Monday, September 20, 2010

Shake-down trip for used Subaru wagon

Since my Ford Ranger had died completely I needed another vehicle, and was determined to get something that was more fuel efficient and also usable for birding trips. I found a 2003 Subaru Outback locally, which I got for an OK price. Turns out it immediately needed some work, timing belt and water-pump, brakes while on this trip, and some other fixes that became obvious with use. I studied the maps and my listing goals and decided to make a trip through Colorado and New Mexico primarily, but rounded it out by adding a corner of Nebraska, a corner of Wyoming, and a one day trip into Arizona.

The first puzzle was how to shrink the accumulation of gear in the truck, in nooks and crannies in the camper-shell, and an archaeological dig behind the seat of the cab. Way more than I really needed, multiple copies of stuff, five sweatshirts, three first aid kits, three cook-sets, four stoves of various sizes and designs, gloves and hats and pencils and bird checklists, on and on. What I was envisioning was a gear set that would allow camping in comfort but still be small enough to make space to sleep in the back if that proved necessary. First goal met, second not tried on this trip. I still ended up with way too much, and cursed the bulky stuff like the ice-chest, though not really big, and the water jug and bucket. It'll shrink again as I get more realistic about my needs and how involved in camping I want to be on a given trip.

Anyway, I piled it all in, and it only came to one layer behind the seat, so good enough to start the gear calibration. The sleeping space already looked unlikely.



Sunday, Sept 12, 2010

Got away after some final ditzing around with the load, the usual trying to remember all the little items that usually are part of house life that need to go on trip, like phone and log-book. Headed west to cheap gas, filled up and started logging numbers for gas mileage determination. Drove through the NW corner of OK, and onto the southern-most highways of Kansas. The start was late enough that it was mid-afternoon and hot by the time I got to Quivera. Really wasn't very focused, still in a pissy and depressed mood from dealing with an endless parade of small harassments. Still managed to get a couple of tics, Black-necked Stilt, one among a couple of thousand Avocets. The really good bird was a perfect American Golden-Plover in a borrow ditch, maybe the best and closest view I've ever had.

I had wanted to stay a night, even two at Lake Scott State Park, but there was no way to make it before deep dark, so instead I headed northwest and drove way too late until crashing in a rest area, sleeping in the front seat. So much for the resolve to not push and spend relaxed campsite time along the way.

Monday, May 13

The primary component of the parade of aggravations was the task of getting AC power in the front of the wagon, hereafter called Roo, so that the laptops, phone charger, some battery chargers, and whatnot could run as if I was in the twentieth century. I had purchased a nice inverter, checked it with a drill, it passed, then hard wired it to the battery so it wouldn't switch off with the key. Then it wouldn't work. So I tried another inverter, which blew a fuse. After dawn I tried a parts store in Goodland, but we couldn't find the fuse, and I couldn't find the owner's manual, which was surely in there someplace. Truly amazing that an object that can fill your hand can be totally lost in a volume 6 feet by 3 feet by 10 feet, mostly empty space.

To make up for that I found the Goodland Water Treatment Facility, as recommended by Pete Janzen who I'd called as early as seemed un-intrusive. It was very nice, a long wetland of small pools surrounded by natural vegetation stretching over a quarter mile down from the main settling ponds. Had waterfowl, and passerines in the edges. Farther north and east along Beaver Creek before Atwood was some nice riparian habitat which belonged to a ranch welcoming birders. Unfortunately there was no sign, so I didn't know which lane to try so I just birded along the road. Very quiet, one Nuthatch.

In Atwood there is public camping that looked a good potential overnight someday, but I headed on into Nebraska. I was hoping to add some tics by swinging through the southwest corner along the Platte before going into Wyoming. Stopped at the VC for Lake McConaughy Rec area for info and bird list, but it seemed sorta pricey, day fee and camp fee, and more for water etc. Besides that I wasn't seeing a single bird, not sparrows or Redwings or Meadowlarks, really nothing. And it stayed that way all through nearly three hundred miles after leaving Goodland. There weren't even good roadside places, bridge crossings, farm ponds, really strange. I ended driving right on into Wyoming with hardly a stop, and not one tic.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Wyoming, Southeast Corner

Monday, September 13, 2010

Wyoming was a fine change from Nebraska. I already had a place picked out for camping that I'd discovered reading the bird-finder and studying the maps. Vedauwoo turned out to be a high (8000'plus) piece of geology beloved of rock climbers. I knew I was in the right place when, after driving around to pick a campsite, got out and the first bird was a calling Clark's Nutcracker.





