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December 2003 January/February 2004
Vol. 33 No. 1

Many of these stories are published in the Winter 2003 issue of the New Mexico State Audubon Newsletter, Audubon New Mexico.

Table Of Contents (Please let the whole page load before clicking on the links.)

Premiere of a New Series: Learning Look-Alikes
Local Christmas Bird Counts
January Audubon Program
The Sixth Annual Aubudon Birding Academy
Thursday Morning Birding Group
CNMAS Field Trip Schedule
CNMAS Field Trip Reports
A Message from Sei Tokuda
Rosy-Finches At Sandia Crest - 10,678' International Birding Hotspot
A New Subscription Option - Save the Trees!

Premiere of a New Series:
Learning Look-Alikes

by Art Arenholz

• Snow Goose and Ross’s Goose •

If you read the bird counts in the newspaper during the winter, you will see a count for “Light Geese.” This count includes the totals for both Snow and Ross’s Geese, because they look so much alike that the counters lump them together. Even though they do look a lot alike, with a modest effort you can learn to tell them apart. Then, when your birder friends from the eastern U.S. come to visit, you can help them see a new species seen only in the west: the Ross’s Goose. In New Mexico, you can find the Ross’s Goose anywhere you find Snow Geese, e.g. Bitter Lake NWR, Maxwell NWR, and Las Vegas NWR, but perhaps the easiest place to see them up close is from the tour road at Bosque del Apache NWR. There, the winter counts are between 15,000 and 30,000 Snow Geese and perhaps 1,000 Ross’s Geese. Both species nest on the Arctic tundra and migrate south in large, noisy flocks, which often contain both species.

The Lesser Snow Goose (the Greater is larger and winters along the Atlantic Coast) is a bit smaller than our typical Canada Goose. It is all white except for the black wing-tips, and it has pink legs and bill. The bill is quite large and shows prominent black “lips” protruding from the side of the bill. The head is large and somewhat flattened.

Ross’s Goose is a pint-sized replica of the Snow Goose, but with some important differences. Ross’s is about the size of a Mallard duck, (about 2 feet tall), so the size difference is apparent in a mixed flock. Also, the head of a Ross’s is round and the “grinning patch” or black lips are missing. Instead, the Ross’s has a small, stubby bill with dark, warty looking bumps at the base of the bill. The smaller size, rounded head and smaller bill cause the Ross’s to look like a baby Snow Goose. So find a loafing flock of Light Geese that are close, and scan with your binoculars for some “baby geese.” But be careful of confusing a Snow Goose (which is standing in a furrow, and thus appearing to be shorter), with a Ross’s Goose. Look for the Ross’s shorter height, rounder head, smaller bill and lack of black lips. Compare the Ross’s with a nearby Snow Goose, and the differences will become obvious as you compare the two birds side by side.
Drawing by Andrew Rominger
The Snow Goose also comes in a Blue morph, which has a dark body and a white head and neck. It is a Snow Goose; it is just a different color. The Ross’s Goose has only a very small number of Blue morphs, so 99% of the Blue morphs you see will be Snow Geese.

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Local Christmas Bird Counts

Sunday, December 14
ALBUQUERQUE

Meet Hart Schwarz at Corrales Shopping Center, NW corner of Coors and Alameda, between 7:00 and 7:15AM. Call Hart at 266-1810 or email him at: hschwarz@fs.fed.us. Compilation party at Beth and Ron’s house, 898-8514, at 6:45PM. (Get maps from your trip leaders.) Bring a dish to share – they’ll have hot food and drink.

Saturday, December 20
BOSQUE DEL APACHE

Meet Steve and Nancy Cox (swcox@spinn.net, 345-2385) at the Bosque del Apache Visitor Center at 7:00AM. You’ll be split into teams and paired with knowledgeable birders. We’ll convene at Acosta’s in San Antonio after the count - reservations required, since the place holds only about 26 folks, so let Steve and Nancy know you’ll be part of the compilation party!

