Revisiting Palo Alto Baylands

Heidi and I went back to Palo Alto Baylands at the beginning of the month because I thought we would see the snowy egrets nesting there. But there were none to be found. Nonetheless, there was plenty to see there that day. We saw several red-winged blackbirds, but I had a difficult time finding one that would sit still long enough for me to get a photo.

Over by the ranger's station there were some beautiful rock rose bushes. These are really a beautiful color and they really stood out around all the other greenery.

While getting shots of the rock roses Heidi saw a California ground squirrel and pointed it out to me. These squirrels are so much more wild and wary of humans than our regular gray squirrels we get in our back yard.

At the duck pond area we saw these different looking mallards. Very interesting colors, would you say? At least we think they are hybrid mallards since they have the curly tail and dark colored heads. But the color of their heads is definitely not the typical green you would see on the males. And look at the color of their bills -- rather strange color again.

And speaking of strange, we saw a pair of Muscovy ducks also at the pond. I mentioned to Heidi that as tame as they seemed to be these ducks were probably left here by someone who had them as pets and decided to "let them go." I don't know that for a fact, but they did act tame around people, like they were expecting a hand-out of bread. Now the signs are posted everywhere that we are not to feed the animals. The signs are in three different languages; but no one pays attention to them. How sad for the animals who hang around the pond. They will never learn to fend for themselves, and that makes them more prone to predators.

If you take a closer look you will notice the duck in the back is all white. It also had beautiful blue eyes. Was it leucistic? I surely wouldn't consider it an albino since it still had red on its face and a reddish beak as well as yellow feet.

Right after the duck pond adventure we saw something large fly overhead. It looked like a hawk and landed in a nearby tree about 75 feet from the pond. While we were trying to get a decent angle to take photos of the hawk we also saw a jackrabbit. Watch out Mr rabbit! That hawk might want to try to take you down for his dinner! You do seem to be a fairly good size; maybe you're too much for the hawk to take on.

After getting home Heidi was able to correctly identify the hawk as an immature red-tailed. Here is a view of his back. Click on the photo to get a larger view. Just look at those beautiful feathers. The funny thing about the hawk that we had noticed was that it looked a bit disheveled.

Here's the front view. Notice the disheveled look on his chest feathers? These are still magnificent looking birds anyway.

As we headed back toward the pond we noticed at least one black-crowned night heron (BCNH) in a tree across the path from the pond. So we headed over to get a few shots. As we looked around Heidi noticed there were nests in the tree and there seemed to be more than one BCNH in the tree. Most of them were well hidden behind branches or tucked down in the nests. But this BCNH was more cooperative.

I got this shot of him just as he had landed in the tree.

In this shot, BCNH looks like a sentry, like a guard on duty.

We also encountered this little gosling around the duck pond. At first we thought he was a little stray. We wondered where Mama or Papa was.

And then we saw this as they walked away. Isn't this cute to see -- parent and offspring taking a stroll around the duck pond to show the little one what a big world it is.

HAVE A HAPPY MEMORIAL WEEKEND EVERYONE!!

Bernardo Waterfowl Management Area

After leaving the Festival of the Cranes my husband and I wanted to stop at another location while heading back to Albuquerque. I was given a tip to visit Bernardo Waterfowl Managment Area if I wanted to see more Sandhill Cranes and possibly get a closer look at them. Bernardo, New Mexico is about 25 miles north of Socorro on I-25. The waterfowl management area is managed by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The staff here maintains the crops of corn and alfalfa as well as the irrigation operations. This place is a good spot for wintering ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes. Hunting is permitted, but I'm not sure when that applies, but bird watching is good during the fall and winter months.

We drove down a gravel road/pathway to the first pull-off spot where there was a deck to overlook the area. We could hear the cranes and geese but didn't see any in the fields around us. But I did capture the sight of a hawk. I think this was a Red-tailed - and an uncooperative one at that. He only showed his back, and then the next time I looked he was gone.

Below, I tried to get a panoramic type of photo of the sandhill cranes we saw as we drove on down the gravel road. There were cranes farther back, too. You might be able to see them if you click on the photo to see a larger image.

Here are some cranes in flight. In this photo you can see mountains in the distance. As you can see, this was a really pretty area.

Here is another "in-flight" photo. Isn't it amazing how flat (in a lateral sense) these birds seem to be while gliding in flight? These are such fascinating birds. They make weird gutteral sounds, both in the field and while flying. I find these birds to look so graceful while in flight, yet while they are feeding in the fields they do not appear to be so graceful - at least not like they do in flight.

The lighting here was not beneficial for taking a photo, but then it gives one an eerie feeling, or maybe it's a typical autumn look. Notice the mountains in the distance are quite hazy, yet the pond the snow geese are occupying has quite a glare on it. The birds in flight are a couple of sandhill cranes. And as far as I could tell, all the waterfowl on the pond were snow geese. Anyway, I like this photo - it seems to portray a pastoral feeling to me.

