011-11-21T17:22:00.001-07:00

This weekend I went down to Socorro to attend the Festival of the Cranes at the Bosque del Apache NWR with my dad. We had a great time and went to a couple of great presentations.

Snow Geese

On Friday night, after packing up everything in the car, we got on the road and we got to Socorro at 11:30pm. We ended up having to spend the night in the back of our Sequoia by some train tracks due to lack of inexpensive hotel rooms or a spot at the RV park. I never knew how comfy it could be sleeping in the back of a car; albeit it was a bit cramped but comfortable never the less. We only slept 4 hours that night and got up bright and early at 4:30am. We then drove to the Flight Deck at the refuge and watched the morning Fly-Off. To anyone who hasn't watched this: it is very spectacular and worth the yawns and the frozen fingers. We waited about an hour and a half before the geese and cranes decided it was time to get going and then the usual mad, synchronized takeoff took place. The Snow Geese all took off at about the same moment but the Sandhill Cranes didn't quite feel like that kind of show. They left in small groups of 3 to 4 for the next half hour (which of course took a lot longer than the geese). After watching the fly-off for couple minutes, we drove over to the visitor center and got some breakfast and lost some bills to the gift store (oh, the temptation of spending money).

The rest of the day we spent birding around the refuge and going to several talks. The first presentation was by my friends Raymond and Michael. They talked about the Rosy-Finch banding project they started about 5 to 6 years ago. It was a great presentation and it was also great to see Raymond and Michael again. Right after that talk we sped back out to the refuge to go looking for a Surf Scoter that was reported earlier in the morning. It took us a long time but we eventually found it on the far side of a pond, in amongst the reeds. It wasn't a good look, but I'm not complaining! It was my first for New Mexico, which got me very excited. After loitering around the refuge for a couple of hours we went to the Macey Center in Socorro for the big keynote presentation by Mark Obmascik. He was talking about The Big Year, his true story about three guys who take a year off from their normal life to chase birds. It was another great presentation and I got a lot of questions answered about the book (and the movie).

Me and my dad spent the night in Albuquerque at our friend Bill's house. The following morning we went up to Sandia Crest for the first day of Rosy-Finch banding. We picked up Greg Miller (one of the 3 guys who did the 1998 big year that's featured in the book) and then raced up to the Crest in order to get there on time. It was a bit slow for birds but I had a great time chatting and catching up with the banders. A couple Black Rosy-Finches came to the feeders and they banded a few and they also banded some Mountain Chickadees, and White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches (because they're weren't many Rosy-Finches). My and I spent a couple hours up there and then we had to head back home. We spent a ridiculous amount of money at Costco and did a car wash and then finally got back to Las Vegas at 7:30pm.

Red-breasted Nuthatch

Black Rosy-Finch

My First Pelagic Trip!

2011-10-08T07:26:00.000-07:00

I've gone 16 years without going on a pelagic trip and this past weekend I finally got the chance. I flew out to San Francisco on September 29th and my cousin Whitney picked my up at the airport. This wasn't my first California birding trip (I also birded with my cousin last March-I posted about that trip) but it certainly took the cake for the best birding experience I've had in quite a while.

The first night we stayed at a B&B in Point Reyes which was very nice and had a hot tub. The following morning we got up at 6:00am and birded the Pt. Reyes peninsula for the majority of the day. It was pretty foggy for the first part of the day but we saw a good chunk of birds. The best bird of the day were a couple Tricolored Blackbirds (also known as "Trikes") which were a life bird for me. We spent the whole day trying to pick out Trikes from flocks of Red-winged Blackbirds. It finally paid off though! We also saw 2 immature Great Horned Owls in a dead tree by the side of the road. One of them was making begging calls and Whitney and I ignored them at first because we thought they were blackbirds. Then I happened to glance over at the tree and noticed two rather large blobs. "Hey, they look like owls!" was my first remark. We walked across the road and sure enough, there were 2 very cute, young owls. They were past fledgling age but apparently still wanted to be fed by their parents.

One of the best parts of the day was meeting Peter Pyle at the Limontoyr (hope I spelled it right) Lighthouse. It was actually our first stop of the day and as we were walking back from the lighthouse we saw someone walking towards us in the fog. I knew it was probably a birder because who else would be tromping up to a lighthouse at 7:00 in the morning in pea-soup fog. I did not, however, expect to meet Peter Pyle. When he walked up, the first thing Whitney asked was if he was Peter Pyle. I probably resembled a stunned frog when she said those words and didn't quite believe her at first. But yes, I finally got to meet Peter Pyle at 7:00am on September 30th, at a lighthouse, in very dense fog. Peter Pyle was our best "bird" of the day until we saw the Trikes but I will certainly remember that meeting as one of the highlights of the trip. At the end of the first day, we had seen 65 species. It was a pretty good day considering that there was not very many birds out and the weather was less than ideal. We spent the night at Whitney's house in Redwood City and tried to go to bed early but failed miserably. We ended up hitting the sack at 11:00pm. Oops!

The second day we got up at 7:00am (which felt like sleeping in to me) and started the day by driving to the Skylawn Cemetery (on the way to Half Moon Bay). We saw 2 Red Crossbills fly over but other than that it was pretty quiet. After Skylawn, we birded around Half Moon Bay (including Pillar Point and Moss Beach). At Pillar Point we ran into an ABA tour group led by Alvaro Jaramillo just as they spotted a Wandering Tattler (which was a life bird for Whitney). We had pretty great looks at it and we also saw Surfbird, Black Turnstone, Black Oystercatcher, and Willet. Living in New Mexico, shorebirds are always very exciting. Whitney and I met the ABA group again at Moss Beach and were lucky enough to see a Baltimore Oriole along the trail. Someone in the group yelled out "ORIOLE!" and we all thought that he was pulling our legs until we saw the bird. It was a female and lacked the streaking on the face characteristic of Bulluck's Oriole. When Alvaro said it was a Baltimore, I didn't think much of it, because growing up in Massachusetts, these birds were regular. However, Baltimore Oriole is a pretty rare bird in California (especially in October).

By far, Sunday was the funnest. And that wasn't just because I saw 12 (yes 12!) life birds and went on my first ever pelagic trip (with Debi Shearwater and Peter Pyle mind you). As I mentioned before, I have never gotten the chance to go on a pelagic trip, although I've tried various times. This time was not in vain though! Naturally, the first time you're on a boat in the Pacific Ocean, you'll see a number of new birds. I was expecting to see maybe 4 to 5 lifers if I was lucky and what I ended up with was above and beyond anything I could have imagined. We started out the trip by getting to Pillar Point harbor at 7:00am sharp and got a briefing from Debi on the basic aspects of a pelagic trip and the general rule of not upchucking in the bow of the boat (the consequences from that can be rather gross). After everyone showed up, we pushed back from the dock and spent awhile looking for shorebirds along the jetty and saw a couple Surfbirds, oystercatchers, and a Clark's Grebe courting a Western Grebe (a hybrid in the making). We then worked our way out into Half Moon Bay and saw 2 Marbled Murrelets and a couple Common Loons. I kept my eyes open for big flocks of shearwaters but these were at a minimum. Going out of the harbor we did see some mixed flocks of murres and Sooty Shearwaters but the numbers were pretty low. I certainly wasn't complaining however. It took a total of about 10 minutes before I saw my first life bird-a Pink-footed Shearwater. I didn't get a great look at it but we ended up seeing much more of these during the course of the day. After the first Pink-footed Shearwater, I started seeing lifers left and right. Elegant Tern, Flesh-footed Shearwater, Cassin's Auklet, Pomarine Jaegar, Xantu's Murrelet, and Black-footed Albatross were just six of them. The density of birds for the day was low but the diversity was very impressive. My favorite bird were the Black-footed Albatrosses, which we got a few of. I've always been rather enamored with these majestic birds but this was the first time I had seen them with my own eyes.

Black-footed Albatross (sorry for the bad quality)

Pelagic trip group (Peter Pyle is center)

Ocean Sunfish (Mola Mola)

California Sea Lions

The Boat

On the wayback to the harbor, I helped Peter Pyle and a few other staff do the bird listfor the day. It felt very cool to be making a list with Peter Pyle and actuallyget some of the same figures! When he was asking me how many of a certainspecies I had seen, I would tend to make lower estimates, and when asked of hiscounts, he would go much higher. I have much more faith in Peter's ability tocount accurately than my own and whenever he would offer a number, I wouldimmediately agree with him. Plus, I always tend to make higher numbers lowerwhen counting birds. We got back to the dock at 7:00pm and we were all verytired from an exciting, 12-hour day. I would certainly say that my firstpelagic trip was a huge success.

The listfor all 3 days is below:

CanadaGoose
Gadwall
Mallard
Blue-winged Teal
Cinnamon Teal
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Green-winged Teal
Surf Scoter
Ruddy Duck
California Quail
Wild Turkey
Common Loon
Pied-billed Grebe
Horned Grebe
Eared Grebe
Western Grebe
Clark's Grebe
Black-footed Albatross
Northern Fulmar
Pink-footed Shearwater
Flesh-footed Shearwater
Buller's Shearwater
Sooty Shearwater
Short-tailed Shearwater
Ashy Storm-Petrel
Black Storm-Petrel
Brandt's Cormorant
Double-crested Cormorant
Pelagic Cormorant
American White Pelican
Brown Pelican
Great Blue Heron
Great Egret
Snowy Egret
Turkey Vulture
Northern Harrier
Cooper's Hawk
Red-shouldered Hawk
Red-tailed Hawk
American Kestrel
Peregrine Falcon
Virginia Rail
Common Gallinule
American Coot
Black-bellied Plover
Killdeer
Black Oystercatcher
Black-necked Stilt
American Avocet
Wandering Tattler
Greater Yellowlegs
Willet
Whimbrel
Long-billed Curlew
Marbled Godwit
Black Turnstone
Surfbird
Sanderling
Western Sandpiper
Least Sandpiper
Dunlin
Red-necked Phalarope
Red Phalarope
Sabine's Gull
Heermann's Gull
Ring-billed Gull
Western Gull
California Gull
Herring Gull
Glaucous-winged Gull
Common Tern
Arctic Tern
Elegant Tern
South Polar Skua
Pomarine Jaeger
Parasitic Jaeger
Long-tailed Jaeger
jaeger sp.
Common Murre
Pigeon Guillemot
Marbled Murrelet
Xantus's Murrelet
Cassin's Auklet
Rhinoceros Auklet
Tufted Puffin
Rock Pigeon
Eurasian Collared-Dove
Great Horned Owl
Anna's Hummingbird
Belted Kingfisher
Acorn Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Hairy Woodpecker
Northern Flicker
Black Phoebe
Say's Phoebe
Loggerhead Shrike
Steller's Jay
Western Scrub-Jay
Yellow-billed Magpie
American Crow
Common Raven
Barn Swallow
Chestnut-backed Chickadee
Bushtit
Pygmy Nuthatch
Brown Creeper
Bewick's Wren
House Wren
Marsh Wren
Wrentit
Western Bluebird
American Robin
European Starling
American Pipit
Common Yellowthroat
Yellow-rumped Warbler
Townsend's Warbler
Spotted Towhee
Chipping Sparrow
Savannah Sparrow
Song Sparrow
Lincoln's Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Dark-eyed Junco
Red-winged Blackbird
Tricolored Blackbird
Western Meadowlark
Brewer's Blackbird
Brown-headed Cowbird
Baltimore Oriole
House Finch
Red Crossbill
American Goldfinch
House Sparrow

Dickcissels, Shorebirds and Mud

2011-08-28T12:35:00.001-07:00

I am terrible at identifying peeps and have been trying to distinguish those little buggers for the longest time and this weekend I finally had some progress in my identification of peeps.

Western Wood-Pewee at my house (nothing to do with peeps of course)

Christopher Rustay came down to Las Vegas on Saturday and met me at the Las Vegas Detention Center (yep, I spent the night in jail...just kidding) and I also got to meet a young birder from Santa Fe, along with his dad. Raymond and Bill (two birders from Albuquerque who I've birded with a bunch in the past couple years) also came down. We started by going to the Las Vegas NWR and birding a row of trees before the entrance to the refuge. It wasn't too productive but we saw a couple Wilson's Warblers, a Red-naped Sapsucker, and some MacGillavray's Warblers. After birding the stretch of trees for 20 minutes, we drove to the Headquarters. There are a row of trees near the road that can be good during migration in front of the HQ building. We walked along this and found a resting Barn Owl and a Cooper's Hawk (that was mobbing the Barn Owl). We also saw a Willow Flycatcher (my first for New Mexico) and heard 2 Upland Sandpipers.

The next stop was Crane Lake, just a 3 minute drive from Headquarters. We scoped the lake and found 2 American White Pelicans, 50+ Cinnamon Teal, 2 White-faced Ibis, and Peregrine AND Prairie Falcon. The Peregrine was on a big dead tree besides the lake and while we were looking at it a Prairie flew over our heads! There were also a couple peeps on the mud surrounding the lake. My first thought was "oh crap, what are these?" Luckily, I was with 5 birders who had a much larger knowledge of peep identification than I did. They showed me a group of peeps with tan throats and scalloped backs and pronounced them to be Baird's Sandpipers. I was very excited to finally find out what those "tiny things with tan throats" were and was feeling a bit more confident. Unfortunately, that was only one species and I have much more to learn before I master peeps. I was certainly a big help though. Thanks guys!

On McAlister Lake, there was another group of Baird's Sandpipers with about 850 Wilson's Phalaropes swimming on the lake! I had never seen that many phalaropes before-you could probably have walked across the lake on them! Besides the concentration of phalaropes, there wasn't much around or on the lake. We saw a Long-billed Curlew fly over and saw some more Willow Flycatchers but that was about it.

