I had the opportunity to meet another blogger who lives in Albuquerque. We arranged to meet each other in the early afternoon at the parking lot of Embudo Canyon, an open space preserve on the west side of the Sandia mountains. There are several canyons coming down from Sandia Peak that can be explored, and most of them are open space areas used for hiking, and some even have picnic tables near their parking lots. These canyons have a beauty of their own, and it's amazing how wildlife can abound knowing you are still within or just outside of the city limits of ABQ. Judy and Dave and I headed up the canyon hoping to find some birds, especially a few I may not have seen before. Knowing it was early afternoon and that's when birds seem to be least active, I still was hopeful to come across a few birds. Below is a photo I took of Embudo Canyon from the parking lot. (You can click on any of the photos for a larger image.) In the distance you can see what appears to be a water tank (center left) and another piece of concrete (center right). These structures are part of ABQ's arroyo flood control.
Here is a close-up view of the chute or channel. I'm not sure of its proper name. During the monsoon seasons fierce thunderstorms can occur and water rushing down from the canyons can be quite devastating and forceful, causing flash floods on the plains.
Prickly pear cactus found on the trail.
And a cholla found on the trail. But where were the birds?
We did see a few birds; canyon towhee, house finches, scrub jay, and a ruby-crowned kinglet that was impossible to get a photo of. Below is a white-crowned sparrow who was more accommodating. One bird that we should have seen, but had no luck finding was a Crissal thrasher. Oh well, maybe next time. It would have been nice to have seen any kind of thrasher. Sage thrashers and curve-billed thrashers are also to be found in New Mexico.
When we decided to call it a day, Judy also recommended to look around the residential area of the foothills where there is still some open brushy areas. On our way back down the hill from the parking lot we came across this bird feeder someone had set out across from their home. I never knew that scaled quail would come to feeders. I used to see them on my neighbor's roof when I lived in ABQ, but I never thought of putting a feeder out for them. The smaller brown birds feeding with the quail (I think) are female house sparrows.
There was a canyon towhee who came to visit the feeder, too. But he seemed to be camera shy. This was the best shot I could get of the canyon towhee.
Here is a close-up shot of the scaled quail. Be sure to enlarge the image so you can see the finer details of his feathers. I got a kick out of their behavior while watching them at the feeder. There was one quail (possibly this one) who was agressive at times and would chase the other birds away, and if they didn't get out of its way it would peck at them (like a chicken) on their heads. Too bad I didn't get a video of that.
As the daylight hours were waning we realized that there was an alpenglow around us.
Here is Sandia Peak just before sunset.