Sunday, December 21
SANDIA MOUNTAINS

Meet outside of Dion’s at Four Hills Shopping Center (Central and Tramway) at 7:30AM. You may sign up early with Rebecca Gracey at mrgracey@earthlink.net, 242-3821. Wrap-up party back at Dion’s in Four Hills at 5:00PM.

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January Audubon Program
Before Dinosaurs: Amazing Dragonflies
Thursday, January 15, 2004

Dustin Huntington is no stranger to birding – in fact, he’s past president of CNMAS and led field trips from 1979 into the ‘80s. He’s expanded his interest to include dragonflies, which he touts as an ideal extension to bird watching. Dragonflies offer many of the same ID challenges and interest as birds, and New Mexico has the greatest diversity of species, per area, of anywhere in the US – with Bottomless Lakes SP near Roswell having probably the highest diversity of any single location. Dragonflies are an excellent indicator of water quality, colorful, fascinating, harmless – and yes, they predate dinosaurs! For a sneak preview of this beautiful and engaging program, visit www.imunu.com.

Meeting held at St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church, NW corner of Copper and Jefferson NE, 7:15PM. For info, call Beth, 898-8514.

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The Sixth Annual Aubudon Birding Academy
(They Get Better and Better!)

The more you know, the more you want to know. And the more you know about birds, their identification, their vocalizations, their behavior, and their habitat, the more you’ll enjoy your birding trips with CNMAS and beyond. Join us as experts present these classes designed to encourage the beginner and challenge the experienced.

All classes are held at St. Timothy’s Lutheran Church, NW corner of Copper and Jefferson NE, 7:15PM. Pay in advance (see form) or pay at the door. $6.00 per class, or sign up for all three for $15.00. Nonmembers: Pay $20.00 to join National Audubon Society, and the classes are free!

~~ Those Amazing Hummingbirds ~~
Joan Day-Martin, Presenter
Thursday, February 19, 2004

Did you know that hummingbirds can fly forward, backward, shift sideways, and stop in midair to scratch their head as they reach over their wing to do so? That an average hummingbird consumes twice its weight in nourishment of nectar and insects each day? That they can reach speeds up to 70 miles an hour during a dive towards the earth? That the species name, hummingbird, comes not from the bird's voice, but from the whir of its wings whipping the air 70 to 80 times a second during regular flight and up to 200 times during a dive? That a hummingbird egg is about the size of a small pinto bean prior to cooking it? That its heart can exceed 1,260 beats per minute? Well, now that you know all THAT - would you like to learn identification clues and behavior characteristics about the 15 species of hummingbirds that have been verified in New Mexico? Join CNMAS as we proudly present Joan Day-Martin, the state's only authorized bander of hummingbirds, for a lively humm-dinger of a presentation to get you all ready for the arrival of our tiny avian pollinators.

~~ Hawks, Falcons and Eagles -
Mastering Identification ~~
Art Arenholz, Presenter
Thursday, March 18, 2004

Identifying hawks is a difficult skill to acquire. Often, we see a hawk from a distance, sometimes in poor light, and sometimes only briefly. As with other birds, plumage marks are important, but with hawks we need to use several other clues. In this presentation, augmented with color slides, hawk enthusiast Art Arenholz will point out the plumage marks as well as the silhouette of the bird, what it is doing, where it is, what time of the year it is here, how large it is and combine these clues into an identification. We will learn how to identify 15 of the most common hawks, falcons, and eagles in our area. You’ll enjoy the challenge of mastering identification of these masters of the air!

~~ Owls of New Mexico ~~
John DeLong, Presenter
Thursday, April 15, 2004

Ever wake up in the middle of the night, lying in your tent out in the woods, and wonder what all those barks, screeches, hoots, and moans are? Well, you’re not the only one. In this presentation, raptor biologist John DeLong will discuss the strange art of owl identification, preferably without getting out of your sleeping bag. New Mexico has many owl species, and we’ll cover important visual, and especially vocal, clues to identifying them. In addition, John will talk about owl migration and present findings from HawkWatch International’s ongoing Flammulated Owl Migration Project.