And I finally got down to camping, or at least setting up the new REI tent. Actually went up pretty easy for a first run, since they had used some hardware treatments that I knew from other of their tents that I've used a lot. Roomy inside with two doors. I put out some hopeful kitchen gear too, but never managed to cook anything. I get too swept up in the birding part. But I slept well.



Tuesday, Sep 14

Up in the dark and drive back to Cheyenne, with a stop first at McDonald's for battery recharge on the laptop. I was nursing it along for GPS use since the inverter problem still wasn't solved. The first place I wanted to try was the Wyoming Hereford Ranch. I wasn't sure exactly what it was, but check the link. There had been reports of shorebirds on its reservoir, which I finally managed to reach from the wrong direction, the GPS saved me, and when I climbed the embankment along the road was actually able to find a few species. There were passerines in the trees along the road, and it turned out to be a good stop. I was really about ten days too late the whole trip for shorebirds, having waited to start until after a hike I'd agreed to lead for an adult education group from the University of Arkansas. That delay would cost me the whole trip.

Next stop was was lion's Park, and especially Sloan's Lake on the north side of Cheyenne. Very good birding, a small lake surrounded by lawns and patches of woodland, completely surrounded by a paved trail, and then another that seemed to be the birding and fishing trail. Several good migrants including MacGillivray's Warbler, and many Wilson's Warblers. Even White-throated Sparrows and a Wood Duck. Walked all the way around, and then made some other stops in the park, none as good, but the Mississippi Kite fly-over made the time not wasted.

Another place I'd noted was some grasslands north of town, apparently a research ranch for the University of Wyoming. Poked around on the roads but never really did find the heart of the place, at least not a place where I could ask anyone questions. It was a great area for raptors though.

The day was still young enough that I decided to try a drive out Happy Jack Road, WY Rte 210, after buying some ice. That store was where I learned how to say Vedauwoo. Veda, as in Hindu sacred books, voo, as in French "you", vous. So: veda-voo. That was a beautiful drive. parallel to the Interstate and up over the ridge that made the highest point on I80. Just before that point in Curt Gowdy State Park, I met a young man from New England who was crossing the country for the first time, on a bicycle. We talked routes and weather. I advised him that crossing the northern part of Nevada riding on the shoulder of the interstate wasn't such a good idea, and suggested a more southern and scenic route through Southeast Utah. Incidentally the same general route, Happy Jack and Interstate, was the line of the original coast-to-coast railway, the Union Pacific from Utah eastward. Happy Jack joined the Interstate about five miles east of Laramie, and when I got there Hutton Lake NWR lay to the south. So I drove south and wasted twenty miles because that's not the way to get there. Back through Laramie to another two lane blacktop heading southwest, then ten miles of dirt.



This was a great place, partly because there were a few good birds, but mostly for being simply open and quiet and well watered with healthy native vegetation. I felt terribly centered. relaxed, and mellow. Looking back I'd say a real high point for the trip.




Wednesday, Sep 15

Up before sunrise, full dark, took down the tent in a fairly good wind, and it was easy, very smooth, no struggle. I was so proud of myself. Not so much when I found the two dead ground squirrels in the water bucket, which they couldn't escape since I hadn't leaned a rough surface stick in there, something I always do at home with my buckets and tanks. I felt really dumb. Did the only logical thing, split and drove to Laramie. I'd made a note that there was possible good birding on a dirt road along the Laramie River north of town. First stop on a bridge over the river got three shorebird tics, and the road was generally birdy for fifteen miles until it rejoined the highway. Many sparrows, including flocks of Chestnut-collared Longspurs, but the best birds were White Pelicans and an immense and very secure pale hawk that just stared as I approached in twenty foot idling coasts. I could not figure it out, but it was beautiful, very fully feathered in what looked like a new molt, just some chest speckling, not a band, and a smallish two colored beak. It finally flushed and showed the big white upper-wing spots of a Rough-legged Hawk. A very light morph, which I'd never seen.