After birding the refuge for 3 hours, we headed out and drove to Springer Lake (about 1 hour north from Las Vegas). Talk about shorebirds! On the nearest side of the lake to the road there was barely anything but when we walked to the other side, there was a huge flock of mixed peeps, dowitchers, yellowlegs, plovers, and phalaropes. I got very excited at the sight of so many peeps and we decided to walk out on the mudflat a bit. We got pretty great views of Baird's, Western, and one Semipalmated Sandpiper along with some Lesser Yellowlegs, Wilson's Phalaropes, and Long-billed Dowitchers. The best bird was a lone juvenile Short-billed Dowitcher that Raymond picked out from a flock of Long-billeds. We were all hyped by this discovery (especially Christopher) and each of us got great looks at the bird in our scopes. Raymond tried to walk closer to the bird with his camera to take a picture and I decided to follow him. This was probably a mistake. As we walked farther towards the lake, it got harder to not sink into the mud. Raymond was a pro at keeping his shoes clean (and with a scope and camera) but I was pretty much a failure. I failed to learn that you have to walk with a broad stance and with light footsteps and consequently sunk knee-deep in the mud with my clumsy footsteps. I watched Raymond's many attempts at digiscoping the Short-billed Dowticher-which he eventually did get a great picture of-and tried not to say anything as my legs slowly oozed deeper into the mud. When Ray finally got a suitable picture of the bird, he turned to me and was surprised to see that I was now 2 feet shorter than him. He shook his head and laughed and helped me get out of my predicament by having me hold onto the scope and his hand. I eventually got out (after much tugging and squelching) and tramped back to the car with my shoes looking like they had just been stuck down a mud hole...never mind, that actually happened! I tried to remove as much of the mud as I could but I was still covered up to my knees for the rest of the day.

With me covered in mud, we stopped at a Subway to eat lunch and for me to try and clean up some more. I probably used Subway's entire stock of paper towels and still looked like crap. Oh well. Lunch was a relief though-nothing like eating Subway after half-sinking yourself in a mudflat!

We stopped at Maxwell NWR after lunch and I saw my life Dickcissel! We were near the entrance and saw a bird fly across the road and land on a fence and were very surprised to find out it was a Dickcissel (or DICK in its 4-letter code). It also happened to be #650 on my life list! Besides the DICK, we didn't see much (a couple American Avocets and a Peregrine Falcon were the exception).

The last stop of the day was Stubblefield Lake. It is just a short drive from Maxwell and can be very good for shorebirds sometimes. Unfortunately, there were very little shorebirds or waterfowl. Christopher did find a Common Loon as we were leaving, which is a pretty good bird for northern New Mexico.

Overall, it was a very fun and productive day and we ended up seeing 74 species. Below is the species list for the day:

Canada Goose -- 50

Mallard -- 1
Cinnamon Teal -- 80
Northern Shoveler -- 10
Green-winged Teal -- 20
Ruddy Duck -- 200
Common Loon -- 1
Eared Grebe -- 7
Clark's Grebe -- 2
Double-crested Cormorant -- 14
American White Pelican -- 3
Great Blue Heron -- 10
White-faced Ibis -- 16
Turkey Vulture -- 7
Northern Harrier -- 1
Cooper's Hawk -- 1
Swainson's Hawk -- 5
Red-tailed Hawk -- 1
Peregrine Falcon -- 1
Prairie Falcon -- 1
American Coot -- 50
Semipalmated Plover -- 2
Killdeer -- 10
American Avocet -- 5
Spotted Sandpiper -- 4
Solitary Sandpiper -- 2
Lesser Yellowlegs -- 3
Upland Sandpiper -- 2
Long-billed Curlew -- 1
Semipalmated Sandpiper -- 1
Western Sandpiper -- 4
Baird's Sandpiper -- 200
Short-billed Dowitcher -- 1
Long-billed Dowitcher -- 4
Wilson's Phalarope -- 850
Ring-billed Gull -- 10
Forster's Tern -- 1
Rock Pigeon -- 1
Eurasian Collared-Dove -- 4
White-winged Dove -- 1
Mourning Dove -- 9
Barn Owl -- 1
Black-chinned Hummingbird -- 2
Red-naped Sapsucker -- 1
Western Wood-Pewee -- 3
Willow Flycatcher -- 4
Say's Phoebe -- 1
Cassin's Kingbird -- 1
Western Kingbird -- 5
Loggerhead Shrike -- 1
Common Raven -- 3
Horned Lark -- 15
Violet-green Swallow -- 5
Barn Swallow -- 5
Bewick's Wren -- 1
House Wren -- 1
Northern Mockingbird -- 1
European Starling -- 40
MacGillivray's Warbler -- 2
Yellow Warbler -- 10
Wilson's Warbler -- 2
Chipping Sparrow -- 4
Brewer's Sparrow -- 2
Vesper Sparrow -- 2
Lark Sparrow -- 3
Lark Bunting -- 1
Dickcissel -- 1
Red-winged Blackbird -- 18
Western Meadowlark -- 2
Yellow-headed Blackbird -- 4
Bullock's Oriole -- 1
Pine Siskin -- 7
Lesser Goldfinch -- 10

Unfortunately, I forgot a camera (again) and don't have any pictures. I'm going to start bringing a camera on all my birding trips so this doesn't happen again!

Cornell Lab's Young Birders Event 2011

2011-08-20T07:58:00.002-07:00

I just got back from Ithaca, New York, where I went to a fabulous 4-day event at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology geared towards young birders. It wasn't my first experience with events for young people interested in birds. Last summer I participated in the Coastal Maine Bird Studies for Teens (which I wrote about in a previous post) which was fantastic and very inspiring. This experience was no different.

I flew out to Ithaca on August 10th and the event began at 2:00pm on the 11th. It started with a general tour of the Lab and we got to see sound and video recording studios, a small part of the bird collection, and other very cool stuff. There were 9 other teen birders in attendance who were from various parts of the U.S. and in one case, Mexico. It was great to be around people my own age who were as passionate about birds as me. Every day we would get up at around 5:00am (unless someone slept through their alarm) and have a quick breakfast. At six, we'd get picked up at the Golondrinas House (the place we were staying) by the instructors and we'd head out in a van to go birding. The van seated 12 people and everything fit pretty well (expect the far back seat was rather squished with 4 people). Some of the birding spots we went to were Myer's Point, Montezuma NWR, Hammond Hill, and the Roy H. Park Preserve. These are all birding hot spots within driving distance of Ithaca. I think we ended up seeing about 100 species and there were a couple life birds for several of us. My only new bird was a Yellow-billed Cuckoo which we saw by the side of the road in a big stand of oaks. It had been awhile since I'd had my last lifer (it seems like it gets a lot harder to see new birds the longer you are actively birding). We also saw a number of warblers (Cerulean, Blackburnian, Prairie, Black-throated Blue, ect). I had never birded in New York before so this was a new experience for me.

Besides from birding, we also got to use recording equipment from the Lab and experiment with some sound recording. There were lots of very inspiring talks by very inspiring people and the camp was worthwhile just because of them. Most of the speakers talked about their time at the Lab and what they did to volunteer or work. Numerous different internship opportunities were mentioned, along with ways that you could help the Lab with their research. Hearing someone talk about collecting and banding birds in highland Peru is one of the most inspiring things, as is listening to someone recall the process of making a field guide to subtropical birds. The amount of opportunities for interns at the Lab is amazing. Plus, all of the staff are extremely helpful and willing to listen to any crazy idea that you brew up.

To get to and from this camp it took more than 12 hours of traveling (including an overnight drive to get on my plane ride back home) but it was all worth it. I'd like to give a HUGE thank you to Pete Feitner, who drove me those 12 hours and was amazing. If you're reading this Pete, thanks a bunch!

Besides from just being really fun, this camp gave me lots of ideas about career possibilities in ornithology, cool internships, and inspiration in general to do more for our planet. To any young birders out there: I would certainly invest in taking this camp!!

Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post. I forgot to take my camera along with me (big mistake) and thus, didn't take any pictures!

My First Breeding Bird Survey!

2011-08-18T11:08:00.001-07:00

June 2011

     Today I helped do a Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) on a route near my house. I was only the assistant and did the recording. In case people are unaware of what a Breeding Bird Survey is, I'll explain. A BBS is a yearly census of breeding birds, conducted all over North America and in different parts of the world. There are numerous BBS routes across the country which people cover every year. Normally one to two people conduct the survey and it is done within a certain time frame. Every route has its own starting time, which remains the same every year. The criteria for counting is to stop every .5 miles and write down all the birds that the observer hears or sees. There is a limit of 3 minutes to stay at one "point" and then you must move on to the next point. There are usually 50 points along any given route.

   On the route I helped with there was 50 points and it covered about 20 miles. I woke up at 3:30am and met my friend, Christopher, at his hotel. We drove to the start of the route and did the first point at exactly 5:16am (the required starting time). We worked our way up into the mountains behind Las Vegas and continued until we came into town (on a map it resembled a big circle). There were some interesting birds during the survey, including a Northern Pygmy-Owl we heard at the start of the survey, Gray and Hammond's Flycatchers, Gray Catbird, Cassin's Kingbird, and Grace's and Virginia's Warblers.

Just Some Pics

2011-03-19T08:17:00.000-07:00


Partially-albino Dark-eyed Junco

A Killdeer at my Feeder!

My sister's pregnant mare

My dog Zia

Birthday Birding

2011-03-05T12:33:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I went birding with one of my friends from Albuquerque. It was in reality a birthday present because my birthday was on the 28th. He picked me up near my house at 8:00 and we decided to check out one of the lakes in Las Vegas for waterfowl. Storrie Lake has been good in the past for gulls and shorebirds but this time of year there's not very much. We stopped by and saw 43 Common Mergansers and a Common Goldeneye. We didn't stay there for long and hopped back in the car and drove towards Montezuma (a neighboring village). We parked near the post office in Montezuma and heard a flock of Red Crossbills. In the process of looking for them we also found a flock of Dark-eyed Juncos, a couple House Finches, a Eurasian Collared-Dove, and a couple Steller's Jays. After looking at the crossbills for a couple minutes we drove to Watrous. Watrous is about 30 minutes from Las Vegas and is not known as a impressive birding spot. Still, we decided that it could yield some interesting stuff. We walked down the main road and found a flock of White-crowned Sparrows (no Golden-crowned's mixed in unfortunately). Other notable birds were Eastern Bluebird, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Downy Woodpecker, Song Sparrow, and White-breasted Nuthatch. After birding a bit in Watrous we got back on the highway and drove to Valmora (a bit north of Watrous). In Valmora our highlights were Golden Eagle, Brown Thrasher, Canyon Towhee, Spotted Towhee, Bewick's Wren, Canyon Wren, Sharp-shinned Hawk, and Townsend's Solitaire.

For the rest of the day, we worked our way back towards Las Vegas, birding periodically along the way. At the end of the day I ended up with many new year birds and a couple new birds for the state.

The next post will come pretty soon!

Good Birding!

BRRRAAAANNNNTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!

2011-01-16T11:20:00.002-07:00

I have plenty of news to tell you since I published my last post!! Here's the low down on what's happened:

The bad news: 4 out of the 5 Christmas Bird Counts that I was scheduled to participate in got cancelled. The Albuquerque, Atascosa Highlands, Peloncillo, and Portal counts all didn't work out with my schedule and I ended up just doing the Las Vegas CBC.

The good news: The Las Vegas CBC was a total success and I had the most fun I've ever had on a Christmas Bird Count! I got up at 5:30 am on the morning of the 26th and drove into Las Vegas with my dad (I live about 25 minutes outside of town). We met up with all the other counters at Charlie's Spic & Span and had a quick breakfast. Then the compiler passed out all the data sheets and maps and we split up into our teams. I was with two excellent people and birders: Christopher, who came from Albuquerque and Martha, who lives in town. We were assigned to bird about a 6 mile area from the middle of Las Vegas to the neighboring community of Montezuma. I had never thought of birding in town as being very productive for birds but I certainly have a much different perspective now! We ended up seeing about 45 species (I think that’s pretty good for Las Vegas) and having a ton of fun. We also saw some pretty good birds such as a Green-tailed Towhee (great for that time of year) and an Eastern Winter Wren. We got the regulars such as Black-billed Magpies, Dark-eyed Juncos, Western, Mountain, and Eastern Bluebirds, (it was pretty cool to see all three bluebirds species in one day!) Ring-necked Ducks, Canyon Wren, and lots of other species. The reason I had such a good time is because of the people who I was birding with. Martha and Christopher are both great people and also very accomplished birders. Christopher especially knows his stuff. Just that one day I learned so much from him! He has an excellent ear and knows his calls very well. He also is very tuned in to the latest updates pertaining to taxonomy and other aspects of ornithology. He pointed out the differences between the calls of the eastern type of White-breasted Nuthatch and a the western, told me the subtle differences between a Pacific and Winter Wren, and much more. Martha also has an excellent knowledge of birds and in nature in general. She just moved to New Mexico within the year so she didn’t know her western birds at the level Christopher did but she showed a great knowledge of birds in general. They also both had great senses of humor and I don’t think I could have wished to bird with cooler folks. The only downside was that for pretty much the entire count, we were trespassing on private property. For some of the people, we had talked with them before to check if we could go traipsing through their land but for the majority we couldn’t negotiate with them at all. About halfway through the count we met a dog that had an acute interest in all of us. It followed us for about a quarter of a mile and at that point we thought it would leave us. But that it did not. For the rest of the count (three to four hours) this dog kept following us and erm, trying to help us. And dogs are not meant to assist in Christmas Bird Counts. Maybe 100 years ago they could have helped, when a CBC consisted of going out on Christmas Day to shoot as many birds as you could; with the help of a few dogs. He (or she) never seemed to tire of plodding along behind us and whenever it seemed as if we would finally lose it, it found a way to keep following us.