Register for the 6th Annual Audubon Birding Academy

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Thursday Morning Birding Group

Weekly birding outings every Thursday. Meeting time and location, as well as duration, vary. Call Margaret Wallen at 341-0928 for details of outings. Send an e-mail to Les Hawkins at leshawknm@aol.com to get on the TBer's e-list of scheduled trip announcements.

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CNMAS Field Trip Schedule

http://www.newmexicoaudubon.org/cnmas/trips.html

Saturday, December 6 - Bosque del Apache NWR
Art Arenholz will lead this trip which should end late in the afternoon. The Bald Eagle numbers should be increasing and there is a good likelihood that there will be several different morphs of Red-tail Hawks. Bring lunch, snacks and water and dress appropriately for cold and unpredictable weather. Meet at 8:00AM at the UNM Physics Department parking lot (NE corner of Lomas and Yale NE). Call Art Arenholz at 298-1724 or Sei Tokuda at 266-2480 for details.

Sunday, December 7 - Petroglyphs NM
Join Hart Schwarz for a pre-Christmas Count foray into the Petroglyphs, one of the few places in central NM to harbor Rock Wrens in winter and one of the best places to find Sage Sparrows at this time of year. We may even be lucky enough to find a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher attempting another winter here. Meet at 8:30AM in the parking lot of the Petroglyph National Monument Visitors Center on Unser, about a mile north of St. Joseph’s Drive. Bring a lunch and water, since we will be out until about 2:00PM. If you need more information, call Hart at 266-1810.

Saturday, January 3, 2004 - Bosque del Apache NWR
This will be a repeat of the December 6th trip. Same place, same time. Call Art at 298-1724 for details.

Saturday, February 7, 2004 - Sandia Crest & Rosy-Finches
This will be a good time to see all three species of Rosy- Finches. Ryan Beaulieu and Raymond VanBuskirk will give a report on their Rosy-Finch project and there is a possibility that Ken and Mary Lou Schneider will be there to give details of RF species variation. Meet at 8:00AM at the Fours Hills Shopping Center parking lot on the SE corner of Tramway Blvd. and Central Ave. NE and across the street from the Travelodge Motel. Please dress appropriately for the cold on the crest. Call Art at 298-1724 for details.

Saturday, March 13, 2004 - Las Vegas NWR
This will be a day trip to see early migrants at the refuge. Bring lunch, water, snacks and dress appropriately for the late winter weather conditions in the Las Vegas, NM area. Meet at 7:30AM at the Far North Shopping Center behind the Village Inn (NE corner of Academy and San Mateo NE). Call Art at 298-1724 or Sei at 266-2480 for details.

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CNMAS Field Trip Reports

compiled by Sei Tokuda

Saturday-Sunday, August 23-24: Fort Sumner & Bitter Lake/Roswell
There were 12 birders on this trip. The notable species seen in Ft. Sumner were Red-headed Woodpecker, Blue Jay, and Eurasian Collared-, Inca and Mourning Doves. Bosque Redondo also produced Red-headed Woodpecker, and there was a Scissor-tailed Flycatcher at the Melrose Migrant Trap. On the way from Melrose to Bitter Lake, we stopped at a small pond a few miles from Elida and saw over a hundred Long-bill Curlews, plus the Forster’s and Black Terns. Bitter Lake produced a Tricolored Heron and a pair of Roseate Spoonbills, plus Semipalmated and Snowy Plovers, Stilt Sandpipers, and Mississippi Kites. Our vehicle logged 85 species, but Sondra Williamson and the keen-eyed boys - Ryan, Raymond and Michael (Sondra’s grandson) counted 120 species.

Saturday, September 6: Corrales Bosque
There were four birders on this trip and they rewarded with 7 warbler species - Orange-crowned, Virginia’s, Townsend’s, Mac- Gillivray’s and Wilson’s Warblers plus the American Redstart and Common Yellowthroat. Other notable species were the Blue Grosbeak, Summer Tanager and Lesser Goldfinch.