When I got back to the highway, after once more failing to find even decent looking habitat for Mountain Plovers, which there was a note about, headed south with a parts store stop for a fuse, which fixed the lighter and mirrors. Still no working inverter, but closer. Then a hundred mile drive south into Colorado, coming into Fort Collins from the northwest.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

Colorado, thwarted by urbanity and bad luck

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

I drove SE into Colorado directly to the REI in Fort Collins. I was looking for one of those little cowboy coffee grinders, but they had nothing like that. Everything seemed expensive, which explains why I pretty much only buy from their sale catalogues. I did get a dozen Powerbars. From there I worked my way over to Timnath Reservoir, finally found the public park area, which put me close to lot of mudflats as the res was pulled way down. There had been lots of good shorebird reports from there, but I was about a week too late. Got a couple of tics, Baird's Sandpiper, which seemed to be the reliable late moving species. Stayed at Crow Valley on the Pawnee NG, just hanging and desultory birding. Did find a Townsend's Warbler. Didn't feel like setting up the tent, slept in the wagon, actually fairly comfortable.

Thursday, Sep 16

Woke up around 4:30 and headed to a recent grass fire site which might have been good for Mountain Plovers (I still had hopes), sat and read for awhile until the edge of dawn, then drove north to Norma's Grove, a little migrant trap of cottonwoods and willows where a small stream crossed a dead end county road. The birding was good once the sun had thrown a little heat into the area, but nothing new except a Cooper's Hawk which seemed to upset the tree-top Starlings pretty thoroughly. Went back to the burn, and spent thirty minutes scanning from three or four stops, it was quite an area when the light showed the extent, but no luck.

I drove back into Fort Collins and ended up sitting for half an hour waiting for Best Buy to open, but didn't get an inverter there, seemed overpriced at more than $70 when they were in truckstops for thirty. Put it off again. I then went non-birding sight-seeing through Estes Park and down through Ward, where I'd lived for a winter many years ago, sent a bill payment from there, hand stamped in the one room Post Office. Then down the windy narrow two-lane to the highway into Boulder. I wanted to check out some sites there, but got frustrated by traffic, entry fees for places that I just wanted to glance at, no outlets in Micky's to charge the battery, then realizing that the prime reservoir for some interesting Gulls was a State Park, and not worth it. When I studied the map and found a road straight out of Boulder that would completely skip Denver and set me on the Interstate headed west, I went for it. I'd had enough urban challenge.

I wanted to stay for a couple of nights in Guanella Pass, and had visions of cool high altitude laid back practice camping. But in Georgetown I discovered that the road up the pass had been closed by a landslide, and then going west there was at least an hour's delay for tunnel construction. I was getting fried. Finally got going south, and was able to re-find an undeveloped campsite south of Salida where I'd stayed several years ago. Got there at sundown and just threw a couple of pads on the ground and crawled into the bag. But when I woke in the night the stars were glorious, Jupiter was blazing, closest approach in fifty years, and suddenly it seemed Okay.

Friday, Sep 17

I was up at first light and gone before sunrise, headed south for Monte Vista and Alamosa NWRs. Monte Vista was good, with four new tics including Black Duck and a bird that I first, after some guide study, took for a Little Gull. There had been one or more reported on the big lakes further north, and no matter how hard I looked, I couldn't get the bird to show the dark patch behind the eye that would have made it a simple Bonaparte's. But the bill didn't seem as small as the guides showed, although that is a variable feature in its reality, its verbal description, and its illustration. So I first recorded it as LIGU. Then I got cold feet and changed it to BOGU, much more likely. But I may change my mind again if I look at some more pictures. Either way it was a good tic. Alamosa was dried up just as it had been in the spring, and I didn't linger. Headed on south into New Mexico.

Friday, September 17, 2010

New Mexico, mechanics and zooties

Friday, Sep 17, 2010

The first important thing was a squealing in the front brakes that had become sorta persistent. My mechanic in Arkansas just before I left had mentioned that the squealers would go off when the brakes got thin, and I considered that a providential "heads-up", after going through the piece of grit and dusty roads stages of denial. And I quickly recalled that my friend Beth in Glenwood had mentioned that she had a good shade tree mechanic there, so I set my course for her place. First I had to stop in Taos to meet up with another friend, but I got a message at the library there that they were not well, so I got the battery charged again and kept driving.