Seen from Sandia Crest - part 2

I may have mentioned in my previous post that I took three separate trips up to Sandia Crest. The first time was a gorgeous late morning, full of sunshine and it felt good and warm, with no wind (which is unusual) at Sandia Crest. But because it was close to noon, birds were not active and plentiful. But the views as seen in my previous post were really nice. All three trips my husband and I saw Steller's Jays. They may be robber barons, but they are beautiful robber barons. I love their coloring and their crests are so prominent. These birds are approximately 12-13 inches, so you can imagine they are quite easily seen and they certainly can intimidate smaller birds.

We spent about an hour or two at the crest that first warm day; and since we didn't see too many birds, we decided to head down the "hill." While driving down the hill we were approximately a thousand feet lower, around the ski area, and I saw a hawk perched in a pine tree. Excitedly I asked my husband to stop so I could try to identify the bird. Oh, he was so beautiful, so regal looking. I had to quickly change lenses so I could get a few decent shots of him/her. Be sure to click on the images to get a larger view. With the photo below you can see that this hawk was looking at me, probably wondering "what are you looking at lady?"
This next shot makes it look like he/she was quite annoyed with my picture taking. I wonder if I was disturbing him/her from finding its next meal. I was thinking it must be a red-tailed hawk, but I wasn't sure.
And then ... there was no doubt as it took off. Sorry about the blur - I must not have had a fast enough shutter speed on my camera. But at least I got a shot of this beautiful bird in flight.
The next time we returned to Sandia Crest it was after our trip to the Bosque del Apache. We drove up in the afternoon, but it was terribly windy and I was uncomfortable hanging around outside. So I don't think I got any bird photos that day. Instead we returned for a third trip and decided it would be best to see more birds if we go in the morning. There were dozens of birds flitting around all over the place. Many of them were red-breasted nuthatches, like these little ones in the photos below. Other birds I saw, but didn't get any decent photos of, were mountain chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches.


Did I see any rosy finches? Finally, on the third day I did! And I got to see all three species. Stay tuned for photos in my next post.

Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico

After our Mountain Birding Tour it was time to leave Socorro, New Mexico and head north. We drove to Albuquerque planning to eat lunch at one of our favorite restaurants before heading farther north (and east) to Las Vegas, New Mexico. When we arrived at the location of one of our favorite restaurants we found that Pereas wasn't there. Instead, it had a new name, Seferinos - located on Central and Alvarado. While waiting to be seated we found that the restaurant is run by the same family - known for some of the best true New Mexican fare. My husband had one of his favorite dishes, Carne Adovado, and I had a beef taco plate. We also ordered a couple of sopapillas. After lunch we headed north to Las Vegas, NM, about 60 miles east of Santa Fe. Once we arrived in Las Vegas we felt we should locate a motel before heading over to the refuge. As we exited from I-25 we saw what looked like a brand new, just opened Holiday Inn Express. We found out that it had just recently opened - they had only been opened for two weeks. I can't imagine a motel/hotel having a grand opening in a small (out of the way) town in early November (unless they are anticipating a lot of holiday traffic). We managed to get a suite for the night for only $85. It sure was luxurious. It had a flat panel TV and a king-size bed, with a fridge, microwave and a bar sink. We then headed over to the Wildlife Refuge to see if we could see any cranes flying in for the night. By now it was getting close to sundown. We did see some cranes flying in as well as snow geese. Most ducks and Canada geese had already arrived earlier. Below is what I attempted to capture of a virga in the clouds. And the second photo is the sunset we saw while driving through the refuge. That is Lake McAlister in the sunset photo, which is the largest lake on the refuge.

We headed back out to the refuge around 10 a.m (Mon, Nov 19). Below is a flock of Canada geese we saw while driving around.
We also saw many ravens throughout the refuge, in the fields and perched in trees.
And then we saw sandhill cranes in several fields. Here are a few photos of what we saw.
Notice ravens perched in the trees in the distance.

Here we found a red-tailed hawk surveying his territory.

This is a view of the Sangre de Cristo range, part of the Rocky Mountains, in south central Colorado from the refuge.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge. The next post I will provide more photos of other birds we saw.

Raptors on the Refuge

This year it seemed we saw many more raptors than we did previous years. There were Red-tailed hawks and Northern Harriers just about everywhere. Of course, if you would have seen all the waterfowl you would certainly understand why so many winged predators were present.

These two photos are of the same bird, but they were the best shots I could get of the Aplomado falcon, found on the Farm Loop of the Bosque del Apache NWR. This bird has not been seen in this area for many years. It is now being re-introduced by being raised on the Armendaris Ranch, owned by Ted Turner and managed by Tom Waddell. These birds may have been "raised" on the ranch south of the Refuge, but two of these falcons were recently seen on the Refuge which would mean they had been released into the wild. The two falcons found on the Refuge were noted as one adult female and one juvenile (possibly male). And I'm thinking this may be a juvenile male, but I'm not positive.

A great explanation of this program and much better photos of the Aplomado falcon can be found on another blog called Wildbirds Broadcasting. Click on the link and read more about these fascinating birds.

And here is a red-tailed hawk also found on the Farm Loop of the Bosque.


All of these photos were taken on Friday, November 17th, while we were touring the Refuge.