Scott Downes is one of the top WA state listers with 440 WA species on his eBird list, and his daughter Sierra is an avid birder who has been among the top WA listers and birders for the last few years. We talk about the joys of birding as a father-daughter team, their experiences and their favorite birds seen together. Scott works for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, largely in the Shrub-Steppe habitats. Sierra is a high-schooler who finds time to get out on many trips with her Dad too. Sierra was honored as the Patrick Sullivan Young Birder Award recipient a year ago, but due to Covid has had to postpone her planned attendance at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory Young Birders Camp Chiricahua until this summer. We talk about how Sierra and Scott made lemonade out of the lemon of the cancelled camp last year by taking an Arizona trip together.
Scott and Sierra both contributed to a great video on the Shrub-steppe habitat that is on You Tube:
We also talk about how Scott negotiated with Phil Anderson of Westport Seabirds to allow then 10 year old Sierra to take her first pelagic trip, experiencing the pelagic phenomenon off the WA coast at a young age. She did great and has been on several pelagic trips since.
The Downes’ are listers, and this led me to talk in the introduction about my big days of the last week. I posted in the Ed’s notes part of the birdbanter.com site with trip reports for anyone interested.
Thanks for listening. Until next time, good birding and good day!
Category: Blog
The Bird Banter Podcast #99 with Phil Green Additional Information
While I was birding in the San Juan Islands recently it was impossible to look over eBird and not be impressed that Phil Green seems to be everywhere on San Juan Island birding. He is the #1 San Juan County ebird lister by both species and checklists submitted, and often was the last birder to submit a list and most of the locations I was interested in visiting.
I used his eBird profile to find out that he was the resident Nature Conservancy employee on Yellow Island for many years, and seemed to be an interesting fellow. I reached out using his blog contact feature, and he agreed to be a guest on the podcast. I’m glad I did. Phil is a fascinating fellow, a passionate eBirder, and was really fun to talk with.
Check out his eBird profile here and his Yellow Island blog here.
Phil talks about the Cornell University Lab recording workshop. The 2021 workshop is cancelled due to Covid-19, but here is a link to their webpage.
The Nature Conservancy bought Yellow Island in 1979 and has preserved and restored the island habitat since. Their website gives more details, but the island was never used for grazing and so retains many of the native vegetation, and has a fabulous springtime wildflower show.
Bluebirds are being reintroduced to their historic range on San Juan Island. You can read about the effort here, and stay tuned for a future episode with Kathleen Foley to hear from one of the leaders of the effort. I am especially interested to hear the story because I believe some of the reintroduced birds are from the JBLM bluebird population I get to enjoy near home.
Please leave comments if you have thoughts to share.
Until next time, Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #98: Mixing a Family Trip with Birding in Costa Rica additional info.
Well, I’m back from la ong delayed and much anticipated, 4 week trip to CR to visit my daughter Jean and her husband Alan in Costa Rica (CR). I had planned to see them in April 2020, but Covid…
In this episode I ponder the dichotomy that birders face when vising family in a place where there are birds to be seen. This is also issues with visits to the coast, the mountains, the city park, the playground, and really everywhere, but for me it becomes more of an issue on a visit to family far from where I live and bird regularly. As with most big family trips, the primary purpose of my recent trip to Costa Rica was to visit family and spend time together, but always there was the lure of birds. I feel like the trip was successful in both regards. I had a nice visit with both my son and daughter, practiced my Spanish, caught up, and yet got in some birding every day and got off on a few day or longer trips too.
For more photos and less words, see my flickr album of photos fromt the trip.
We flew to San Jose on Feb 25th, arriving after a 3-leg trip through San Francisco and Houston, arriving in San Jose at 11:55 PM local time. After a quick sleep at a hotel beside the airport Marian and I got outside the next morning and birded the local eBird hotspot with a great name, the “Alajuela Walmart Woods” is a riparian area with a small creek between a Walmart and the highway to the airport. Yellow Warbler, Baltimore Oriole, White-winged and White-tipped Doves, Great Kiskadee, and GBH and Great Egret were birds I could identify, and as was usual for this trip for this inexperienced tropical birder, a few more that I had to leave unidentified.