I took a scenic back road, labeled the "high road to Taos", which was really nice until I hit the fifteen miles of construction. The next time it'll be faster if I ever get back that way. This time it was twenty mph torn up dirt. Finally got back on pavement but it led through Santa Fe for miles of traffic and boring monochromatic pseudo-Spanish architecture, so called. The Interstate into Albuquerque was faster, but when I tried to get to the Rio Grande Valley Nature Center, the last intersection that the GPS showed as the final turn for the approach was actually an underpass and then a parkway for several miles with no way off. It wasn't even easy to get turned around, and I ended up skipping the Nature Center since I still had to get to Socorro and up to Water Canyon.

Finally made it there, around sundown. Another beautiful sleep on the ground night, with the bonus of a Western Screech-Owl. Perfect ending to a pretty good day. I wanted to be there for the chance of a Flammulated Owl, but just didn't have the gumption to do more than walk the road by the campground for a ways, nothing dramatic like a drive up the mountain. Wanted to be there for an early start to see the Very Large Array (VLA) on the Plains of San Augustin.

Saturday, Sep 18

Good sleep and good start, Got to the VLA before the VC opened, but walked around the tour path and took pictures. The VC had some very informative exhibits, I watched the film, talked to the nice woman in charge, bought a notebook, and just grooved on really amazing technology that's not for war or profit.









I got to Beth's in Glenwood around noon, set the computer charging, found her at her station at the roadside market along the highway, and generally everything was copacetic. I birded around the fish hatchery, got some NM tics, took a nap. When Beth got back, I met CJ the mechanic, who pulled the front brakes and found them paper thin, but no gouged rotors. Fixable with simple pad replace. I had been told to replace all four wheels since it's an AWD vehicle, but opted for the economy move with the proviso to service all wheels and replace some rotors when the rear started squealing. It was Yom Kippur, so Beth let me break her fast with her at sundown. A very good healthy meal was appropriate, got us talking about regrets and learning from mistakes.

Once it got dark we got a great sky show, Venus was ultra bright to go with Jupiter, and I'd found an illustration that showed how to find Uranus right next to Jupiter, so that was the first time I found it on my own, and not seeing it through a scope pointed by someone else. Then she broke out this amazing device called a tent-cot, which at first I thought would be some incompetent hybrid, but it was great. A little heavy, but well made, roomy, and comfortable. Slept great.

Sunday, Sep 19

I went over to the hatchery early, then came back to the house to wait for the brake pads being brought from Silver City by another friend, Diana. She arrived around noon, since she and Beth were conducting a tile mosaic project by local kids at the Community Center. CJ went to work on the wagon, and I went over to watch the art work. The kids had already laid out the outlines of various horse images culled from magazines and what-not, each figure was 8-10 feet long and maybe six high. Then they went through the boxes of tiles that they'd made and decided on what pieces and colors went to each figure. All the work and all the decisions belonged to the kids, all that Beth and Diana did was keep the work flow going in a sensible order, no actual decisions from them. The whole business was fascinating.

I had a sit-down lunch at a diner along the way walking home, then went to work updating the Windows install on the Dell computer. They always take longer than I think they will, what with restarts and such. CJ got the brakes done, $90 parts and labor and it stopped well and straight. Very pleased. By the time I'd driven to Silver it was past dark, I hung with Diana and Bob for awhile, then slept in their guest house.

Arizona interlude in the post below

Wednesday, Sep 22

It rained all day. I visited with old buddy Pat Mulligan in the morning, a great dose of polished curmudgeonry, refreshing like a good purge. Then I went to hang out at Diana and Bob's art supply store, and took another nap. Sorta worn out from the little trip in the Tucson heat. Had dinner at Jalisco's after Diana showed me her new work in the studio, and some projects under construction. Stayed at Laura's good bed with aura of woman after a hot sit down soaking bath. Great treat in a life of showers, does wonders for the traveling knots.

