February 1-8, 2025 with Doug Gochfeld
I certainly didn’t expect to be heading to New Mexico this year, but unexpected calls do keep life interesting! Owen Hilchey guided the group on a fantastic day one of this tour around Albuquerque, but the rascally C-word reared its head, and he couldn’t continue the tour beyond that first day. Luckily I was just back from Vietnam, and could get a couple of flights from NYC to Albuquerque in time for me to meet the group first thing in the morning on day 2!
The week was characterized by some exceptionally warm weather (near the all-time highs for the date range, for the duration of the trip!), which made hand warmers, and some of our outer layers, usually staples of this tour, completely superfluous! The lovely weather had a mostly very positive influence on our birding experience, as birds were active early in the day, there was open water in places that are often iced over, and, of course, we could feel our fingers and toes!
Owen laid the groundwork of an excellent tour by providing a wonderful experience with Black and Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches up at Sandia Crest, including a banding demonstration, with a few participants even being able to release birds out of their very own hands! Owen has been involved in the Rosy-Finch banding project for many years, and so seeing the rosies up there through his lens is a treat indeed.
I took over as we headed out from Albuquerque, and before long we were birding in a new type of habitat – one not natural per se, but very much integral to the American west. We birded the agricultural fields at the north end of the Estancia Valley, looking specifically for recently tilled fields and water. We eventually found both of these bird-concentrating features, and amidst the hundreds upon hundreds of Horned Larks, we found quite a few Chestnut-collared Longspurs, some of which (including individuals getting into breeding plumage) even put down on the ground for nice views. While we hunted around for the right spots to find these smaller field birds, we also came into good looks at Ferruginous Hawk, “Prairie” Merlin, Northern Harrier, and a Chihuahuan Raven. We then headed south through the valley, picked up Rt. 60, and drove through the juniper-laden mountain pass and down into the grasslands. We kept an eye out for Pronghorn, though we never did encounter one. Our vigilance did pay off though, in the form of a Prairie Falcon, another Ferruginous Hawk, and a roadside pair of Chihuahuan Ravens. And this was all before lunch!
We then passed through Socorro for lunch, and continued on down to one of the hallmarks of this tour, the world famous Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We got a primer of the local refuge birds around the visitor’s center, and then set out on the wildlife drive, where we worked on an impressive list of waterfowl, from swarms of Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler, and Green-winged Teal, to smaller numbers of Canvasback, Common Goldeneye, and Ring-necked Duck. Most memorably, we got to study, at length, a nice mixed species flock of white geese standing on and at the edge of the wildlife drive, which was 25% or so Ross’s Geese, giving us plenty of opportunity to compare them to their more abundant larger Snow Geese cousins. Perhaps the most memorable stretch this evening was the combination of eight or more Coyotes amongst a flock of Sandhill Cranes, and over 20 Collared Peccary around the adjacent road as dusk dropped in over the refuge. The biomass of the Bosque truly never fails to please.
The rest of our time down here saw us exploring the refuge and surrounding area more, with the highlight perhaps being the pre-dawn takeoff of a large flock of Snow and Ross’s Geese swirling around overhead with the first hints of sunrise glowing in the distant night. We also ran across Green-tailed Towhee, Black-throated Sparrow, Pyrrhuloxia, Verdin, and more around the refuge. We also spent a day travelling around the large reservoirs along the Rio Grande to the south of the refuge, where Bridled Titmice, Phainopeplas, Rock Wrens, and Clark’s and Western grebes highlighted the avian haul. We wrapped up our jam-packed 48 hours down here with a stop at Bernardo Wildlife Management Area, where thousands each of Sandhill Cranes and white geese were busily feeding. The big swirls of Snow and Ross’s geese that we saw here would provide another indelible memory.
Then it was northward ho, but not without a lunch stop in Albuquerque, where the weather allowed us to eat outside in the company of Canvasback, Wood Duck, and Hooded Merganser. Here, we also got to watch the comical show of Neotropic Cormorants squabbling with each other over fish. When lunch was over, a little stroll in the riverside bosque provided us with a local rarity in the form of an eventually cooperative Harris’s Sparrow which was wintering here with a group of White-crowned Sparrows. We continued up I-25, and made a couple of afternoon birding stops on the eastern side of Santa Fe, before settling into our new digs and having a lovely dinner at one of the many excellent eateries up here.
Our morning of birding around Los Alamos proved fruitful for one of the most memorable experiences of the tour – a congregation of over a hundred Mountain Bluebirds coming down to drink from the water of a creek on the outskirts of “the Atomic City” on a gorgeous sunlit morning. Incidentally, “band” is the not-too-colorful collective noun for a group of bluebirds, but this experience was a lot more powerful than “band of bluebirds” would imply. Watching these indescribably blue balls of feathers flutter down and drink heartily over their shimmering reflections before bursting into the air in unison made for a fantastic morning. Moving on from the magic of the early morning, we availed ourselves of a spectacular view overlooking the upper Rio Grande river, which led into a flock of dozens of Bushtits, and then a very cooperative Sage Thrasher before we headed up the mountain to try our luck at seeing some birds above 9,000’, where a large mixed flock of Mountain Chickadees and multiple taxa of juncos entertained us. We then headed back to Santa Fe for some unstructured non-group time exploring the downtown of this culturally significant New Mexican mountain town, before yet another banquetous dinner.
Our final morning up here had one more particularly special birding encounter in store for us – a dry creek bed in the juniper foothills with a troop of very active Lewis’s Woodpeckers (with three flyover flocks of Evening Grosbeaks to boot). It’s pretty hard to top a descent (or drumming, or clatter – there’s not obvious agreement on the matter of a collective noun for woodpeckers) of pink woodpeckers, so we headed south. We did find another lovely flock of drinking Mountain Bluebirds during a brief stop on our way south, and then it was back to Albuquerque for some more birding along the Rio Grande before an afternoon break and our final dinner (another delicious one – a theme of this year’s tour!). The highlights of the tour were discussed (Rosy-finches, Mountain Bluebirds, goose and crane spectacles, Lewis’s Woodpeckers, Sage Thrashers, and Ferruginous Hawks all got multiple nods), and goodbyes were said.
Indeed, it must be said again, that though it was unplanned and very last second, I greatly enjoyed traveling with you all, and showing you New Mexico birds through the lens of my own experience there. This year’s tour was another chapter to remember in the book of my trips in the land of enchantment, and it was thanks to both the land, and each and every one of you! Fare thee well, until we meet again in some other birdy place on this enchanting planet of ours.
Desert Cottontail (Sylvilagus audubonii) Common Rock Squirrel (Otospermophilus variegatus) Abert's Squirrel (Sciurus aberti) North American Red Squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus) Coyote (Canis latrans) Collared Peccary (Dicotyles tajacu) Mule Deer (Odocoileus hemionus)
You can see my complete trip report on eBird at this link: https://ebird.org/tripreport/330732
Doug Gochfeld (Treeswift)