Sunday, September 14: Tent Rocks (Submitted by Hart Schwarz)
On a beautiful mid-September day ten eager souls assembled at Tent Rocks for a day of birding. This site, which was declared a National Monument only a couple of years ago, features spectacular rock formations, carved out by the elements at the outer edges of the Pajarito Plateau, the landfill where the Jemez volcano dropped its huge loads of sand, mud and rocks a million years ago. We took a leisurely walk through juniper woodland, which had until recently been a pinyon/juniper woodland, until the drought and an army of bark beetles took out most of the pines. Our path continued through a narrow canyon and then climbed out to a mesa top where we took our lunch, surrounded by magnificent views, five hundred feet above our starting point. The birds came sparingly, little by little, until finally we had about eighteen species, including a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, a Rubycrowned Kinglet and several Wilson’s Warblers. Rock Wrens were on the verge of moving out, while Townsend’s Solitaires were settling in for the winter, even though the Juniper berry crop seemed skimpy. At the beginning of our journey I promised something memorable by the end of the day. That’s an easy promise to keep when “memorable” is simply a bird seen up close and for a good long while. But our memorable sighting at the end of the trip transcended these easy pleasures by giving us an unexpected vision of fifty American White Pelicans gracefully floating in the sky and occasionally flashing the pure white of their wings as they caught the direct light of the sun.

Saturday-Sunday, September 27-28: Fort Sumner area
Trip leader Rebecca Gracey writes that the timing was right on for fall migration with about ten species warblers seen by at least one member of the group. Stops were made at Sumner Lake and campground, Bosque Redondo, Billy the Kid State Monument, and the Melrose Migrant Trap. A total of over a hundred species of birds were seen including Sabine’s Gull, Ovenbird, Black-throated Blue Warbler, Northern Bobwhite, Scaled Quail, Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and Long-eared Owl.

Saturday, October 4: Corrales Bosque
Six birders were on this trip lead by Art Arenholz on a day when there were hundreds of hot-air balloons in the air. The balloons however did not detract from birding as the birders had excellent views of Great Horned Owl, Spotted Sandpiper, Eared Grebe and Cooper’s Hawk.

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A Message from Sei Tokuda

Simple and straightforward, Sei wants to let all of our members know: “I am retiring after being field trip chair/co-chair for 10 years.” Fellow Birders, it seems impossible to replace the irreplaceable, but we are putting out the call for YOU to come forward to become part of a team to continue the fun and adult education opportunities made so enjoyable by our Ambassador of Goodwill. The next newsletter, the Spring issue of the stand-alone Burrowing Owl, comes out in April. Please come together and let Sei know (see Directory) that you and we will put together a team of Field Trip Leaders as a manifestation of the gratitude and honor in which we hold Sei. Let Beth or Turtle-Bear know of your interest (see Directory). Leaders often step forward out of need. There’s certainly a need here, but let your impetus be love of birds, love of nature, and love of Sei. Thank you, Sei. And thank you, future trip leaders.

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Rosy-Finches At Sandia Crest - 10,678' International Birding Hotspot

“Ken Schneider of Cedar Crest, NM, has put the wintering Rosy-Finches on the map… Ken, with an assist from the Internet, has catapulted our Rosy-Finches into undreamed-of heights of notriety.”
- Hart Schwarz

Before or after you read this article, visit www.rosyfinch.com, and you’ll be delighted with such an array of pictures, facts, history, and just plain “finchophilia” (Hart’s perfect noun!) that you, too, will be joining the birders from all over the world who are “flocking” to Sandia Crest to add the three species of Rosy-Finch to their life lists.

We want to focus you, our New Mexico readers and birders, on two local high school students, Ryan Beaulieu and Raymond VanBuskirk, who have dedicated themselves to expanding our knowledge of Rosy-Finches and are working on a project designed to document the flocking behavior and species mix of these three species – Black Rosy-Finch, Gray-crowned Rosy-Finch, and Brown-capped Rosy-Finch. Active in Central New Mexico Audubon Society, Rio Grande Nature Center, Rio Grande Bird Research, and the Bosque Ecosystem Monitoring Project, these young men have devised what could be an historical research project, planned for five years, of documenting the time of arrival and departure of each flock, recording the size and species mix, and clarifying the seasonal and age-related plumage in these species.

