Roger's Birding Adventures: Evening Grosbeaks, Ferruginous Hawks, Chestnut-collared and McCown's Longspurs and more! Santa Fe County, NM 3/26/15

It was a good morning watching my backyard feeders! They were slammed with CASSIN'S and HOUSE FINCHES, EVENING GROSBEAKS, PINE SISKINS, JUNIPER TITMICE, CANYON AND SPOTTED TOWHEES, WHITE-CROWNED SPARROWS, DARK-EYED JUNCOS, WESTERN SCRUB-JAYS, SCALED QUAILS, WESTERN BLUEBIRDS, AMERICAN ROBINS, CURVE-BILLED THRASHERS, WHITE-WINGED, EURASIAN COLLARED AND MOURNING DOVES, COMMON RAVENS, AMERICAN CROWS, BEWICK'S WREN, BUSHTIT, and last, but not least, NORTHERN (red-shafted) FLICKER.

Male Cassin's Finch

Table full of Cassin's

Male Evening Grosbeak and Cassin's Finches

Male Evening Grosbeak

Male grosbeak

Female Evening Grosbeak

Grosbeaks and finches

Western Scrub-Jay

Thistle sock full of Pine Siskins

White-winged Dove

It was hard to stop watching from the comforts of the house, but I around noon I took off for the 40 miles drive to the ag fields of southern Santa Fe County.

There wasn't a whole lot going on as I cruised around freshly plowed fields. For one thing it's still a bit early in spring and also the area is really dry as the farmers aren't irrigating yet.

That said there were lots of singing WESTERN MEADOWLARKS, several male SAYS PHOEBES duking it out for prime territory, several FERRUGINOUS HAWKS both on territory and migrating, including a stunningly beautiful dark morph, LOGGERHEAD SHRIKES, and dozens and dozens of both CHIHUAHUAN and COMMON RAVENS!

Also seen was a Vesper Sparrow bringing my Santa Fe County year list to 114.

The birds of the day, however, were a flock of Chestnut-collared and McCown's Longspurs I found feeding along a farm road! I shouldn't have been surprised as it was just a year ago there was a large flock of all three longspurs just a short distance away (see my post of 4/1/14).

I got some pics of both species, but, as you will see they are terrible as I had to shoot through glass (the feeder pics are through dirty glass too) and the light is very harsh...etc etc :-)