Toured southern Santa Fe County today looking for any migrants. There are numerous roads giving you access to endless miles of prairie - a small extension of the Great Plains. It is a great place to observe a variety of raptors and other grassland birds any time of the year. There are very few trees so any seemingly insignificant clump is well worth checking, especially in both spring and fall migrations.
The highlight today were the Ferruginous Hawks - 7 total. Not only were there several migrating birds, but I found a pair working on their nest. On Western Road I found a stunning rufous-morph Ferruginous. I had never seen one and it was knee-buckling beautiful. I managed to get several pictures, although not as close, or clear as I would have liked. Only a very small percentage of Ferruginous Hawks on the plains are either "dark" or "rufous" morphs. I was lucky!
Most of the Red-tailed Hawks have moved out, but there was a male Northern Harrier, several American Kestrels, one Merlin (awful pic through the car window), and 5 Loggerhead Shrikes.
Longspurs have been a no-show this winter so it was good to see a few birds working their way back north. I encountered a small flock of 20 McCown's Longspurs mixed in with a flock of Horned Larks.
The only other migrants were 40+ Sandhill Cranes, 35 Green-winged Teal, and a Say's Pheobe here and there (probably on territory).
Often overlooked in this area are Chihuahuan Ravens. They can be quite numerous and often times far outnumber the Common Ravens. They are tough to get pics of but I managed a couple shots today. Note that they are intermediate in size between Common Ravens and American Crows. The first pic below is of an American Crow. Note that it is smaller in size in both body and bill and the bristles don't go past half way. On the Chihuahuan pic below the bristles extend much further out on the bill than on a common and they have high pitched calls. See the Common Raven pics further below.
 |
| American Crow |
 |
| Chihuahuan Raven |
 |
| Rufous morph Ferruginous Hawk |
 |
| Rufous morph Ferruginous Hawk |
 |
| Rufous morph with starlings |
 |
| Rufous morph with starlings |
 |
| Rufuous morph Ferruginous flying with starlings |
 |
| Rufous morph Ferruginous Hawk |
 |
| Rufous morph Ferruginous Hawk |
 |
| Rufous morph Ferruginous |
 |
| Rufous morph Ferruginous |
 |
| Light morph Ferruginous Hawk |
 |
| Common Raven not "White-necked!" |
 |
| Common Raven |
 |
| Check out those intimidating Common Raven feet! |
 |
Male American Kestrel hunting
|
 |
| Merlin |
 |
| Loggerhead Shrike |
 |
| Loggerhead Shrike |
 |
| Loggerhead Shrike |
 |
| Western Meadowlark |
 |
| Western Meadowlark |
 |
| Galisteo Basin - part of area where I was birding today |
No comments:
Post a Comment