We spent a couple of days in San Jose because my daughter had some business to attend to on Friday, and by CR Covid restrictions where everyone had one of the two weekend days with driving privileges based on license plate number, we could not leave until Sunday. It was fun to experience the city, but we were excited to leave Sunday. I did get up early each day and bird an hour or two in the little eBird Hotspot around the Hotel Aranjuez, adding a few birds to the trip list that were to be almost seen almost daily for most of the rest of the trip. Rufous-collared Sparrows seem to be everywhere there is open fragmented terrain, Blue-gray Tanagers and Palm Tanagers were nice to see, two of the yellowish flycatchers with black and white heads, Great Kiskadee, Social Flycatcher were fun to get reacquainted with, along with Tropical Flycatchers were all around. We also enjoyed meeting several of Jean and Alan’s friends and sampling the fruit and vegan food at the bid organic market on Saturday morning.
Jean is active in a project called Jungle Foods that aims to help small landowners use breadfruit and sustainable agroforestry techniques to feed their families and have breadfruit as a cash crop by being a market-maker for their breadfruit crop. It is a really cool project, and I’ll leave a link to Jungle Foods website and Facebook page in the podcast notes and on my BirdBanter.com blog. Jean was excited to show me the experimental farm their project uses as a source of seeds and to work on agroforestry techniques, so Sunday, Jean’s weekend day to drive, we headed toward the coast with a stop at the experimental farm. It was a wonderful place, located about 20 minutes outside San Jose, on a steep hillside, and Paul Zinc and Gustavo Angulo, the cofounders of the project showed us around and fed us some fabulous fruit while we all sampled the new breadfruit crackers the Jungle Project is working with Patagonia Provisions to bring to the world market. It was a great visit. My highlight was when after Paul tried to harvest a breadfruit from a tree on a very steep hillside he inadvertently knocked the fruit off the tree and it rolled down what looked like a cliff. He promptly dashed onto a nearly hidden path, disappeared for a while, and emerged carrying a giant Jackfruit on his shoulder. If you have not seen Jackfruit, it is a large, watermelon sized fruit with an outside rind that has a thorn-like covering where the thorns look like rose thorns but are much larger. Marian and my jaws dropped when he reemerged from the steep jungle ravine with this monster of a fruit. It made for great eating at lunch. It was late morning and midday while we were there, but we managed to point out a few species to our hosts, maybe almost earning our lunch.
From here we headed for the coast. For listeners not familiar with the geography of Costa Rica San Jose is located in a central valley between mountains really in all directions. Almost due west is the mouth of the Gulf of Nicoya, and the west coast of the country runs diagonally from North-west to south east with much of the shoreline facing almost more south than west if you are looking straight offshore once south of the Nicoya Peninsula. We got to the coast just north of Jaco, and drove along the coast for just over 100 KM to Dominical. The road passes through a long stretch of Palm Oil plantations, passes the surfing town of Jaco, the Rio Parrita and PN Carara, south-east to Quepos near where PN Manuel Antonio is a very popular stop for nature lovers and beach lovers alike. From there it continues to Dominical, and the junction of Hwy 243 and coastal Hwy 34 meet. Dominical is a very popular destination with nice beaches, some surfing, and a small shopping area that caters to tourists primarily. It has a nice restaurant where we had vegan lunches a few times on the trip, and an ice cream store with great vegan ice cream, much enjoyed on hot days there. From Dominical it is only a 20 minute drve to Tinamaste near Jean and Alan’s farm. The alternative route to Tinamaste from San Jose is on the Pan American Highway that winds through the mountains making for a completely different experience. More on that later.
On the drive our first major stop was at the bridge over the Tarcoles River, famous as a place to see American Crocodiles near Parque Nacional Carara.
Here we saw the first of many Scarlet Macaws on the trip. They are awesome birds, with a voice even louder than their red, yellow, blue and colors. I got to show Marian how to differentiate juvenile Little-blue Herons from the other white herons there, and it was a nice break on the ride. Wood Stork, King Vulture and Yellow-headed Caracaras were the highlights of from-the-car-backseat birding as we drove the rest of the way to Jean and Alan’s farm, that they call Finca Tres Rios, i.e. Three Rivers Farm.