Thursday, Sep 23



The rain cleared off so I went to the Little Walnut Picnic Area and the Gomez Trails. The start was slow, but then I found a Swainson's Thrush, a Townsend's Warbler and a Mexican Jay. That was a sweet three tics. From there I went to Lake Roberts thinking I might find a White Pelican, they had been moving south earlier in the trip, but apparently hadn't made it this far south yet. Instead, a totally unexpected Sora flew out of the reeds at the parking area. I backtracked slightly to the hummingbird house of Joan Day-Martin, and found that two species had shown up that would be new for the state. The Blue-throated wasn't too hard, showed up fairly soon and was well marked. The Calliope was more of a challenge, but after about a half hour wait a significantly smaller bird arrived with wing extensions wail beyond the tail, nothing dramatic in the marking since it was a female, but it was good enough for me.

On the way back to Silver I stopped at McMillan Campground and walked up the trail behind it, I guess hoping to maybe hear a Greater Pewee. What I got instead was a Veery, a Wood Thrush and then another thrush-sized bird flew up off the ground and settled on a branch just above head height less than thirty feet away. There was a bit of foliage in front of it being used for cover while it studied me and I it. I could see the head and tail well, the head was dark with a dark thrush bill and weirdly marked, black with white speckles, like a juvenile Robin, but much darker. The tail had a white band and seemed pale along the edges, but that may have been some trick of the light. I had no idea what I was looking at except that I was certain it was a thrush. When I got back to the car I started studying the book and hit juvenile Aztec Thrush, "very rare fall vagrant in SE Arizona", that is, just on the other side of the state line. Serious Zootie.

In the meantime I was worried about the cat I had been sitting for Laura, which had disappeared. I needed to call the backup cat sitter so I could go back and try to get a picture of the bird. I thought I might rally some help if I called a guy in Silver who was a kind of authority, so I got his number from Diana, and when I called him he immediately started talking drivel. How big was it? I said, thrush size, 10 or 11 inches, although the tree it was in had leaves rather than rulers. He says they're way bigger than that, Robin sized. When I checked the field guides, Aztec was 10.25, and Robin was 11. I'm pretty sure that was the last call I'll ever make to any so-called expert. O he says, you have to see the white spot on the wing, vital to ID. Turns out the juveniles haven't developed it yet. Jerk. I finally yelled at him, said "if you want to try to make a fool of me, that's not hard to do, but what I'm trying to tell you is exactly what I saw, and if you have a different guess that fits what I saw, I want to hear it." Silence. I hung up. I went back with a camera, but the bird was gone, along with the other thrushes. Still, a very good day, now at 48% New Mexico species.

I've had about a half dozen similar conversations with pompous idiots that seem to do all their ID work with dead birds in hand and guides by their sides. They never talk like they actually go into the wild world and look at wild birds under wild weather and wild light using less than perfect eyes and optics, and their lack of any contact with wild they take as a credential rather than the crippling liability that it is, especially coupled with their inflated and unjustified egos. See the essay on official birders.

I stayed at Laura'a again, the missing cat jumped up on the bed about 4am. Shut the door and pile fresh food with cat candy on its dish.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Arizona for an Owl on Mount Lemmon

Monday Sep 20, 2010

I got up early enough to be waiting at the door for McDonald's to open, then drove to Lordsburg where I finally solved the computer power supply problem with a simple unit for $30. That was a real increase in freedom since I could keep things charged and running. For the first time in years on this trip I didn't have a detailed record of the roads taken since I couldn't run the GPS software continuously. Guess it really doesn't matter, but it had become traditional, and could be useful someday for re-finding particularly sweet spots.

I made a stop at the Lordsburg Playa, which had a few birds, but nothing notable. The Wilcox Playa was great. There were about thirty Long-billed Curlews as well as a good variety of ducks and other shorbies. At the Benson Sewage ponds I found a Greater White-fronted Goose, which had been notable on the Arizona listserv, though I only found that out later when I got my revitalized computer on-line for mail. From there I drove on into Tucson to find Sweetwater Wetlands. This was really hard, even with a pretty good idea where it was. First I poked around in a city park until I figured out that the sewage plant that fed the wetlands was on the other side of the river. I finally found one human, a gardener, in the 104F heat who was able to tell me how to find the access to the road that led there. Even then I took a couple of wrong turns until I tried asking in a little building on a dead-end parking lot. They sent me back to the obscure lot that was parking for the wetlands. I couldn't even bear to get out of the car, but at least I knew exactly where it was and the exact, and only(!) route to get there. The trick is getting on the access road along the interstate, which can only be done from the north end since it's one-way. About a mile down there's a road back to the treatment plant, and the wetlands parking is about a quarter mile down that road on the south side. Make a note of that.