You may wonder why the title of this post is called what it is. Here is why:

Some people reading this post will think, “Why the heck is this guy so hyped up over a Brant”!

Well, let me put it this way - a Brant showing up in northern New Mexico is similar to the possibility of it not raining in the Pacific Northwest! I think this was the 7th or 8th record of a Brant in New Mexico and the first one I’ve ever seen away from the coasts! I’ve seen Brants in Massachusetts and California but that’s it. This Brant was not easy to find either. I arrived at the location where it was last spotted (Las Vegas NWR) and met up with some birding pals from Albuquerque. We drove around the refuge loop for about 2 hours and found lots of Snow/Ross’s Geese, Canada/Cackling Geese, but no Brant. We even saw two Tundra Swans! My companions decided they had to get back to Albuquerque and get some business done so they left in their car for Albuquerque. I, meanwhile, got picked up by my dad and we were almost ready to head home (this is about and hour later) when we got a call from one of the people I birded with saying the Brant had been found at a lake on the refuge! I guess the group of birders who had come down from ABQ had been halfway back when they got a call from another birder who was trying to help us find the Brant in the morning! So they turned around, and came roaring back to Las Vegas to see the Brant. I went with my dad to the refuge and there we met a group of birders stationed below the observation deck at the lake where the bird was. They kept telling me to look right in the middle of the focus area and that I’d see it but I always missed it! Finally, the Brant decided to lift it’s head up and take a stroll on the ice. That got all of us pretty excited: “IT’S UP!!!”, “WALKING LEFT, GOING BEHIND A SLEEPING MALLARD,......”. We all got a pretty adequate look at it before it resumed its meditation on one foot. When my friends from ABQ arrived they immediately rushed to a scope and tried to find the bird. Unfortunately, by now the Brant was completely obscured by a bunch of Canada Geese. But luck favors the weary! After about 15 minutes of straining their eyes to see the Brant, it decided it needed to stretch it legs a bit more. That got them REALLY excited! I’m glad to say that they all got great looks and immediately packed back into their car and drove all the way back to Albuquerque.

After seeing the Brant and looking at it for awhile I headed back to my house (about a 25 minute drive). I updated all my lists and then decided I needed to catch up on some rest. And that’s the end of that story......zzzzzzzzzzzz....

Updates...Why, Its Only Been Half A Year!

2010-12-18T20:00:00.009-07:00

Since June I have done less birding than I had hoped to and more time sitting down too. I started my first year of high school in the public school system which has been an interesting adventure.

Black-capped Chickadee on suet

I won't go into a lot of detail about school because that is not what this blog is supposed to be about but I'll at least tell you that it has been better than I expected. At least I'm not being shoved into lockers or anything like that. The high school I'm going to is, needless to say, a pretty low-quality school as education standards go.

View from our house in summer

Who is that uppity-looking young man?

I have done some birding in the past six months, mainly consisting of biweekly counts at a local National Wildlife Refuge. These counts are what mainly keep me going and they are a lot of fun, even if there is 50 MPH winds with a -10 degree wind chill! This has happened this fall, and believe me, it feels very cold and miserable when you're standing on a board walk with a scope, trying to stabilize it. The counts I do at this refuge (Las Vegas NWR) help the staff at the refuge keep a list of birds that are being sighted here and at the same time, let the public know where to see certain birds.

Besides from doing bird counts at the refuge I helped other volunteers "staff scopes" along the driving loop in November. Staffing scopes pretty much means setting up a couple scopes and then standing by them and getting people who drive by to take a peek at whatever we happen to be looking at. This was also pretty fun because, for one, me and my dad got to wear "NWR volunteer jackets" so we looked pretty intimidating (not!).

Early morning discovery

I was supposed to have a pretty exciting Winter Break in store up until a couple of days ago. I was supposed to fly out Friday to do a Christmas Bird Count in Point Reyes, California with my cousin. But this trip was called off as you will see. Before Wednesday, (December 15th) we had had very little snow. But on the 15th it started snowing and it didn't stop until the morning of the 17th. That meant that we got a pretty nice one and a half feet of snow around our house! You can imagine that it would have been pretty hard to drive out of our driveway with almost 2 feet of snow on the ground. That is why my parents decided to cancel my CBC in California. It also just so happened that Point Reyes was predicted to get 10 inches of rain over the weekend! That's a bunch of rain!

At first I was a tad depressed but I found that one can have a good deal of fun with one foot of snow! Besides shoveling our porch and driveway, me and my dad held the first ever "Las Vegas Snow-Bowl". A snow-bowl is when you do hardcore football in two feet of snow! Because I had never participated in a "snow-bowl" before I didn't realized how soaked and cold I would get. My dad was next to our garage and would throw the football to me on the run. I would often have to dive for it and that's when I got all the snow down my coat! It was a ton of fun though. I would run my hardest and then leap in the air and come crashing down in the snow (usually without the football). After about 20 throws I got simply too damn cold to continue and rushed inside to the nice, hot, wood stove (you cannot imagine how good a really hot wood stove feels after you've got two tons of snow down your coat!).

I'm gonna catch it!!

I caught it!!

Boy, I'm cold!

Winter vista, not to be confused with summer vista

Luckily, I have a plan B. Plan B is doing the Albuquerque and Las Vegas Christmas Bird Counts along with 2-3 other CBC's in Arizona and western New Mexico. The Las Vegas count is the day after Christmas and the Albuquerque count is Sunday (Dec. 19). The Albuquerque and Arizona CBC's are still up in the air but I will make a post if they happen. Keep an eye open for another post!

Bird Nut

Call animal control, there's a rabid dog at my house!!

Coastal Maine Bird Studies for Teens

2010-06-29T05:47:00.003-07:00

One of my fellow campers observing a pair of Common Terns

From June 20 to June 25 I think I had the most fun in my life. Wouldn't you say that spending 6 days in coastal Maine, birding, hiking and boating would be pretty fun? I think it would be! Those 6 days I was going to a Audubon camp in Maine called Coastal Maine Bird Studies for Teens located on a beautiful spit of land called Hog Island.

The location of Hog Island is perfect; just inside the Gulf of Maine in Muscongus Bay. The island reminded me a lot of coastal British Columbia because of the rich diversity of life, moss, damp climate and various types of firs. I took one walk on the island and it felt like I was in another world. Winter Wrens were ever-present with their beautiful warble and the dampness and humidity made it feel as if I were in coastal Washington (and coastal B.C.). It took some time to get used to island life and the humidity but I caught on pretty quick to the daily schedule. That was one of the only downsides of the camp: the agenda was very packed every day and there was limited free time. If I had had more free time I would have explored the island more thoroughly.

A view of Hog Island

Every morning there was a bird walk at 5:45 AM. I went on it every day but a couple of my fellow campmates decided to be really lazy and sleep in to 6:45 (if you call that sleeping in) to go to breakfast at 7:00. The bird walks were led by people like Kenn Kaufman, Scott Weidensaul, and Greg Budney (the last of which is the curator of the Macaulay Library of Natural Sounds at Cornell). I learned a lot from all of the leaders and am glad I woke up at 5:45 every day! In addition to a bird walk, Sara Morris and Scott led a banding session Wednesday and Thursday in the same time frame as the bird walk. That was the only banding we got to do, although we did have a 3 hour session with Anthony Hill, (a bander from Hadley, MA) and Ken Keffer (who works at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory in Ohio). Unfortunately, it was raining during that period and we had to stay inside because it is unsafe for the birds to be banded in bad weather conditions. We still learned a lot about banding because they taught us how to put the bands on, how to fill out the data sheets and so forth. We even got to measure the band size on some bird specimens and experiment with the data sheets.

The meals at camp were fantastic. There was a professional cook there and he made to best meals! I don't think I've ever been to a camp or gathering with better food. As great as this camp is, it has been closed at certain times in the past 10 years. Last year it was not open because Maine Audubon went under but I think National Audubon has started funding for it -not sure though.

Both the adult group and teen group went on a some sort of field trip every day. For one of the days, we had a tour of the bay surrounding Hog Island and Steve Kress explained the natural and social history of the area. The adults and teens went to a lot of the same places but usually went separately. We went on several "hikes" around the area (I put hikes in parentheses because they were all pretty short in time and distance). We went to a blueberry barren where we saw Vesper Sparrows and a rare Upland Sandpiper! We also went on a hike near Medomak, ME (the town closest to Hog Island).

Without a doubt the best part of the camp was when the teens and teen instructors landed on Eastern Egg Rock and we got to see the nesting colony of Roseate, Common and Artic Terns, Laughing Gulls, Black Guillemots and Atlantic Puffins. Being in a seabird colony is like nothing you've ever experienced and you feel like you are actually a part of it. There is nothing as special as being a foot away from a baby tern or seeing a volunteer hold up a guillemot chick. We even had a volunteer show us a Leach's Storm-Petrel, a bird that is nocturnal and that you rarely see. I am still pondering whether or not to put it on my life list because it was removed (gently) from it's nice cozy burrow, (it certainly blinked a lot when it came out!). As a side note, this was the first time any group of campers were permitted to land on the island so it was pretty special.

Two of my fellow campmates

Every night there was a presentation on a certain topic pertaining to birds. One night it was on identifying female warblers, another night it was about migration. I especially liked the presentation Scott Weidensaul did about migration and conservation related to that. Some of the things he said just blew my mind! Such as the fact that Bar-tailed Godwits shrink the size of their entire digestive system by more than 50 percent before they migrate from the Aleutians to New Zealand!! I got Scott to sign my copy of Return to Wild America and I had a couple very interesting conversations with him.

Kenn and Kim Kaufman also gave a talk on how to get other people (especially young ones) into birding. It was really interesting and and I think it will help me with my work on educating kids about birds in New Mexico. I think a lot of people trying to get youngins' into birding get way too technical with binoculars and all that stuff. Both Kenn and Kim were excellent speakers and I was amazed at how well they presented all of their topics.

Meeting Greg Budney was a great experience for me. He let me and other campers use his recording equipment, such as a parabla (might have spelled that wrong) and he told us about the work he does for the Macaulay Library. But most exciting of all, he told me that he could loan me his recording gear for a bit in the winter and I could record the calls of Rosy-finches on Sandia Crest (in Albuquerque)! I am so psyched to get a chance to do that and Greg said that the calls of all three species of Rosy-finches have never been recorded!

And all in all, this was an amazing camp!

P.S. I'll try to keep up a more regular schedule with the posts.

Steve Kress (behind map) teaching us about location of Hog Island

Just one of the great views on the island...Wait! Who'se that bugger befouling the frame?

Common Terns

Where I slept

Leach's Storm-Petrel

Moss

A nice view

Somewhere on the water

Useful sign

Finally Summer!!!

2010-06-02T13:34:00.000-07:00

During the time I last posted here and now I have done many things. I've completed 8th grade and am now getting ready for high school. I had a great last semester at the charter school I go to. We studied the impact of wind power and how it compares to fossil fuels such as coal and oil. As we now know, an oil disaster can have dire effects and coal is as dirty a fuel as you could ask for. For wind power , the biggest disaster that has happened is a turbine being struck by lightning and blowing up. Anyway, the 5th thru 8th grades at my school studied wind power and we all decided if we were in favor of or against a local proposed wind facility. It is supposed to be built on a mesa about 30 miles from my house. We also made "voice threads" on our personal opinions on the wind farm. A voice thread is pretty much a diologue with pictures (kind of like a podcast).

Western Meadowlark

Lewis's Woodpecker

I've also (obviously) been birding. My dad and I led the effort for the San Miguel County International Migratory Bird Day Count and organized a big part of it. The IMBDC is a national event and each county conducts it's own count. There are usually teams of about 2-3 people and they go on separate routes. I started the day with a friend and local biologist, Lea Knutson. We got up around 5:30 AM and got out of the house by 6:00. All of the places we went to would probably be unfamiliar to anyone who does not live in New Mexico but I'll list them anyway. First, we went down a dirt road near Lea's house where we saw Lark, Chipping, and White-crowned Sparrows and stopped at a orchard about 2 miles down the road. It was pretty productive: we saw Bullock's Orioles, House Wrens, a Swainson's Hawk on a nest, Yellow-rumped Warblers, and a few more species.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

After stopping there we got to Ruby Ranch, a privately owned cattle ranch that occasionally lets birders in. It is a great place to bird (one of the best hot spots in the county) and we had a pretty good day there. We spent a lot of the time walking along the stream that comes through the ranch and saw birds such as Yellow, Yellow-rumped, and MacGillavary's Warblers. Our best bird was a Northern Waterthrush, a fairly uncommon bird in northern NM. It was my first for the state too. We only got a brief glimpse but it's distinctive behavior and markings have it away. Besides tromping through willows and cottonwoods we visited the 2 lakes in the ranch. Besides from seeing some normal New Mexican waterbirds (Northern Shoveler, Ruddy Duck, Clark's Grebe, etc.) we saw what was probably the most swallows I've ever seen. There must have been 1,500 swallows (on just one lake!) and all 6 species that we could have seen!! There were 800+ Cliff Swallows, 500+ Northern Rough-winged Swallows, 250+ Barn Swallows and lesser amounts of Violet-green, Tree, and Bank Swallows. I was so excited that I totally forgot to pick up my bird book when we left! (I came back later to pick it up when I realized I'd left it).

