Following the beyond-exciting kick-off my year in southeast Arizona, I was admittedly left a tad spoiled. Not every state will the century mark be easily attained as it was in Arizona, let alone a total tally as high as 173 with 50 Lifers – that said, New Mexico remains, in my opinion, the fifth best state in the United States for birding and as such my days of being spoiled were far from being over with when I headed into the state after parting ways with Gordon Karre in the Phoenix area.
The sixth and seventh would be days much like the fifth, which I warranted only a passing mention in last week’s post; they were days primarily focused on spending time with family. My immediate family has not been all in one place in quite a good deal of time, and so with me, my three siblings, and my parents all convening in Albuquerque for a family gathering we decided to take the day of the sixth to have a family road trip south to the Salinas Pueblo Mission National Monument to visit the historic ruins of centuries-old settlements from the early 1600’s, at a site where people had lived in a constructed settlement since around 1300. This day trip was not really a birding trip, but of course with my dad driving and me occupying the passenger seat, birds seen from the road were a huge focus – and while we were walking at the historic site I did some birdwatching.
Over the course of the trip we managed a decent haul of birds, including some highlights in Ferruginous Hawk and Merlin during the drive and a Canyon Towhee at the Gran Quivira Ruins. We also stopped at the Carrizozo Volcanic Field Scenic area to check out the volcanic rock formations, and while there a group of Bushtits passed through and a Rock Wren called nearby.
The afternoon of the 7th brought yet another family trip, this time for just my parents and me as we headed north – though before that trip north I would take my own trip south, to Bernardo Waterfowl Management Area. There, arriving right around first light, I would barely miss the flight of Snow Goose – a miss I wasn’t too bothered by because I figured I would most likely get a great view of an even larger morning take-off at Bosque del Apache in a few days. In addition to a few thousand Snow Geese and around 8000 Sandhill Cranes, at Bernardo I managed to pick up several great new birds for New Mexico, including most notably Gambel’s Quail and Prairie Falcon. Once I had made two loops around the wildlife drive there I decided to head south to La Joya WMA and Sevilleta NWR Unit A and Unit B, where I was astonished by the number of White-crowned Sparrows, of which there were at least a few hundred. There was also a wide variety of other sparrows in small numbers, including Black-throated Sparrow, Swamp Sparrow, Lincoln’s Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Sagebrush Sparrow, and White-throated Sparrow. I also flushed a Ring-necked Pheasant as I was driving along the edge of a field there, and managed to turn up some identifiable Chihuahuan Meadowlarks.
Before heading back home I made one more stop at Bernardo, where I picked up the meadowlark’s nominal counterpart, a group of Chihuahuan Ravens. I then raced back to our VRBO and hopped right in my dad’s rental after a quick meal for a trip north to the famous town of Los Alamos, home to the Manhattan Project. Despite not doing much birding on this trip, did manage to add two new New Mexico birds for me – a Townsend’s Solitaire and a group of Mountain Chickadee, the latter of which was a Lifer! While it wasn’t a particularly birdy drive we did see several phenomenally beautiful places, as that is a stretch of the state that is totally breathtaking.
On the morning of the 8th my dad and I took a trip up to Sandia Crest in pursuit of the regular winter Rosy-Finch flock there – and immediately upon arriving we got a brief glimpse of the flock as it bolted away from the feeders. We waited for about an hour, getting looks at a few lingering individual Rosy-Finches, but eventually the flock came in and gave fantastic looks of both Black Rosy-Finch and Gray-Crowned Rosy-Finch, though we were unable to locate any Brown-capped. We then proceded to bird our way down the mountain – searching primarily (and unsuccessfully) for an American Three-toed Woodpecker. We did, however, stumble across another woodpecker at the Doc Long Picnic Ground – arguably equally as sought after of one at that – a Williamson’s Sapsucker. Afterwards we returned back to spending time together not birding, and I got some work done on last week’s blog post so I could post it on time (I feat I failed to accomplish this week – my apologies)!