I wanted to get up Mount Lemmon, as much for birds as to get above some of the heat. My goal was the General Hitchcock Campground in the Bear Canyon area. There had been repeated reports of Flammulated Owl from there when I was out earlier in the year, but a long evening there and in several other picnic areas nearby, playing tapes, and going from one to the other walking in the woods by headlamp had failed completely. Fortunately, I'm a model of idiot persistence. I settled into the campground well before dark, the temp had dropped 20+ degrees, I met a guy named Justin, who had a Harley but seemed un-biker-ish. He had been camping for almost two weeks and had seen and heard owls, but wasn't a birder.

He shared cold water and talk, then I set out up the trail above the campground, the typical parallel along a creek-bed. There were good birds, and great butterflies including a Fritillary that simply blew me away. I also found a lot of bear sign, scats in the trail, normal, a stump seriously torn apart fairly recently, and then a scrape showing four clear claws where he/she had dragged her paw in the middle of the trail. The distance across the claws was four or five inches, and the scape was nearly two feet long. That made me think, especially when I got back to my chosen site and found more fresh scat there. There were bear-proof food storage lockers but I didn't see any way to sleep in them. So I ended up sleeping on the picnic table, which is an approach I've used a lot, no tent, just pad and bag with a water bottle and light at hand.

As it was getting dusk I started hearing some owl-like sounds, but not the Flam's double hoot, so I was reading up on the local owls. Apparently there were three small varieties and one I was able to make out as the southern Rocky mountain version of the Northern Saw-whet, which has different sounding call, the individual notes aren't toots as normal, but more like "cuck"s as in the prep notes for Yellow-billed Cuckoo's call. It's at least a sub-species, called Mountain Pygmy Owl, and there's some talk of full species status though I read somewhere that the DNA doesn't support a wide split between the types. More disheartening was the info that the Flam's only call on the breeding grounds, and that was way past. I pretty much gave up and was just sitting there in the new dark when I heard something coming down the canyon from up the trail that resolved into double hoots. I jumped up and walked over to Justin's site as the bird flew by, tree to tree, calling irregularly as it passed down the canyon. Not all the calls were doubled, maybe a little more than half, but it was distinctive. I didn't hear it again after it passed. It was my last sought owl species and I'd been looking for it for several years. Two people I talked to the next day said I'd been very lucky to hear it in the fall.

I slept pretty well, only a little of the normal scurrying noises, and no bears in the night.

Tuesday, Sep 21

Got into Tucson at first light and went directly to Sweetwater with some C-store grub in hand. It was great, the flowing water in the ditch by the parking was really attractive to passerines, and I found new warblers for the AZ list. Back further in there were nice ponds surrounded by vegetation and all the way to the back were large open settling pools with a lot of duck and shorebird activity and at least one Peregrine Falcon. I spent a couple of hours walking and re-walking the trails, it's not very extensive, and added a half dozen AZ tics, including neat little surprises like a Common Moorhen.

I had noted on the maps a BLM National Monument not too far north called Ironwood Forest, and since it involved driving by the Red Rock cattle yards, a possible location for Ruddy Ground-Dove, it was the next goal. The road makes a loop around some dessert hills, or maybe small mountains, but as I got further down the road it got worse quickly, and I didn't want to bang up the low riding Roo going the full distance, so I drove back and this time really studied the yards and wires and fences, but nothing dove-like showed.

Back In the city I tracked down the Tucson Audubon Society (TAS) bookstore. It was well hidden by the fact that the house numbering and the Avenue numbering run in opposite directions. The staff didn't seem to realize how confusing that could be to someone who was only familiar with every other city in the US. The book selection was good, pricey, and the staff aloof. They seemed troubled that someone had actually walked in, so I didn't stay long, but was disappointed since such places are usually hotbeds of late breaking news and insider tips. Not this one, not for me, I guess I should have been wearing expensive binocs.