After birding Ruby Ranch for 3 plus hours we went into Las Vegas and had a much needed lunch. Then Lea and I hooked up with my dad and the person birding with him. We all hopped into one car and drove to La Liendre Road (near Las Vegas) where we walked around a bit. We got quite good at distinguishing Cassin's and Western Kingbirds because we saw at least 20 of them. We also saw Lark Buntings, Lark Sparrows, a Bewick's Wren, and a very cute hummingbird nest! (pictured below). The eggs were barely bigger than my pinky! It was a wonder that we found it at all. It was only 2 feet off the ground and in a Juniper branch.


Lazuli Bunting

After all that birding we weren't done yet! We took a 2 hour break and then all (including Lea's son) drove up to Johnson Mesa- a great place to hike and bird. We waited until it was getting dark and then split up into owling teams, (I was with my dad and Jamie (Lea's son) and Lea was with the other person who had come along). We then hiked in opposite directions and started calling for Spotted Owls. Johnson Mesa is one of the very few places where Spotted Owls have been documented in northern New Mexico and we were doing a survey to see if we could find any. We didn't see or hear any Spotted Owls in the 4 hours we were hiking but my dad, Jamie and I got great looks at a pair of Northern Pygmy-Owls. We didn't even try to call them in either! We just happened to walk around a corner and, bingo! there they where! They were very upset that we had come in their territory and were calling non-stop. We had a quick look and then left them be. Unfortunately I did not have my camera or I would have put pictures of them on here!

Another thing that I've done is that my family has gotten two cute little kittens (picture below)! We got them from a friend who rescued them from a dumpster.


Tired kittens

My dog Zia being crazy

California Birding

2010-03-19T15:53:00.009-07:00

From March 4th to March 8th (part of my Spring Break) I was birding in northern California with my cousin.

I flew out by myself (first time I had ever done that) and my cousin picked me up at the Oakland airport. We stayed at her house and for the next three days she took me to places around the San Francisco Bay. On the first day we mostly birded in the Baylands, around the south part of the bay and in the foothills (near San Jose). We saw 93 species and I got 5 lifers including California Towhee and Western Gull (yes, that was the very first time I saw a WEGU). The second day we birded in parks near my cousin's house and saw 50+ species. I obtained another 3 life birds and overall it was a very good day. The weather was spectacular (well, warm and a bit cloudy) and there were no problems except a brief encounter with a bay leaf (yeah, a bay leaf). We were hiking in a park and I noticed lots of bay trees. My cousin said that they smelled very enticing and that I should sniff one. Taking her word I plucked a leaf out a tree and (very energetically) inhaled the smell. Unfortunately I snorted a couple bits of leaf up my nose as well and I was sneezing my head off for about 15 minutes! Luckily that was the only minor difficulty that occurred on the trip. After looking a day for it I finally saw a Wrentit! It took standing on top of a post and making Pygmy-Owl calls to lure one out. This is a picture of me looking quite smug after I saw one of those buggers (my cousin took the picture).

The third day of our adventure was probably the funnest. We went out to the coast a friend of my cousin's who is a excellent birder. For anyone at all familiar with northern California we were birding mostly around Half Moon Bay. We saw lots of interesting species (Brant, Surfbird, Hooded Merganser, Scoters, Marbled Murrelet, etc) and I saw another handful of lifers. The best bird for the day was probably a Hooded Merganser that we saw in a creek. Apparently it was very unusual to see one of them in habitats like that. But for me, all of the birds were amazing (since I'd never been to California before) and it was great to see all of the specialties. I was pretty sad when it was time to go because of all the birds and mainly, because it is so green there (remember, I live in New Mexico).

When I arrived back home I was welcomed by 30 MPH winds and terrible weather. We got a foot of snow that week (the 8 to the 13) and we are getting at least 8 inches this week! I don't mind snow but I am looking forward to Spring. There has been a more than usual amount of snowfall this year so I am expecting a very green Spring!

Note: I would have taken more pictures but I forgot to bring my good camera. Please forgive me if any of the pics are a bit grainy.

Rosy-Finches and Roadrunners

2010-02-06T16:48:00.009-07:00

Sorry for the very long space between posts. I was so caught up with my life that I forgot all about my blog!
Since my last post (July 5, 09) I have turned fifteen and have progressed in many ways. I have also been on many birding excursions to places such as Bosque del Apache NWR, Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, and other exciting spots. I am not sure of the amount of birds I have seen between July and now but it is probably a lot! I have also taken a bunch of pictures which I will post as soon as I can. You are probably wondering why this post is called "Rosy-Finches and Roadrunners". Here are three possible answers to why it is called that:
1. Rosy-Finches and roadrunners started interbreeding and created a new species- the Pink Roserunner.
2. I have seen Rosy-Finches and roadrunners in the past 7 months and wanted to reflect on my sightings.
3. My mom misidentified a Greater Roadrunner for a Black Rosy-Finch and I wanted to make fun of her.

Well, the answer is #2 my friends. But I do wish that there were Pink Roserunners in this country...

There are two places where I have seen Rosy-Finches: Sandia Crest, (near Albuquerque) and in my own backyard! At Sandia Crest I saw all 3 species of Rosy-Finches outside the restaurant on the Crest. A group of people band them every Sunday, so if you are ever in Albuquerque and want somewhere to go, I'd suggest nipping up to watch the banders band Rosy-Finches.
Today I was looking out my window at my feeder when I saw a bird that didn't quite look like a junco. I whipped out my bins and discovered, to my delight that it was a Rosy-Finch. I spent the next 2 hours trying to decide what species it was! After I contacted a friend who bands Rosy-Finches I decided it was a Brown-capped. They have less extensive gray on the crown than Gray-crowns and are paler than Blacks.

And for the roadrunners...

Well, I've seen them pretty much everywhere! I saw them at the Bosque del Apache NWR, the Las Vegas NWR, and everywhere in between. I was with my dad at Bosque when we saw the roadrunner. It was by the side of the road by a boardwalk and was VERY impressed by our Prius! We had stopped the car alongside the roadrunner and it started to display it's crown and puffed up it's feathers. For at least 10 minutes it was "challenging" our car and in quite a mood. We finally left it in peace (much to the roadrunner's delight).

Well, that's about it from the past 7 months. I'll try to be more consistent with my posts in 2010...

Here are some statistics from 2009:

Total Species: 234

Life Birds: 34

Number I'm at on my Life List: 632

Did I have fun?

YES!!!

The Cape of Cod

2009-07-05T19:24:00.005-07:00

Hi folks!

Sorry for the lack of posts recently-I guess I've had too much fun birding! I got out of school on May 29th (pretty early isn't it) and played around a bit and of course birded!

I went on a big banding trip to the Burrow Mountains in southwest New Mexico with my young birder friends Raymond and Michael to band Yellow-eyed Juncos and that was a great experience! I think we banded 2 or 3 Yellow-eyed Juncos and a bunch of other stuff! A cool thing with the juncos we were banding was that they were hybrids so some of them had brown eyes! We did get one classic YEJU that had the bright yellow eye-almost orange. I didn't get any pictures of banding but I might be able to get them from some other people who were on the trip.

Besides from that banding trip I went on a couple of Audubon trips. One was to Villanueva State Park which is southwest of Las Vegas. We didn't see much; Yellow-breasted Chats and a nesting pair of Red-tails. The Red-tails were awesome though, I got tons of pics and will get them on this blog ASAP. I saw the parents feed the babies a lizard and a mouse----pretty cool! About two weeks after the Villanueva trip we (my mom, my sister, our dog Zia and I) packed up our tiny little Prius and drove to Cape Cod, Massachusetts! It was a bit of a tight fit but we managed. We bought some fireworks for Fourth of July in Missouri (about the last state east of Ohio where you can buy fireworks) and listened to The Hithhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the way east! The trip took us 4 days and we slept in kinda bad hotels except for the night in Missouri.

We got to Cape Cod on July 1st and the vey next day I went on a fishing trip with two of my uncles. We caught 7 fish altogether (6 Striped Bass and 1 Bluefish) and put all but one the freezer-the other one we baked and had for dinner. Oh the taste of fresh bass...

I've gotten a birding trip in too since we got here. On Saturday the 4th I birded around Race Point with my old bird club leader! We saw about 50 species including 4 lifers for me: Parasitic Jaeger, Long-tailed Jaeger, Lesser Black-backed Gull, and Roseate Tern! Scott (that's my old leader) was especially excited about the 10,00 shearwaters we saw right from the beach! He said that that was the most shearwaters he'd ever seen from shore! We got our feet wet and a little cold but it was all worth it. Our list of species is below. On the night of the 4th we went to a friends house where we could see most of the Cape from their porch! We set off some fireworks and overall had a good time!

Here is the list from Race Point and Hatches Harbor on the trip with Scott:

Red-breasted Merganser (1)

Cory's Shearwater (2,000)

Greater Shearwater (6,000)

Sooty Shearwater (300)

Manx Shearwater (2)

Northern Gannet (1)

Double-crested Cormorant (3)

Green Heron (1)

Turkey Vulture (3)

Red-tailed Hawk (1)

Piping Plover (1)

Parasitic Jaeger (2)

Long-tailed Jaeger (1)

Laughing Gull (1,000)

Bonaparte's Gull (200)

Ring-billed Gull (2,000)

Herring Gull (500)

Iceland Gull (3)

Lesser Black-backed Gull (4)

Great Black-backed Gull (50)

Black-legged Kittiwake (5)

Royal Tern (1)

Roseate Tern (3)

Common Tern (1,000)

Artic Tern (20)

Least Tern (30)

Black Tern (1)

Eastern Kingbird (1)

Blue Jay (5)

American Crow (5)

Carolina Wren (2)

American Robin (3)

Gray Catbird (20)

Northern Mockingbird (6)

Cedar Waxwing (2)

Common Yellowthroat (1)

Eastern Towhee (4)

Song Sparrow (1)

Red-winged Blackbird (5)

Common Grackle (15)

Baltimore Oriole (2)

House Finch (3)

Pine Siskin (3)

American Goldfinch (5)

House Sparrow (10)

Long Time No Post!

2009-03-28T15:48:00.002-07:00

Hello people! I'm terribly sorry that I haven't posted in 2 months and that I haven't even looked at my own blog for a month. This time I'm not saying (like last time I said "I'm sorry" on a post) I was busy, or something hollow like that. I'll say that I just totally forgot about my blog for the last two months. That's not being hollow and unsincere, is it? My lack of posts have certainly not been because nothing interesting has been happening in my life; on the contrary my life has been very interesting these past two months in which I have neglected my blog. Since I last posted I have been to Cave Creek Canyon, Arizona twice, taught a bird class to middle school students, and have done 2 months at Rio Gallinas Charter School in Las Vegas, NM. I've had plenty of things to post about; going to Cave Creek Canyon, teaching bird identification to 12 and 13 year olds, and how living in New Mexico is like for a 14 year old birder.

Well, lets get started with confessions and news alerts. The first thing I have to say is that living out in remote northern New Mexico is pretty fun! I have Lewis's Woodpeckers and Spotted Towhees at my feeders and I have been on several bird trips with Central New Mexico Audubon Society throughout New Mexico. I've met several other young birders in the Albuquerque area who have done several excursions with me and have gotten me into keeping a list of NM birds I see. Birding has probably kept me sane; I've gotten rather frustrated with my school and I've been kept from birding by other things (tests, workouts, and other oddments that I do not need to go into detail about).

I have been practicing digiscoping with my camera and scope and am getting better results then two months ago (obviously!). I have some tips for anyone who is interested in digiscoping or is looking for help in the activity. You can email me at casseagle@gmail.com or just read this post! (Digiscoping tips are at the end of this post).

Like I said at the beginning of this charming post, I've been to Portal twice these past couple months. I went once in late January for my 14th B-day and once on my spring break (March 9th-15th). I did not see the bird I've been looking for for a year; the Elegant Trogon, but I did see lots other birds. On both visits I saw Blue-throated Hummingbird and Hutton's Vireo and on the March visit I saw Ash-throated and Vermillion Flycathcers. In March it is not peak season, but it is still pretty good birding down there. I might be going down there in April which will be very birdy.

Touching apon a subject which I believe I have never posted about is my two breeding budgies, Coco and Verde. I got them at a bird store in Santa Fe called Feathered Friends in September and paid about $18.50 for each of them. They mated in early January and laid their eggs in February. Unfortunnately, only two of the four chicks hatched (that is common in budgies) and that was that. The two chicks are about 10 days old now and are beginning to grow in their down and primary feathers! They can not yet even support thier little necks that much and support eachother in their little nest box! The currently unnamed chicks will fledge when they are about 4-5 weeks old and will be independent at around 6-7 weeks! I will keep you updated on the antics of my little fluffballs and anounce the big day (fledgling day)!

I think that I have bored you enough, so its Hasta Luego for now!

Cassidy

Digiscoping!

2009-01-01T12:05:00.004-07:00

Sorry about lack of posts during the holidays, we had 12 people over for Christmas and its been kinda crazy.

Well anyway, there was certainly a big highlight on X-mas! I already have a Swarovski 65mm scope and I have been wanting to start digiscoping. Well, I got a 50mm Nikkor lens for our Nikon and a DCA camera adapter from my mom and dad!! I have a Nikon D80 and a 300mm zoom lens which I use for bird shots. My mom had been researching and a lot of folks said that the Nikon 50mm Nikkor lens was the best choice for digiscoping. So far its been GREAT! I've been taking pics of the birds in our yard and have got some pretty good ones.