The morning of the 9th my dad and I headed back toward the mountains – this time though to the foothills along Albuquerque’s edge where the trailheads for Embudito Canyon and Embudo Canyon are located. We hiked around a mile or so of each trail, and while doing so we got fantastic looks at Cactus Wren and Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay, as well as two new Lifers for me in Canyon Wren and Rufous-crowned Sparrow. Once we were done with the hike at Embudo and returned to the VRBO, I parted ways with my dad to head back to the Tingley Lagoon site we had visited on the 5th to try to track down some reported Cackling Goose, Mexican Ducks, and Redheads. While I was unsuccessful in locating the first two species, just before I headed out I did manage to spot a lone male Redhead as it passed about ten feet away from me, accompanied by a lone male Northern Pintail. I also picked up both Cooper’s Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk while there, making the stop an absolutely worthwhile one.
The 9th concluded my time in Albuquerque, and so I bid my brothers and mom farewell and on the morning of the 10th my dad and I headed south to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, where we left my car and in the visitor’s center parking lot as I hopped in his passenger seat and we set off for a day of birding. The first stop, of course, was Bosque del Apache itself – where we disheartened to find that the entirety of all the big water had frozen over. That, in combination with the NWR’s inability to plant corn due to the high salt content in the soil and them being disallowed from planting GMO seeds, meant that instead of thousands of Snow Geese we only managed to happen across four. We did pick up a smattering of other birds though, including Cackling Goose, Long-billed Dowitcher, Greater Yellowlegs, and loads more I had already seen in New Mexico over the past few days.
Once we were satisfied with our our birding of the Bosque, we headed south a ways to Elephant Butte Lake State Park Lost Canyon, where we were successful in picking out a Clark’s Grebe from the majority Western Grebes. Also on the lake were American White Pelican, Double-crested Cormorant, American Herring Gull, and thousands of ducks we left unidentified due to distance. From there we continued the drive towards Caballo Lake and Percha Dam State Park, where we made the decision to cut out some of our planned stops in order to allot more time for later, skipping Percha Dam altogether and only briefly making a quick scan at Percha Flats. From there we headed west towards the small but birdy town of Hillsboro, stopping to bird the Las Animas Creek along the way, where we were unsuccessful in our search for Bridled Titmouse but did manage to pick up some Acorn Woodpeckers. In the town of Hillsboro itself, though, we did spot a Bridled Titmouse almost immediately upon arriving in town, and shortly afterwards picked up Phainopepla, Lesser Goldfinch, and more.
Finally, after a couple more quick stops, we arrived at a random little eBird hotspot in Luna county called the Uvas Valley Line O’ Trees. While we never even made it to namesake treeline, we did spend some time scanning the farm fields along the road to get a count on the large number of Killdeer and were quite surprised when we made an exceptional discovery. First my dad said “I have a plover that isn’t a Killdeer!”, and almost immediately afterwards I found his bird in my scope and it turned out to be a Mountain Plover! We then spotted another, and another, and soon we’d tallied a half-dozen of the local rarity with a few of them coming within about 30-40 feet of us! The plover discovery (discplovery?) was an exciting end to the day, and after a quick stop in the town of Hatch for some green chile cheeseburgers my dad dropped me back off at my car at Bosque del Apache – where we immediately realized we had forgotten to take any photos together at any point over the past week. We took a quick selfie in the dark and then said goodbye for an indeterminate amount of time – at least a few months, possibly as many as eight.