I could have stayed in Tucson some relatives, but had become grossed out by the aggravation of street numbers and the rising heat. They wouldn't be home for hours and I could be back in Silver City if I just made a run for it. Which I did, back by dusk, met up with my friend Laura and agreed to house-sit her cat while she went off to visit her daughter for a few days. Got to sleep in her woman smelling bed, take a hot bath, and do laundry, but not 'til the next day.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Trip Home through Eastern NM

Friday, September 24, 2010

Time to head back, packed and gone by nine, driving over the Black Range with a stop at Emory Pass, high enough, 8000+ ft, there was a chance for a Clark's Nutcracker, which I'd made a couple of tries at on the higher parts of the Gila, especially Signal Peak. It';s a bird in serious decline since it's primary food source, referred to as Rock Pines, trees with nuts in the cones rather than the usual light-weight seeds, are in decline due to a disease. Got to the parking lot, there was Forest Service guy working on the restroom, and a scan didn't find many birds. But I walked around the edge, then down a little side-trail a short ways, and when I came back out in the open, a Nutcracker landed close and beautiful in a snag about fifty feet from the lot. Good omen there for the trip home.

Drove pretty directly to Bosque del Apache NWR, it's not very interesting low desert this time of year, and the refuge wasn't very birdy either, though I did find two new NM birds there. But not the Aplomado Falcon that had been reported. Needed to be there earlier when the thermals are just starting.

The main goal for the day was to get in position to bird the Melrose Trap the next morning. Drove on up the Interstate from the Bosque, then east on US60. Made a few stops along the way, one in an area of dried up saline lakes hoping to find shorebirds, but got only a couple of Killdeer. Another stop was at the Headquarters of the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. The two folks in the office were knowledgeable and very helpful, the older gentleman looked up some god detailed info on the Trap, inviting me into the office to study the computer screen, then printing out the best pages. The woman was promoting The IMBD activities and gave me a spreadsheet of the past several years' results. Sold me a nice baseball hat of the old design for the old price. Great folks. I had visited the actual missions many years earlier when first getting into birding, and one held my lifer Blue Grosbeak. One of my favorite species, and now they sometimes nest on my land.

Anyway, I drove on into the town of Ft Sumter, gas and snacks, then up to the State Park on a lake. The book said it was good birding, but I was late and tired and fell out soon after dark, on the picnic table again. There were some really strange noises in the night, presumably birds, but nothing I was familiar with, and later an immense lightening bloated thunderstorm formed to the west. It first seemed to be approaching, so I went to sleep in the front of the car, but an hour later decided it was more comfy back on the table. It never arrived and not a drop fell on me.

Saturday, Sep 25

Slept a little later than usual and wasn't driving until there was light in the sky, so that when I got to the trap there were already six or eight cars there. Those folks must have left really early from the distant cities, or stayed in the area. It looks like it would be a good place to just stay for the night, and a lot of owls have been reported from there. It was a great place, the tree area was less than twenty acres but filled with action. And good birders so I was able to get some tics that would have escaped my limited familiarity with the western birds, like immature both Painted and Lazuli Buntings. What the day showed me, there and later, was that eastern New Mexico has clumps of vegetation that concentrate what are actually very low numbers of more eastern individuals on the edge, actually even beyond the edge, of the central flyway. Ended up adding eight tics there, and a couple more later.

One was a Blue Jay at Bosque Redondo Lake. Bosque Redondo was where the Navajos from Canyon de Chelly were forced after being driven out with scorched earth zeal by idiots in blue uniforms. They hated it, it wasn't quite desert, at least the day I was there, but was nothing like the wild Red Rock beauty that had been their home. Sad chapter. From there I cur back through Albuquerque, but that was a waste of time. I followed the Interstate on through Santa Fe to Las Vegas, which I'd never driven around in, and which seemed like a neat small city with several colleges it turned out. My goal was a National Forest campground about twenty miles up in the forest near El Povenir. But the CG was closed and I ended up sleeping in the car, not well either, as it was a cold night.

Sunday, Sep 26

I was up early for some breakfast and hot coffee, and a wifi check-in at Micky D's, and then about an hour at Las Vegas NWR. It was about the fourth time I'd been there, and was once again worth the stop, netting Red Phalaropes and a Chestnut-collared Longspur on a fenceline. From there I took a semi-direct route to Oklahoma.

A second eastern stray was an Eastern Phoebe I found at Conchas Lake in the trees across the highway from the office building. Twelve species in two days was enough to make the list for New Mexico with a little slack. From Conchas I ended up at Black Mesa State Park just inside Oklahoma at the west end of the panhandle. I left there early the next morning and was home before dark on the 27th.