Well aside from that I'm doing the Christmas Bird Count on Saturday with a birder from Santa Fe! I think that I may be live-streaming on a radio station that day at 10:10 mountain time!

One question:

Do you think that I should delete my trip list and start a new one or just ad to my trip list?

Anyway, here are some of my digiscoping pics:

Death Glass-November 29th, 2008

2008-11-29T09:26:00.000-07:00

When I woke up this morning I found a dead Sharp-shinned Hawk on our patio. It looked like it had hit the window of the sunroom yesterday evening because it had a layer of snow on it. I then buried it in our yard (woods) and then came back inside.
Later that morning I was sitting in the living room and relaxing. Just then I hear a "BANG" on the window and I sit bolt upright. I run outside and find a Pine Siskin lying on the ground. Its not dead but not in great shape. And it doesn't get better when Zia picks it up in his mouth and starts munching on it. I run up to Zia, carefully open his mouth and get the bird out of his mouth. Unfortunately for the siskin, Zia ripped its tail off as I got the bird out of his mouth and it was sopping wet. I put Zia inside and then tried to think what to do with the siskin. Of course now it can't fly with its tail off so we put it in a box and put it on top of our hot-tub.
I really think that the most dangerous thing for birds is windows. I call them death glass because so many birds die from hitting windows. We have hummingbird stickers on our windows that are suppose to catch birds attention and make them keep from killing themselves on your death glass. I think that everyone should have some kind of window sticker or something like that to keep the death rate down on birds in your backyard.
This year already, about 15 birds have hit our windows and about 7-8 have died. In September a Black-headed Grosbeak hit my window but its mostly been siskins that have hit windows. Either they're a little dull in the head or they just can't tell whats outside and whats inside our house.
On the brighter side of things I just got a new scope! Its a Swarovski 65mm Standard and it is really good! We're also getting a camera. Well, good birding to all you folks and happy holidays!

Las Vegas NWR-November 2, 2008

2008-11-06T19:13:00.000-07:00

This Sunday I went out with the Santa Fe Audubon group to the Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge from 7:00 to 1:30 p.m. We saw a total of 33 species and I saw 1 lifer. On the way back to the headquarters of the refuge, I saw a Ferruginuos Hawk which is a lifer! It was gorgous. With a white chest and tail and a reddish back it, in my opinion is one of America's prettiest birds. We chased it for a while and finally got it rioght over the highway!

Sorry, I don't have much time to write anything and we lost our camera so I'm unable to put up any pics.

Good Birding!

Cassidy

Here is the bird list from Sunday:

Ducks, Geese, & Swans:
Snow Goose
Canada Goose
Gadwall
American Wigeon
Mallard
Northern Shoveler
Northern Pintail
Canvasback
Bufflehead
Hooded Merganser

Grebes:
Pied-billed Grebe
Clark's Grebe (1 adult, 2 immature)

Pelicans:
American White Pelican

Cormorants:
Double-crested Cormorant

Herons, Bitterns, & Allies:
Great Blue Heron

Hawks, Kites, Eagles, & Allies:
Osprey
Northern Harrier
Red-tailed Hawk
Ferruginous Hawk

Falcons:
American Kestrel

Rails, Gallinules, & Coots:
American Coot

Cranes:
Sandhill Crane

Gulls, Terns, & Skimmers:
Bonaparte's Gull
Ring-billed Gull

Pigeons & Doves:
Rock Dove

Crows & Jays:
Common Raven

Larks:
Horned Lark

Thrushes:
Mountain Bluebird

Starlings:
European Starling

Towhees, Sparrows, & Allies:
American Tree Sparrow
Grey-headed Junco

Blackbirds:
Red-winged Blackbird
Western Meadowlark

Here are some pictures from the trip

2008-10-27T19:42:00.000-07:00

Buff-bellied Hummingbird
Mission, Texas

Golden-fronted Woodpecker
Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge-Alamo, Texas

Great-horned Owl
Tucson, Arizona

Transitions-October 13th, 2008

2008-10-13T10:20:00.000-07:00

Now we are really back home. Teslin and I started school on August 22 at a charter school called Rio Gallinas and dad is working at El Centro, a Health place. It feels weird, stopping in one place more then a week. The guy we bought the house from is a birder and has a whole bird habitat in the backyard. We have 14 acres, all scrub-land, and there are plenty of sparrows and bluebirds. When we got here on August 2nd, there were lots of Black-headed Grosbeaks, Lewis's Woodpeckers, and Lesser Goldfinches. Now there is just occasionally a Red-winged Blackbird or White-crowned Sparrows. I've seen a couple lifers (Lewis's Woodpecker and Lark Bunting) and plenty of old ones.
Before we came here we were on Cape Cod with my grandparents for a month. I saw 2 new lifers there, Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow and American Oystercatcher. Of course I saw plenty of seabirds and shorebirds, but not many new ones. We had a great time on the Cape and celebrated mom's, dad's, and grandma's B-day in July. One of the highlights was 18 miles offshore, were I caught a 90-pound Bluefin Tuna off my grandpa's boat! It me half-an-hour to reel it in and when I finally got it in the boat, my arm was aching! Teslin and mom came to New Mexico on a Southwest flight on the 2nd of August and dad and I rented a Penske moving truck and packed up all our stuff and left for home on July 28th. I saw a lifer on the trip, a Mississippi Kite over a Ramada Inn in Oklahoma! We got to Las Vegas (New Mexico) on the 1st and then we started unpacking.
Now we have almost everything unpacked and we are finding old items every day! We kept most of our stuff but some we are going to give away. The house does not look anything like what it did when we got here and we are going to expand the house soon. When we got here my room was lime-green and then dad and I painted it orangish-yellowish. Aside from other things happening around here, Teslin got gerbils and 2 cockatiels (named Bernie and Arwen)and I got a pair a parakeets that are very much in love with each other named Verde and Coco! I think the parakeets will mate this winter or spring because they have been hanging around their nest box a lot and are very into each other. We also have a 8-week old Golden Retreiver named Zia after New Mexico's symbol that is very cute!
I joined the Santa Fe Sangre de Cristo Audubon and the first bird trip was a couple weeks ago to the Las Vegas NWR and to a private ranch (Ruby Ranch). I saw 4 lifers which were Lark Bunting, Sabine's Gull, Western Grebe and Clark's Grebe! We saw Clark's and Western Grebes on the same lake!
On the downside of things, I broke my wrist 6 weeks ago falling off our neighbor's trampoline. And on the good side of things, I get off my darn cast this Wednesday!

Updates:

Life List- at 595!
School-have done about 7 weeks
Where we live-Las Vegas, New Mexico
Books I've read recently-Brisingr, A Wizard of Earthsea
Animals-2 Parakeets, 2 Cockatiels, 2 Gerbils, 1 Siamese, and 1 8-week old Golden Retriever

June 21st, 2008, Journal Entry

2008-06-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

This morning I woke up in an instant (very unusual) because I knew today we were gonna hike with Dave, Isabella and Eddie around Carson National Forest.

At about 8:30 I woke up and we had cereal and cleaned up poppi for D, I, and E. After a quick breakfast of frosted flakes we went down to the office and payed for our time at the KOA Campground. Just then Dave arrived with Eddie sleeping in the back seat! We then went over some maps in poppi and then went to Subway to get some sandwiches for our hike (I got an Italian BLT, dad got same, mom shared turkey one with sis and Eddie and Isabella shared foot-long tuna).

We listened to the cat tape on our way and the seating arrangements were Dave, Eddie and dad in Dave's car and mom, Teslin, Isabella, and me went in "Big White". On the way to Carson we stopped by a lookout that overlooked the valley we had drove through and some surrounding mountains! I picked up a hiking stick there too.

We got to where we wanted to hike at about 1:30 and we got on the trail (well, actually there wasn't a trail, just bushwhacking) shortly afterward. I carried the pink backpack for about 5 minutes and then I gave it to da because it was way too heavy.

We hiked all the way to the bottom of a snow field and then I gave out. The whole way I was feeling kinda queasy and had a little hard time breathing and finally I just collapsed and couldn't go any farther (at least up). So mom and I went back to the car while the rest of them went up.
On the way down I got even more queasy and then I had to move my bowls. It got worse and worse until finally I squatted down in front of a pinyon and the rest is none of your business. Actually I guess I'll tell you. Right before I "squatted in the bushes" mom and I saw 2 male hummingbirds perched on 2 different trees. At first I thought that they were just Black-chinned but then, holy-moly, they had pink bibs!! And the only hummer in the US that has a pinkish bib (other then Ruby-throated) is the Broad-tailed Hummingbird! Sooo, I figured out that I just saw my first two Broad-tailed Hummers!!!

Since right where I pooped was right above the car, we quickly went down to the Seqouia and crashed (well, at least I did). Actually we just relaxed and wrote in our journals.
After a while the rest of the Ruges and Benavidas's came back and we hopped in our cars (I was with Dave with Teslin and Isabella in the back and mom and da were with Eddie) and headed for a restaurant in Penasco (a little town near Las Vegas). Once we got to Penasco, we found the Sugar Nymph (the name of the restaurant we were going to) and had din-din. We ordered a pepperoni pizza with two goat cheese salads. After dinner we payed the bill and hopped in our cars (this time I went with mom, dad Isa, and sis) and drove to the KOA (Dave decided to stay the night).

Once we got to the campground we set up Dave's tent and built a fire. Dave played his guitar and we had s'mores and we (Dave, da, and I) stayed up till 11:30. Finally , after we had all talked enough and had enough s'mores, we hit the sack (I was with Dave in his tent).

We're Home, But Not Yet

2008-06-22T09:42:00.000-07:00

In the past 2 weeks its been very exciting. We bought a house, decided to move to Las Vegas, and I saw about 4 lifers here. Well, were to begin... I'll start with when we got to Vegas.

We stayed in Milagro for 2 weeks and then moved out and headed for Las Vegas. We thought that we would maybe look at a few houses, see if there is any good schools or jobs for mom and dad and overall we didn't think that we would be impressed. We were wrong. First we found a fabulous school that was centered on outward-bound stuff and was 1st grade to 8th grade and then dad found a nursing clinic that he really liked that would work for mom too. And then we found an amazing house on the outskirts of Las Vegas that had a excellent birding area and a sun room where you can watch thunderstorms. There is also a room that would be mine and has room for a bed and a study. After we looked at the house 3 different times we decided to buy it!

I'm still getting over the shock of getting a house and that our trip is almost over (it ends after we come back from Cape Cod to the house on August 2).

Yesterday night we did a big hike at about 12,000 feet in Carson National Forest with our friend David Benevidas and his two kids Isabella and Eddie.There wasn't a trail and we went to the top of a snow field (I didn't go up because I was too queasy). On the way back I saw a lifer-a Broad-tailed Hummingbird- and I also saw a Golden Eagle getting mobbed by a Red-tail (hawk)! I wrote I journal entry on the hike too so you can just read the other post (June 21st, 2008). After the hike we had a campfire with Dave, Isabella and Eddie.

We are going on a plane (it'll be the fist time I've been on a plane in about a year) to Cape Cod on July 1st and are gonna visit with our grandparents for a month (from 7/1/08 to 8/1/08).

Back Home, kinda

2008-05-23T07:38:00.000-07:00

We are back in the US of A and having to deal with cultural shock! I mean, there two very different countries and with two very different cultures. In the states you can't watch El Superbowl in Spanish or go to the zocalo and have 10 limonada minerals and in Mexíco you can't watch the Red Sox on NESN or the Diomondbacks on FSN!
Well, overall I'm a little shocked about the different cultures but am glad to be back where I can see Elegant Trogons and Flammulated Owls. Our border crossing was extremely quick, it only took 10 minutes! After crossing we drove to Del Rio and stayed at a campground with internet (wow!) and then the next day popped down and went to the Historic Prude Guest Ranch (for short Prude Ranch or HPGR) and stayed there for 4 days and did lots of fun stuff. Teslin rode with mom on a 45 minute ride (was spose to be longer) and the four of us did a half-day ride from Fort Davis Stables, about 10 minutes away from the Prude Ranch. That ride was pretty fun and I saw a lifer, Scaled Quail but afterwards I felt like I was sitting on a pointed rock for days (finally its better) and didn’t like that i couldn’t play b-ball or tennis!
During the 4 nights we were there I saw a family of Elf Owls (a lifer for me) nesting in a phone poll near our pop-up and every night I dragged myself out of bed and went to see the cute litttle owls! After 4 nights at the Prude Ranch we made for Tucson and got there the same day we left the Prude Ranch.
Now we are staying at Milagro Co-housing for a couple of weeks (at first we stayed at my aunt and uncles place). We have settled in and got a hummer feeder and a thistle bag and thistle seeds. We now have lots of hummers feeding and drinking out of the founting but the finches haven’t found the thistle yet. I was invited to a meal with two other young birders (a 9 and 13 year old) by a volonteer at the Tucson Audobon Society on May 31. I’m pretty excited for that and for meeting other youngsters like me who our into birding! I think the TAS just finished their yearly Birdathone and the meal is in that honor.
Yesterday we went to the Pualo Frier Freedom School to check it out and see if we want to go there or not and we liked it a lot! It was a little crazy though.

Terns at every Turn 5/2/08

2008-05-06T06:33:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Rio Lagartos and went on one of the boats that tours provide with a guide that really knew his birds. I ended up seeing 7 lifers and 49 species overall. Here is how it all turned out.

6:45AM: I grudgingly got out of bed, had a quick breakfast (cereal), and got ready to go.

7:45AM: We got in the car and headed for Rio Lagartos (listening to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows as dad drove).