On the 11th I met the Mesilla Valley Audubon Society for their monthly walk at Sagecrest Park – a park which when I was looking at google maps I thought “This can’t be right… this park is tiny!”, and when I arrived I thought “This can’t be right… this park is tiny!”, and then as we started birding and headed into the relatively small loop of desert trails that I didn’t realize was attached to the park, I thought “Holy crap, there are loads of birds around here!”. This kind of experience is exactly what I set out for with the “Places” element of “People, Places, Birds.”; there are so many incredible places for birding across the state, and while some – like Bosque del Apache NWR – are renowned hotspots many, many more – like the town of Hillsboro or Sagecrest Park – are seemingly nondescript locations that probably even many locals have never heard of, but they are fantastic for birding nonetheless. This stop also fulfilled the other two elements of my journey – and in particular the “People” element, as I thoroughly enjoyed getting to know the birders of MVAS, whom I never would have met if not for Elaine Stachera Simon reaching out to me on a post in the Birding New Mexico Facebook page. The birding community is genuinely such an incredible one – one unmatched in its open-armed approach to meeting strangers.
Once I had parted ways with the MVAS people I wrapped up my time in New Mexico with visits to Dripping Springs Natural Area and Soledad Canyon, and at both spots picked up Black-chinned Sparrow, a Lifer. At Dripping Springs I had an incredible small-world moment as when I was talking with the guy manning the visitor center I mentioned this trip I was on and that I was from Michigan, to which he replied he was from Michigan as well! When he asked me where in Michigan and I replied Midland his jaw nearly hit the floor, as he spent the first 20 or so years of his life in Midland, same as me. Also, just as with me, a few years after he left the Midland area wanderlust set in for him, and he spent a good chunk of his life driving and riding his bicycle across the county. The people you meet.
As I departed New Mexico to cross the border into Texas, I felt even more excited by the probable prospect that I will end up moving here when the year is over and spend the next chapter of my life as an Albuquerque-based birder.
On the morning of the 12th I headed to Keystone Heritage Park, where I met up with two El Paso-based birders: Star Estrella and John Groves. The latter, John, was recommended to me by one of my other contacts in the state, David Sarkozi, and was one of the two main birding mentors of the former, Star, in her journey of becoming a birder back when she first got started. These days Star runs a bird guiding company called Siempre Birds, and she organizes and guides tours to South America. Our walk at Keystone was a great kick-off to the year, picking up several exciting birds such as Peregrine Falcon, Crissal Thrasher, and a heard-only Lifer, Plumbeous Vireo. Before parting ways Star and John recommended two more birders for me to meet up with in a few days when I entered the Lower Rio Grande Valley – Bill Sain and Tom Forwood Jr. Both of these were already familiar names to me but I hadn’t previously realized either lived down in the Valley – Bill had reached out to me to provide recommendations on places to bird while in Texas and Tom is a regular member of one of the many Facebook birding communities I am a part of.
Once I left El Paso I began the long drive to Big Bend National Park, where I had originally planned to meet up with David Sarkozi, but unfortunately some scheduling conflicts made that impossible. I still headed to Big Bend armed with the intel provided to me by David, a renowned Texas birder and guide who literally wrote the book on the Birds of Texas. Despite being a week less focused on birding than the first week few days of the year, week two proved a worthy successor to my time in Arizona and absolutely left me wanting to spend more time in New Mexico.
Next week I will be spending the 13th through 17th in Texas before heading to Louisiana to close out week three and kick off week four. My Road Map page will have more info on my future plans, but is currently a bit behind, as I have thus far done a poor job planning for the complications caused by spending all available time birding, driving, sleeping, or in an area without cell service. Hopefully going forward I will be able catch up and not fall back behind schedule, and in the future I plan to ensure every post gets out on time (unlike this post, which is coming out around 50 hours late… sorry about that!). The one benefit of me being so behind, though, is that I can now say with the confidence of hindsight that I am really, really looking forward to writing next weeks post, as my time in Texas has been nothing short of extraordinary in terms of all three of the elements of People, Places, Birds.
In the meantime, happy birding!
eBird Trip Summary:
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Follow me on my journey to see 100 species in every Lower-48 State during 2025, experience some of the incredible places and events in American birding, and meet and bird with as many local birders as possible along the way.
Posts will be made every Wednesday at 5pm EST and will cover the previous Monday through Sunday. Additional posts will be made periodically with no set schedule.