Now in the second year of their project, Ryan and Raymond have written and submitted a scientific “Proposal to Study Site Fidelity and Densities of the Three Rosy-Finch Species Found at the Sandia Crest, Sandia Mountains,” to capture and band Rosy-Finches with a US Fish and Wildlife band, and to take measurements which will determine species, age and sex, after which the birds will be released. The banding of the birds will be supervised by Steve and Nancy Cox of Rio Grande Bird Research, which has over 20 years of experience with bird banding. At least one US Fish and Wildlife Service-permitted bander will be on site during the handling and banding of all birds. Ryan and Raymond will record, compile, and analyze all data at the end of each season and incorporate their findings into a presentation for a science fair, a science class, and/or the New Mexico Ornithological Society. A copy of each year’s results will be submitted to the USFS Sandia Ranger District Biologist. Banding results will be submitted to the Banding Laboratory and the NM State Game and Fish Department, as required by the banding permits.

Does this sound like impressive “science speak”? Well, it’s language written by Ryan and Raymond themselves, in their written proposal. And they’re quick to acknowledge and appreciate other cooperators who are making the study possible: Ken Schneider, who began to “seed” the crest parking lot in 2000 and has publicized the Rosy-Finch to milestone heights since then, has agreed to assist in finding areas away from public access for the banding project and will also assist in the data collection. (Not to mention the incredible website he maintains, which is updated constantly!) Crest House Manager, Gene Romero, has been genial, approachable, and enthusiastically cooperative. (Ryan and Raymond report that he “loves birds”!) The project has had the cooperation of the US Forest Service Sandia Ranger District from the beginning. Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory will be a partner in cooperative data sharing. The list could go on and on – thanking Wild Birds Unlimited West Side, Wild Bird Center West Side, prdseed.com of Tijeras, Central New Mexico Audubon Society.

Ryan and Raymond love to share. Here are snippets of one of Ryan’s written reports about two recent trips up to the Crest:

“Raymond and I went up to the Sandia Crest last weekend to lead a bird walk for my little brother’s cub scouts. As soon as we got there we noticed at least 100+ Red Crossbills hanging out in the dead tree just east of the house. They were flying down to two open sewage containers also east of the house. The caps were off the containers and we noticed an interesting behavior, a Red Crossbill was feeding a Pine Siskin. Raymond and I went over to where they were drinking to make sure they weren’t drinking something that could hurt them, when we noticed a juvi Crossbill had fallen into the tank. Every once in a while it would flutter by. The next thing we noticed was it floating near the opening. I stuck my hand in the sewage and pulled out a dead Crossbill. Raymond and I covered the holes with rocks and went inside to talk to the Gene Romero, the crest house manager. Gene is a very nice guy and very approachable. We talked to him about the sewage containers and he said he would get that taken care of right away. Maybe we should think of putting some kind of bird bath system out there to attract birds?

Anyway, when Raymond and I were outside, Raymond noticed a lot of Crossbills hitting the windows. Raymond picked up one of the Crossbills that was injured and he took it home to bring it to Wildlife Rescue the next day. It eventually flew away around his house the next day. My point was that we can’t have the birds hitting these large windows. I talked to Gene and told him about window silhouettes, which he then was very cooperative in wanting to get them. Through the generosity of Lee Hopwood at Wild Bird Center - West Side, who donated a pile of silhouettes to Central New Mexico Audubon Society when she heard about the problem, there are now hawk and bird silhouettes on the 24 large picture windows at the crest house.”

Come visit the Crest and see the Rosy-Finches. Come visit the Crest and say “Hi” to Ryan and Raymond – and get a glimpse of how bright the future looks.

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A New Subscription Option - Save the Trees!

We’re working on an option for you to save paper and cut CNMAS mailing costs. We will soon be making the Burrowing Owl newsletter available via our website as a PDF download (get Acrobat Reader to open the pdf - www.adobe.com/reader/). If you would like to sign up for this option let us know - send your requests to Ed Dover at dover5427@msn.com. Give your name, address and email address. New members can fill in the membership coupon here (PDF download).

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