9:15AM: We arrived at RL and looked for a good boat launch.

9:30AM: We found a good bird guide (named Eddie) to drive the boat and headed out into the rio.

9:30-1:00PM: We wove through mangroves and I saw 4 species of terns, Sandwich, Royal, Gull-billed, and the beautiful Black Skimmer (all of these being lifers for me). Terns were everywhere! At one place there was Caspian and Royal flying together and a Gull-billed and Sandwich on a sandbar! The Black Skimmers I saw where on a dock mixed with Laughing Gulls and a Sandwich [Tern]. I also saw my first Laughing Falcon perched right next to the waters edge! It looked at us for a while and then took off when we got too close. The Greater Flamingos were pretty fun to watch and I saw 2 Western Sandpipers (my first ones). Our guide taught me how to identify Westerns from Least (there very similar). Western Sandpipers have black legs while Least have paler legs. Also, in breeding plumage Western has some reddish blotches on its head and other parts of its body.
Aside from those 7 life birds and the 49 species I saw, I didn’t see that much. I was aiming for 30 so I guess I passed that mark. I heard a Mangrove Vireo but couldn’t find it. Here is the whole list from Rio Lagartos:

Bird List for Rio Lagartos

1. Sandwich Tern*new
2. Black Skimmer*new
3. Magnificent Frigatebird
4. Brown Pelican
5. Laughing Gull
6. Black Vulture
7. Lineated Woodpecker
8. Barn Swallow
9. Bare-throated Tiger-Heron
10. Turkey Vulture
11. Double-crested Cormorant
12. Snowy Egret
13. White-winged Dove
14. White Ibis
15. Reddish Egret
16. Wood Stork
17. Yellow Warbler
18. Common Black-Hawk
19. Great Egret
20. Great Blue Heron
21. Golden-fronted Woodpecker
22. Tropical Kingbird
23. Osprey
24. Tropical Mockingbird
25. Laughing Falcon*new
26. Spotted Sandpiper
27. Little Blue Heron-White Morph
28. Boat-billed Heron
29. Anhinga
30. Tricolored Heron
31. Common Ground-Dove
32. Least Tern
33. Greater Flamingo*new
34. American White Pelican
35. Western Sandpiper*new
36. Least Sandpiper
37. Caspian Tern
38. Royal Tern*new
39. Gull-billed Tern*new
40. Bobolink
41. Dunlin
42. Savannah Sparrow
43. American Avocet
44. Black-necked Stilt
45. Roseate Spoonbill
46. Long-billed Dowitcher
47. Mangrove Vireo (heard)
48. Cattle Egret
49. Common Moorhen

List of Tern Species I saw in Rio Lagartos

1. Black Skimmer
2. Caspian Tern
3. Gull-billed Tern
4. Least Tern
5. Royal Tern
6. Sandwich Tern

Resplendent Quetzal Report

2008-04-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Description
Resplendent Quetzals are one of the world’s most gorgeous birds. I have never seen one myself, but I’ve heard of how beautiful they are. Males have a red breast, green body, bluish back and very long, green tail streamers. They also have a yellow beak, which is fairly small (the females have black beaks). Males are 39 inches in length, including their plumes or streamers. Females have much shorter plumes (just extending right below the tail) and are drabber in color. The “song” is like “a whimpering pup” or as kyow or vi-viu, which is sometimes repeated monotonously. They have other unmusical calls too.

Range and Habitat
“Resplendents”, as I call them, are found from southern Mexico to western Panama. There is also a subspecies found in Costa Rica, P.m. costaricensis. The population in southern Mexico (Pharomachrus mocinno) is found only in Chiapas in remote montane cloud forests called “bosques de niebla”. The “bosques de niebla” are dense and wet and have mixed trees including pines. One of the quetzal’s favorite trees is the tepeaguacate tree, which has small avocados that the quetzals like to eat (see diet).

Diet
Resplendent Quetzals eat mainly fruit; their favorites are the wild avocados from the tepeaguacate trees. They also like fruit from the trees of the Laurel family. The birds swallow the fruit whole and then regurgitate the pits, which helps to increase the population of these trees.
Resplendent Quetzals are weak fliers and they have some predators. These include the Ornate Hawk-Eagle, owls, and Kinkajou, which hunt the birds themselves. Emerald Toucanets, (yes, little toucans) and squirrels, eat the eggs of the quetzals when the nest is left unguarded.

Breeding
Resplendents usually start calling and looking for mates in February. They start nesting a little bit after they call and mate. The female chooses a suitable tree for nesting (mostly rotting tree stumps) and then the pair pecks out a good-sized hole for the nest. Then the female lays 2 pale blue eggs and starts incubating them. The male and female share incubating: the male sits on them in the daytime while the female incubates at night. The incubation period lasts 18 days while the pair keep switching off incubating. When the male is sitting on the eggs, his long tail hangs out of the nest-hole so that from a distance it looks like a green fern is growing out of the hole! When 18 days are up, two little quetzal babies pop their heads out of their shells and say “give me some grub, mom”! Both parents take care of the little youngsters and feed them their grub, which includes fruit, berries, insects, and some frogs and lizards (big grub). Here is when it gets interesting. Near the end of the rearing period the female gets sooooo fed up with her little furballs that she says “vaya con dios you little scraps”, and leaves the dad to finish rearing the young until they are ready to fend for themselves!

Myth and Legend
Resplendent Quetzals play a big role in Mayan and Aztec legend and myth. The Mayans and Aztecs viewed the quetzal as the “god of the air” and as a symbol of goodness and light. Mesoamerican rulers wore headdresses made from quetzal feathers that symbolically connected them to Quetzalcoatl. Quetzalcoatl was the god of wind and the creator god. It was a crime to kill a quetzal so people simply captured and plucked its tail streamers and then released the bird. The tail feathers supposedly grew back in time. Ohh, I forgot. Mesoamerica was a region of Central America and South America that was inhabited by the Mayans and several other pre-Columbian civilizations.
The Resplendent Quetzal is Guatemala’s national bird and the quetzal is on their flag and coat of arms. The bird is also on the paper money and of great relevance in the country. It is mentioned in the widely popular legend of Tecún Umán, a prince/warrior of the Quiche Maya. The legend is that when the conquistador, Pedro de Alvarado, fought against Tecún Umán, there was a quetzal flying above the fight. Pedro de Alvarado managed to disable Tecún Umán’s horse and then killed him. Then, the quetzal flew down to Tecún’s chest and dipped its chest in the warrior’s blood. It was there that the quetzal acquired its gorgeous red chest feathers.

Conservation
Resplendent Quetzals are as Wikipedia states “near threatened”. They are not on the Endangered Species List but they might be on it in the near future. The population in Guatemala and southern Mexico is most threatened due to loss of habitat and hunting for their feathers. Costa Rica’s population of quetzals is in better shape because Costa Rica is setting aside some forest for quetzals and other wildlife.
I wrote this article so I could learn more about quetzals and help the species. I traveled through the quetzal’s forest in southern Chiapas and never saw one but I’m glad I at least know a little bit about them.

References:

1. Resplendent Quetzal, by Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
2. El Quetzal, by Miguel Limón Rojas, Edmundo Salas Garza
3. A Guide to the Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America, by Steve N.G. Howell and Sophie Webb
4. The Resplendent Quetzal, by TED Case Studies

Hot, Tired and Owls 31 de Marzo, 2008

2008-04-01T17:21:00.000-07:00

Whew, I thought that we would be stuck in Bonampak with our crazy friends, Esteban y Susan! But luckily, dad managed to somehow drag us all out of Bonampak and then drive us to Palenque, pick up our stuff, pick up a couple who wanted to go along with us folks and then hit the road. Our first stop was in Campeche at a restaurant/campground to eat and set up. The food there was ok and there were turkeys and chickens walking all over the place. After we finished popping up, I walked around the campground once and saw a male Altamira Oriole calling but not a lot other than the oriole. We stayed there one night and then went to the Calakmul ruins near the restaurant (well, sort of near, 2 hours isn’t that bad) and I saw 4 lifers-Ocellated Turkey, Lesser Greenlet, Olivaceous Woodcreeper, and a male Pale-billed Woodpecker. We also climbed up a huge structure that was the second tallest in the place (the tallest was a pyramid partly covered by grass and shrubs a little way off). We all were really hot and all had at least a mild sunburn. Lucky the wind was whipping so we all were in luck.
After going to the ruins we headed back to our camper with Nate and Nichole (the couple), ate lunch, and put the trailer down. When we left for Bacalar it was about 3:30p.m. When we got to Bacalar it was sunset and we had to pop-up fast so that we wouldn’t be setting up in the dark. I didn’t see that many birds (they were probably already nestled up in their sleeping perches) so I helped set-up and then relaxed (ahhhhhh). We ate dinner at a spaghetti restaurant, which was pretty good in my opinion and had great limonada minerales. I had a pasta dish with spicy peppers and butter. After a delicious dinner we came back to Big Poppi and hit the sack.
The next morning I woke up at 5:45 to grackles and a high hooting sound I couldn’t identify. So birder that I am, I got out of my very cozy bed, dressed, grabbed my binos off a shelf and went outside. I walked over to the sanitarios and met Nate. He said he wanted some toilet paper so I walked back to Poppi and grabbed the roll. As I was passing a tree next to our trailer I saw an unusual bump on a branch. I thought it was just a bump until I looked at it in my binos. Then I saw that it was actually an owl! I looked closer and saw that it was a pygmy-owl and either Northern or Ferruginous (I hoped it was Ferruginous because it is one of my favorite birds). Then Nate started calling to me to hurry up so I hustled the sanitary paper over to Nate (the owl still on my mind). Right after I had handed the paper to Nate I hurried to the tree and saw that the owl had moved to another tree on the other side of our pop-up. After I had located it I looked closely and then looked it up in my Howell and Webb Birds of Mexico and Northern Central America. Under range I found that Northern was in northern Mexico, Central American Pygmy-Owl was in the Chiapas rain forest, and Ferruginous was the only one on the Yucatan Peninsula. So it was pretty easy to figure out what species it was (Ferruginous). I was so excited because that was the bird I had first looked at in National Geographic’s Birds of North America that helped teach me to read when I was five!! It is also my 2nd favorite bird (second to Golden Eagle).
After I had admired the beautiful owl for a while I walked near the shore (we were in a lagoon) and saw a Spotted Sandpiper and some grackles bathing. I also saw a pair of Limpkins and Snail Kites! The Limpkins were wading out into the shallows and gulping down fish and the pair of kites were hunting snails near some reeds in shallow water. I jumped in the lagoon and swam as close to the kites as I could without disturbing them and watched them for a while; soaring, diving, and sometimes hovering above the water and picking off snails. It was a beautiful sight to watch (especially swimming 20 feet in front of them).
Oh, I almost forgot to describe the lagoon! Ok, the lagoon is actually more like a bay and is a popular place to swim in (especially at the campground) because it has clear blue water and has a sandy bottom. It is also a good birding spot-kites nest on little islands, cormorants rule the water, and there is plenty of waterfowl. Fair amounts of people (mostly extranjeros) have bought houses next to the lagoon and there are a couple of nice hotels. But the town is mostly about the lagoon and Cenote Azul (limestone hole filled with river water from 100-200 feet below the ground) across the road. We went there today (Monday) with Nate and Nichole and had great ceviche (kind of like pico de gallo but with shrimp, onions, and vinegar). Teslin and I also explored the cenote, which was about 70-100 feet deep. There were tons of fish including the big hunkers and little tiny minnows. We threw in tortillas and they all went bonkers! All the tortillas disappeared within 20 seconds and then they started looking at my leg! I quickly got out of the water before hungry fish ate me up!
Nate and Nichole are leaving tomorrow morning and are hitchhiking to Tulum, a beach town 220 mile from Bacalar. We are probably leaving tomorrow too (although we might stay here another night just for the swimming)!

Euphonias and Honeycreepers and Tanagers, oh my!

2008-03-26T16:30:00.001-07:00

March 20, 2008

This report is about the 2 places in the Mexican state of Chiapas, Palenque and Bonampak. The 2 locations are some of the best birding spots I’ve been to on our trip. Both spots have a huge diversity of pajáros including honeycreepers, euphonias, tanagers, toucans, parrots, hawks, and lots more. I have had a great time exploring around Bonampak and Palenque with our friends from Oaxaca, Esteban and Susan.

Palenque

Palenque is famous for its Mayan ruins and jungle. Most people go to Palenque for the ruins but some people (like me for instance) go for Howler Monkeys, birds and other fauna. Palenque is in the state of Chiapas, in the southeastern jungle next to the border with Guatemala. That is partly why there are so many different species of birds and mammals. I didn’t see too many mammals, but Sue and I did see some large animals lumbering around in the brush just out of view. We could hear Howler Monkeys in the distance and saw them across the road from where we were camping. The Groove-billed Anis also made a racket in the underbrush and were almost as loud as the lizards and other beasts! There are also lots of interesting flora, butterflies, and insects.
On our first night in Palenque, Sue showed me the birds around the campground we were staying at (the Mayabell hotel). I was amazed how many birds there were just in the campground! Right at Sue’s camper we saw Red-capped Manakins, Black-headed Trogons, Yellow-winged Tanagers, Red-legged Honeycreepers, as well as Long-tailed Hermits, and Violet Sabrewings (hummingbirds). Each morning the Brown Jays woke me up at five-thirty and wouldn’t stop making a racket until evening! They were probably the noisiest birds in the place and the most annoying! They mimicked parrots and other birds so that it was confusing to figure out which was a Brown Jay and what was another bird!
Other then birds, Palenque has an interesting history. The area had its first inhabitants around 100 B.C. and it flourished from 600 to 700 A.D. One of the most famous rulers of the area was Pakal. The city grew under Pakal and stayed strong for a long time. During Pakal’s time, many plazas and other buildings were built, including Pakal’s own mausoleum. Most of the buildings from 600 A.D. are still intact and you can look at them in town (I didn’t) or go to the old ruins in the jungle. Palenque is also a great birding spot. On any given day, you could probably record more then 25 species and a lot of endemics. I saw 19 life birds in Palenque and 22 species in all. Overall, in Bonampak I saw more species then in Palenque.

Bonampak

Like Palenque, Bonampak is an ancient town (although, not as old as Palenque) and has a Mayan history. Outsiders did not discover Bonampak until 1946 (not including the Mayans who lived there) because the town lay in the middle of the jungle and not many people wanted to venture into the unknown forest (I probably would have risked it and explored the rain forest). The ruins there are very interesting (I went myself) and have good birds too. We (me, dad, mom, Teslin, and our friends Steve and Susan) walked up the steps to the top of the ruins and Susan and I birded around the top area. We didn’t see much there so we all went on a hike off a plane airstrip and I saw tons of new birds on that walk. Of the birds I saw, my favorite was the noisy Barred Antshrikes who wiggled their whole body when they called and made a weird noise at the end like a whining baby! I also saw Yellow-bellied Elaenia, Grey-collared Becard, Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher, and several other new birds.
There is also great birding on the road next to the campground we are staying at. Susan and I go out almost every morning on the road and we have had together, more than 30 new birds! For instance, this morning we went out and saw 4 new birds, the Great Antshrike (in Spanish, Batará Grande), Grey-breasted Martin (Martín Pechigrís), Smoky-brown Woodpecker (Carpintero Café), and a Bananaquit (Platanero; Reinita Mielera)! I also saw a migrant: a Blue-winged Warbler (Chipe Aliazul). In all, I have seen 78 species in Bonampak and about 30 life birds!!!

¡Adiós mis amigos!

¡Hasta luego!

¡Todavía soy pajarísto!

And for people who don’t have the faintest idea what I’m talking about, I just wrote: good-bye my friends, see you later, I am still a birder.

Cassidy

Birding at the Tuxtla Gutiérrez Zoológica

2008-03-14T07:05:00.000-07:00

We went to the Tuxtla zoo on Tuesday. Actually it was more of a preserve then a zoo. I saw lots of birds and 2 life birds! I saw lots of Guans and Curassows walking around the zoo everywhere! They were very tame and you could walk within 5 yards of one and the darn bird wouldn't move! They also tried to rob your dinner plate! Especially the Plain Chachalacas. They would jump up on your table and then wait until you started eating and then you had to watch out! If you didn't pay enough attention to the birds under your table they'd walk right next to your chair and start begging for tacos!
There were also Motmots (we saw 1 next to the path), and these little weird creatures called Agoutis. Agoutis are rodents that look like miniature Capybaras. They seemed to fancy bananas and were sitting on their hind feet devouring bananas! Of course there were some caged animals like jaguars and warthogs in large natural enclosures, and a big aviary. In the aviary there were lots of colorful birds like Crimson-collared Grosbeak, Yellow-winged Cacique, and 2 very noisy Double-striped Thick-knees that stood on the path and shrieked as loud as they could! They got annoying after a while so we (my dad and I) left the aviary and went around the rest of the zoo in search of a Crested Guan. It took us a while to find one but at last we saw one, although it wasn't how we expected to see one. We rounded a bend in the path and saw a guan being chased by Agoutis! Boy, it was a funny sight; the guan running as fast as it's legs would carry it and the 2 Agoutis right on its tail! The guan eventually grew tired and flew up into a tree and was left in peace. My dad and I admired it for awhile and then moved on to look at other parts of the zoo.
There was a whole area of big enclosures for Birds of Prey from around the Chiapas area. Black Vultures perched on top of the cages looking bored and very hungry. Besides Crested Caracaras and Grey Hawks, they had a Collared Forest Falcon and a King Vulture. The vultures continued to look very hungry and were moving over the Caracara cage. The male or female Caracara (I think it was the male) brought over a piece of meat from the edge of their enclosure and started eating it with the female/male. The vultures didn't miss any of it. A group of about 5 birds came right up to the edge of the cage and tried to steal the caracara's precious piece of meat. Unfortunately for the vultures, the two hawks didn't miss anything either. The moment the vultures got too close he quickly jumped off their little branch, ran to the other side of the enclosure and buried the piece of meat in the ground at the foot of a tree. Then he came back and groomed the female.
Of all the animals in the zoo my favorite were the Spider Monkeys. The people who work at the zoo had put up a big enclosure with tall trees for the monkeys and the monkeys seemed very happy. My favorite was a young monkey who was very feisty and goal was to annoy all the adults and make the limbs of trees fall off! I stayed at the primate cage for a long time and only left when my dad said he had seen a guan on the path. Later, as we were walking through the zoo I saw some movement in the treetops and thought that a vulture had landed in the top. I was wrong. A monkey seemed to have escaped from it's enclosure and was happily swinging in the trees making a huge commotion as it passed. I still wonder how it got out of it's enclosure but I can only guess. I think it might have somehow swung from a tree in the enclosure to another tree on the other side of the fence. Then it probably swung around the zoo, scaring all the birds in the vicinity away as it went!
Besides the birds I have already mentioned, I also saw a flock of Green Jays, 1 Bare-throated Tiger Heron, a Brown Pelican, White Ibises, White-winged Doves, 1 Russet-crowned Motmot, the ever present House Sparrow, Great-tailed Grackle and a dove species I couldn't identify.
I also saw lots of birds that were in enclosures including Scarlet Macaws, Keel-billed Toucan, Green Parakeets and numerous types of chachalacas.
There was also a jaguar who roared very loudly as we were leaving and made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. We were planning on going to a forested canyon nearby called Sumidero Canyon but we didn't have time. Instead we decided to head back to our pop-op trailer that was waiting for us at home in Ocozocoatla at Hogar Infantil. On the way to Ocozocoatla I saw a flock of White-fronted Parrots by the road! I only got a quick look at them though and I was a little disappointed. But it was the first parrot I had ever seen so I am pretty contented (for the moment).
When we got home we all had a quick dinner (hot dogs and noodles), brushed our teeth and all went to bed. That night I dreamed of curassows, guans, and chachalacas all chasing me into a pool. It must have been from seeing so many of them and taking pictures. Then I think they wanted revenge! Uh-oh, gotta run! Keep watch for curassows!

Llano Grande Bird Walk-March 4th 2008

2008-03-13T06:53:00.000-07:00

Llano Grande March 4th 2008

We (the Ruges) took a hike in Llano Grande with some friends of ours-Courtney, Jake, and Jake’s mom and dad, Jan and Marty. It was a 14 km hike (8-9 miles) with a guide from Llano Grande named Jose. It was a great hike! We started off in pine forest at around 10,000 feet and ended up at about 10,500 feet in mixed pine forest.
There was pretty good birding along the hike. We saw about 13 species including Bushtits, Mexican Chickadees, Warbler, Slate-throated Redstart, Red, Cresent-chested and Hermit Warblers, Turkey Vulture, Red-tailed Hawks, Steller’s Jays, Yellow-eyed Juncos, and Common Raven. And best of all I lured in a Mountain Trogon with my iPod and Jake and Courtney’s speaker! Jose heard the trogon calling and told it to all of us. I whipped out my iPod and played the call of the Mountain Trogon. A male came almost instantly. First, it flew right next to the trail and then flew over us to another tree on the other side of the trail. We all got great looks at it as it showed off to us and donned its black and white outer tail feathers. That trogon was the first trogon I had ever seen-it was all very exciting!!!
We hiked to a peak and looked for raptors but there wasn’t many. On the way down we saw more warblers and heard the mountain trogon. We were all very tired when we got back to our little cabanas (cabins) and we all took a long siesta. The cabins were pretty small but comfy and we all liked our little haven a lot. Jake, Courtney, and Jake’s mom and dad were staying right across from us (Ruges) in a 2 room cabin. I was pretty sore from the 6 hour hike (I threw out my back) and Jan (Jake’s mom) gave me some arnica and an aspirin-like liquid. We ate dinner at a restaurant with trout. It was delicious! We even got to watch the owners of the place catch the trout! There was a little concrete pool filled with about 15 trout that they got the trout from. They also had great quesadillas filled with Oaxacan string cheese. Tasty! It was the best meal I had had in a long time.
The next day we all packed up and headed back to Oaxaca to our posadas in separate cars.

Bird List: July 2007-July 2008

2008-01-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

Bird Nut’s birding year
By Cassidy Ruge, age 13

Cassidy’s Trip: My family and I are on a trip around the US, Canada, and Mexico and are staying in a camper and sometimes tents. We traveled from Massachusetts to Iowa, then all the way up to Alaska and did a lot of birding there and then headed south through British Columbia, Yellowstone Nat. Park and then followed the Rockies all the way down to Tucson. After a month in Arizona, we are going to Mexico all the way down to the Yucatan Peninsula and Chiapas. We are even thinking of going all the way to Costa Rica and doing the great birding areas there.

My Birding Year: I am keeping track of birds I see, but it is not an official “Big Year” according to the ABA. I have seen a ton of birds (A list of the species I saw is below). I probably couldn’t count all the species but I’ll try to do it below.

Massachusetts to Alaska to Tucson

1. Snow Goose
2. Snow Goose (blue form)
3. Canada Goose
4. Trumpeter Swan (new=life bird)
5. Tundra Swan (new)
6. Gadwall
7. American Wigeon
8. American Black Duck
9. Mallard
10. Blue-winged Teal
11. Cinnamon Teal (new)
12. Northern Shoveler
13. Northern Pintail
14. Green-winged Teal
15. Redhead
16. Canvasback
17. Lesser Scaup
18. Harlequin Duck
19. Surf Scoter
20. White-winged Scoter
21. Black Scoter
22. Common Goldeneye
23. Common Merganser
24. Ruddy Duck
25. Ring-necked Pheasant
26. Ruffed Grouse
27. Spruce Grouse (new)
28. Spruce Grouse (“Franklin’s Grouse”) (new)
29. Willow Ptarmigan (new)
30. Sharp-tailed Grouse (new)
31. Wild Turkey
32. Gambel’s Quail
33. Pacific Loon (new)
34. Common Loon
35. Pied-billed Grebe
36. Red-necked Grebe
37. Eared Grebe
38. Cory’s Shearwater
39. Greater Shearwater
40. Sooty Shearwater
41. Manx Shearwater (new)
42. Wilson’s Storm-Petrel
43. American White Pelican
44. Brandt’s Cormorant (new)
45. Double-crested Cormorant
46. Pelagic Cormorant (new)
47. Red-faced Cormorant (new)
48. Great Blue Heron
49. Black Vulture
40. Turkey Vulture
51. Osprey
52. Bald Eagle
53. Northern Harrier
54. Sharp-shinned Hawk
55. Cooper’s Hawk
56. Northern Goshawk
57. Red-tailed Hawk
58. Red-tailed (Harlan’s Hawk) (new)
59. Rough-legged Hawk
60. Golden Eagle (new)
61. American Kestrel
62. Prairie Falcon (new)...Aplomado Falcon (not a countable bird according to the ABA because it doesn't have a sustainable population)
63. American Coot
64. Sandhill Crane
65. Killdeer
66. Black Oystercatcher (new)
67. Greater Yellowlegs
68. Lesser Yellowlegs
69. Wandering Tattler (new)
70. Upland Sandpiper (new)
71. Black Turnstone (new)
72. Surfbird (new)
73. Dunlin
74. Long-billed Dowitcher
75. Wilson’s Phalarope
76. Red-necked Phalarope
77. Laughing Gull
78. Heermann’s Gull (new)
79. Mew Gull (new)
80. Ring-billed Gull
81. Herring Gull
82. Glaucous-winged Gull (new)
83. Glaucous Gull
84. Great Black-backed Gull
85. Black-legged Kittiwake (new)
86. Common Tern
87. Black Tern (new)
88. Common Murre (new)
89. Pigeon Guillemot (new)
90. Marbled Murrelet (new)
91. Kittlitz’s Murrelet (new)
92. Rhinoceros Auklet (new)
93. Horned Puffin (new)
94. Tufted Puffin (new)
95. Rock Pigeon
96. Eurasian Collard-Dove (new)
97. White-winged Dove (new)
98. Morning Dove
99. Inca Dove
100. Greater Roadrunner
101. Great Horned Owl
102. Common Nighthawk
103. Ruby-throated Hummingbird
104. Belted Kingfisher
105. Red-headed Woodpecker
106. Acorn Woodpecker
107. Gila Woodpecker
108. Red-bellied Woodpecker
109. Downy Woodpecker
110. Hairy Woodpecker
111. Northern Flicker (Yellow-Shafted)
112. Northern Flicker (Red-Shafted) (new)
113. Western Wood-Peewee (new)
114. Eastern Phoebe
115. Black Phoebe
116. Say's Phoebe (new)
117. Great Crested Flycatcher
118. Western Kingbird (new)
119. Eastern Kingbird
120. Loggerhead Shrike
121. Red-eyed Vireo
122. Gray Jay (new)
123. Steller’s Jay
124. Blue Jay
125. Western Scrub-Jay (new)
126. Clark’s Nutcracker (new)
127. Black-billed Magpie
128. American Crow
129. Northwestern Crow (new)
130. Fish Crow
131. Common Raven
132. Horned Lark
133. Purple Martin
134. Tree Swallow
135. Cliff Swallow
136. Barn Swallow
137. Black-capped Chickadee
138. Mountain Chickadee
139. Chestnut-backed Chickadee (new)
140. Boreal Chickadee (new)
141. Tufted Titmouse
142. Red-breasted Nuthatch
143. Pygmy Nuthatch (new)
144. Rock Wren (new)
145. House Wren
146. Sedge Wren (new)
147. Marsh Wren
148. Winter Wren
149. American Dipper (new)
150. Eastern Bluebird
151. Mountain Bluebird
152. Townsend’s Solitaire (new)
153. Swainson’s Thrush (new)
154. Varied Thrush
155. Gray Catbird
156. Northern Mockingbird
157. Brown Thrasher
158. European Starling
159. American Pipit
160. Cedar Waxwing
161. Phainopepla
162. Orange-crowned Warbler (new)
163. Yellow Warbler
164. Townsend’s Warbler (new)
165. Scarlet Tanager
166. Brewer’s Sparrow (new)
167. Lark Sparrow (new)
168. Fox Sparrow
169. Song Sparrow
170. Golden-crowned Sparrow (new)
171. Dark-eyed Junco (Slate-colored)
172. Dark-eyed Junco (Oregon)
173. Bobolink
174. Red-winged Blackbird
175. Western Meadowlark (new)
176. Common Grackle
177. Baltimore Oriole
178. White-winged Crossbill (new)
179. American Goldfinch
180. House Sparrow
Arizona to Mexico

Tucson to Madera Canyon

181. Rufous-crowned Sparrow (new)
182. White-breasted Nuthatch
183. Mexican Jay (new)
184. Black-chinned Sparrow (new)

Madera Canyon to Sonoita Creek Preserve

185. Abert’s Towhee (new)
186. Inca Dove

Sonoita to Ash Canyon

187. Arizona Woodpecker (new)
188. Ladder-backed Woodpecker (new)
189. Scott’s Oriole (new)
190. Painted Redstart (new)
191. Hammond’s Flycatcher (new)
192. Yellow-rumped Warbler (Audubon’s) (new)
193. Red-naped Sapsucker (new)
194. Canyon Towhee (new)
195. House Finch
196. Lesser Goldfinch
197. Pine Siskin
198. Pyrrhuloxia
199. Yellow-eyed Junco (new)

Ash Canyon to Patagonia

200. Common Moorhen
201. Anna’s Hummingbird (new)

Patagonia to Tucson

202. Chihuahuan Raven (new)
203. Great-tailed Grackle
204. Black-throated Sparrow

Tucson to Arivaca, AZ

205. Montezuma Quail (new)

Tucson

206. Costa’s Hummingbird (new)

Sabino Canyon

207. White-throated Swift (new)
208. Cactus Wren

Tucson to McAllen, Texas

209. Golden-fronted Woodpecker (new)
210. Common Ground-Dove (new)
211. Crested Caracara (new)
212. Harris’s Hawk (new)

McAllen to Santa Ana NWR, Donna TX.

213. Plain Chachalaca
214. Great Kiskadee
215. Black-crested Titmouse (new)
216. Green Jay (new)
217. Olive Sparrow (new)

Donna to Mission, TX (Americana RV Park)

218. Buff-bellied Hummingbird (new)
219. Long-billed Thrasher (new)

Mission Texas to Ciudad Victoria, Mexico

220. Vermilion Flycatcher (new)

Ciudad Victoria to Nautla, Mexico

221. White-tailed Hawk (new)
222. Blue-Gray Tanager*new (*= Mexican Endemic)
223. Sanderling
224. Yellow-throated Warbler (new)
225. Blackburnian Warbler

Nautla to Oaxaca, Mexico

226. Tropical Kingbird (new)
227. White-collared Swift*new

Oaxaca

228. Wilson’s Warbler
229. Nashville Warbler (at last!)
230. Yellow Grosbeak (new)
231. Gray Silky-Flycatcher*new
232. Orchard Oriole
233. Bridled Sparrow*new
234. Berylline Hummingbird (new)
235. Summer Tanager (new)
236. Dusky Hummingbird*new
237. White-throated Towhee*new

Teotitlan del Valle, Oaxaca

238. Grey-breasted Woodpecker*new
239. Nutting’s Flycatcher*new
240. Boucard’s Wren*new
241. Clay-colored Sparrow (new)
242. Virginia’s Warbler (new)
243. Blue Grosbeak (new)
244. Grasshopper Sparrow (new)
245. Black-vented Oriole*new
246. Black-throated Grey Warbler (new)
247. Sora (new)
248. Western Tanager (new)

Teotitlan Dam

249. Least Grebe (new)
250. Violet Green Swallow (new)
251. Northern Rough-winged Swallow

Teotitlan to Benito Juarez (Neveria Trail), Oaxaca

252. Short-tailed Hawk (new)
253. Zone-tailed Hawk (new)
254. Chestnut-sided Shrike-Vireo*new
255. Red Warbler*new
256. Grey-barred Wren*new
257. Grey-breasted Wood-Wren*new
258. Slate-throated Redstart*new
259. Black-headed Grosbeak (new)
260. Hepatic Tanager (new)
261. Spot-crowned Wooodcreeper*new
262. Hermit Warbler (new)
263. Hutton’s Vireo (new)
264. White-throated Robin*new
265. Blue-headed Vireo
266. Olive-sided Flycatcher (new)
267. Magnificent Hummingbird (new)
268. White-eared Hummingbird (new)
269. Band-tailed Pigeon*new

Benito Juarez to Oaxaca City (Instituto Cultural)

270. Rufous-backed Robin*new

Instituto Cultural to Posada del Fortin

271. Bronzed Cowbird (new)
272. Clay-colored Robin*new

Posada del Fortin to Llano Grande, Oaxaca

273. Mexican Chickadee (new)
274. Bushtit “Black-eared”new
275. Mountain Trogon*new

Posada del Fortin to Tehuantepec, Oaxaca

279. Russet-crowned Motmot*new
280. Yellow-winged Cacique*
281. Scissor-tailed Flycatcher (new)
282. White-throated Magpie Jay*new

Tehauntepec to Ocozocoatla and Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas

283. Scrub Euphonia*new
284. Bat Falcon*new
285. Buff-collared Nightjar*new
286. White-lored Gnatcatcher*new
287. Black-headed Saltator*new
288. Great Curassow*new
289. Crested Guan*new
290. Bare-throated Tiger Heron*
291. White Ibis
292. White-fronted Parrot*new

Ocozocoatla to San Cristóbal, Chiapas

293. Rufous-collared Sparrow*new

San Cristóbal to Palenque, Chiapas

294. Montezuma Oropendola*new
295. White-crowned Parrot*new
296. Buff-throated Saltator*new
297. Brown Jay*new
298. Rufous-tailed Hummingbird*new
299. Red-lored Parrot*new
300. Yellow-winged Tanager*new
301. Keel-billed Toucan*new
302. Melodious Blackbird*new
303. White Hawk*new

Palenque

304. Black-headed Trogon*new
305. Red-capped Manakin*new
306. Great Black-Hawk*
307. Long-billed Hermit*new
308. Violet Sabrewing*new
309. Wood Thrush
310. Grey Catbird
311. Golden-hooded Tanager*new
312. Red-legged Honeycreeper*new
313. Collared Aracari*new
314. Yellow-throated Euphonia*new
315. Roadside Hawk*new

Palenque to Bonampak, Chiapas

316. Northern Jacana*

Bonampak

317. Scaled Pigeon*new
318. Pauraque (new)
319. Violaceous Trogon*new
320. Black-cheeked Woodpecker*new
321. Black-crowned Tityra*new
322. Crimson-collared Tanager*new
323. Scarlet-rumped Tanager*new
324. Rufous-tailed Jacamar*new
325. Barred Antshrike*new
326. Chestnut-colored Woodpecker*new
327. Grey-collared Becard*new
328. Spot-breasted Wren*new
329. Sulphur-rumped Flycatcher*new
330. Hooded Warbler
331. Black-faced Grosbeak*new
332. Olive-backed Euphonia*new

Bonampak

333. Tropical Pewee*new
334. Band-backed Wren*new
335. Plain Xenops*new
336. Blue Ground-Dove*new
337. Lineated Woodpecker*new
338. Chestnut-headed Oropendola*new
339. Ruddy Ground-Dove (new)
340. SCARLET MACAW*new!!!
341. Golden-olive Woodpecker*new
342. Bright-rumped Attila*new
343. Thick-billed Seed-Finch*new
344. Little Hermit*new
345. Dot-winged Antwren*new
346. Rufous Piha*new
347. Rufous Mourner*new
348. Yellow-bellied Elaenia*new
349. Smoky-brown Woodpecker*new
350. Great Antshrike*new
351. Grey-breasted Martin*new
352. Blue-winged Warbler
353. Bananaquit (new)

Bonampak to Yaxchilán, Chiapas

354. Blue-crowned Motmot*new
355. Royal Flycatcher*new
356. Swallow-tailed Kite (new)!!!

Yaxchilán to Bonampak

357. Scaly-breasted Hummingbird*new
358. White-bellied Emerald*new
359. White-eyed Vireo
360. Mangrove Swallow*new
361. Black-necked Stilt
362. Rose-breasted Grosbeak
363. Social Flycatcher*
364. Dusky-capped Flycatcher (new)
365. Canyon Wren
366. Ivory-billed Woodcreeper*new
367. Snowy Egret
368. Neotropic Cormorant
369. Reddish Egret
370. Canada Warbler (new)
371. N. Rough-winged Swallow
372. Belted Flycatcher*new

Bonampak to Palenque

373. Kentucky Warbler (new)
374. Amethyst-throated Hummingbird*new
375. Broad-winged Hawk (migrating)
376. Common Black Hawk
377. Collared Trogon*new
378. Rufous-breasted Spinetail*new

Palenque to Campeche, Quintana Roo

379. Black-bellied Whistling-Duck (new)
380. Black-collared Hawk*new

Campeche to Calakmul ruins, QR

381. Ocellated Turkey*new
382. Pale-billed Woodpecker*new
383. Olivaceous Woodcreeper*new
384. Lesser Greenlet*new
385. Magnolia Warbler

Calakmul to Bacalar, QR

386. Snail Kite
387. Limpkin
388. Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl!!! (new)
389. Green Heron
390. Red-billed Pigeon*new

Bacalar to Felipe Carrio Puerto, QR

391. Tropical Mockingbird*new

Felipe Carrio Puerto (Vigia Chico Rd)

392. Hook-billed Kite
393. Aztec Parakeet*new
394. Thrush-like Mourner*new
395. Yucatan Jay*new
396. Black-cowled Oriole*new

Felipe Carrio Puerto to Paa Mul, QR

397. Brown-crested Flycatcher (new)
398. Grey-necked Wood-Rail*new
399. Yucatan Flycatcher*new
400. Sulphur-bellied Flycatcher (new)

Paa Mul to Dr. Alfredo Barrea M. Garden (near Cancun)

401. Black-throated Green Warbler

Dr. Alfredo Garden to Rio Lagartos, Yucatan

402. Sandwich Tern (new)
403. Black Skimmer (new)
404. Royal Tern (new)
405. Gull-billed Tern (new)
406. Greater Flamingo (new)
407. Laughing Falcon*new
408. Western Sandpiper (new)

Rio Lagartos to Hacienda Ticuch, Valladolid

409. Yellow-green Vireo (new)
410. Couch’s Kingbird (new)
411. Yellow-faced Grassquit*new

Hacienda Ticuch to Mayaland Hotel, Yucatan

412. Grayish Saltator*new
413. Rose-throated Becard (new)
414. Yucatan Woodpecker*new
415. Turquoise-browed Motmot*new

Mayaland hotel to Chichén Itzá ruins, Yucatan

416. Greenish Elaenia*new
417. Orange Oriole*new

Chichén Itzá to Isla Aguada, Campeche

***Yucatan Parrot (not countable-in cage)

Isla Aguada to Catemaco, Veracruz

418. Green-breasted Mango*new
419. Boat-billed Flycatcher*new
420. White-breasted Wood-Wren*new

Catemaco to San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato

San Miguel de Allende to Saltillo, Coahula

Saltillo to Del Rio, Texas

Del Rio to Fort Davis, Texas (Prude Ranch)

421. Dark-eyed Junco “Gray-headed” (new)
422. Elf Owl (new) (nesting pair in phone poll)

Prude Ranch to Tucson (Milagro Co-housing)

423. Ash-throated Flycatcher (new)

Milagro to Sweetwater Wetlands

424. Black-crowned Night-Heron (new)

Sweetwater to Milagro

Milagro to Las Vegas, New Mexico

425. Swainson's Hawk (new)
426. Lewis's Woodpecker (new)
427. Black-chinned Hummingbird
428. Juniper Titmouse (new)

Las Vegas to Carson Natl. Forest, NM

429. Broad-tailed Hummingbird (new)

Carson Natl. Forest to Las Vegas

Las Vegas to Santa Fe, New Mexico

430. Cassin's Finch (new)
431. Cordilleran Flycatcher (new)

Santa Fe to Las Vegas

Las Vegas to Cape Cod-Chatham Inlet

432. American Oystercatcher*new

Orleans, Massachusettts to South Cape Beach-Mashpee

433. Saltmarsh Sharp-tailed Sparrow*new

Orleans to Las Vegas, New Mexico
Clinton, Oklahoma

434. Mississippi Kite*new

Clinton to Las Vegas

Las Vegas to Ruby Ranch, NM

435. Sabine's Gull*new
436. Lark Bunting*new
437. Western Grebe*new
438. Clark's Grebe*new