This was to be our home base for most of the rest of our visit. It is a hectare of land on a hill in what was previously a cattle pasture. It is down a 2-3 kilometer bumpy dirt road out of Tinamaste, which is midway from San Isidro to Domincal on Hwy 243, the main road from the Pan American Highway to the coast at Dominical. We stayed in a cute little Airbnb across the dirt road from Jean’s place, where the owner had just built two cottages for rent. My son and his girlfriend rented one, and we had the other. The great thing, besides the nesting Fiery-billed Aracaris and the constantly calling Slaty-tailed Trogons on the property was the pool. It was really hot there, at only about 250 meters elevation, and located in a valley between two taller foothill ranges to the Crodillera de Talamanca Mountain Range to the northeast, where it was modestly humid and quite warm. The dry season, when it tends to be hotter was just ending as we got ready to leave, and we had no rain at all until our last few days there when the afternoon cloudburst pattern started.
Birding at Finca Tres Rios was best in the morning, from about sunrise, more or less 6:30 AM until about 8:30 AM. Getting up was no problem as the Howler Monkeys started up about 4:30-5 AM most days, and by 5:45 the dawn chorus was in full swing. Still, few birds started moving until later, and I often got out by 6, only to see little for the first 45 minutes or so. Eventually I learned a few songs, especially Riverside Wren, Baird’s and Slaty-tailed Trogon, Yellow-throated and Fiery-billed Trogon, Great Tinamu, and a few others, but rarely saw any birds until after sunrise.
In San Jose I bought a couple of hummingbird feeders, and we put them up when we got to Jean’s. It took a week or so, but after a while Long-billed Hermit and Scaly-breasted Hummingbird became the frequent visitors with occasional visits by Rufous-tailed and Ruby-throated Hummingbirds.
Our best birding experiences by far where when I arranged guides for single and multiple day trips. The first guide I arranged came about in a round-about fashion. I contacted Patrick O’Donnell, who had been my guest o TBBP Episode #65, who suggested that I use Johan Chaves who is located near Quepos. Johan has had to take a regular job during the Covid-19 pandemic, so was unavailable and referred me to Carlos Ureña in San Isidro. I managed to reach Carlos and arrange to be his first client since before the pandemic. He arranged to take us to some high elevation areas near Cerro de la Muerte. You have to love the name, which translates to “Hill of Death” named for some travelling merchants who froze to death on a trip to the market in San José. It is a great birding area, at a seriously high elevation of about 3450M. We met Carlos in San Isidro at 6 AM, and headed towards the mountains with me driving the Subaru Outback that I had shipped to Jean a year earlier. The Pan American Hwy from San Isidro to the high mountains is an exciting drive, a well maintained but narrow 2 lane road with nearly no shoulders and many near-hairpin turns that is very steep in places, leading to an urge/ need to pass on corners when approaching a slow moving or at times stopped truck.
Our first stop was at a road to the communication towers at the top of Cerro de la Muerte. Besides the “fresh” air, near freezing, fabulous vistas, low shrubbey above timberline made for easy birding. We got great looks at several high elevation specialties including Timberline Wren, Volcano Hummingbird, Black-capped Flycatcher, Sooty-capped Chlorospingus, Large-footed Finch (seriously large feet), Sooty Thrush, and Black-billed Nightingale Thrush. I started our eBird list there at 7:54 AM, so it was less than 2 hours from downtown San Isidro to the area.
I specifically asked Carlos for a day of more birding and less driving, and he took this to heart. I made only one other eBird list for the day, at San Gerardo de Dota, Quetzal Valley. It was a 6 ½ hour list and was fabulous birding. We made a quick stop at a small soda, the local name for a family-owned small eatery, where for the price of a nice juice we watched the feeders, getting great looks at many Flame-colored Tanagers, Blue-and-white Swallows, Flame-throated Tanager, a few hummingbirds and many Acorn Woodpeckers. Interestingly oaks are the predominant tree in the whole high-elevation area, and Acorn Woodpeckers are abundant.
We spent the rest of the day at a high-end resort using their trails. This is the location of the QREC, the Quetzal Education Research Center as well as a nice restaurant and resort. For the price of lunch, we also got to drive to a location up the hill, and from there get a truck ride to the top of the trail system, allowing us to hike back down on a several mile loop trail. I won’t try to describe it is detail, but it was really birdy, a well maintained but at times steeply up and down trail, and at >3000M elevation. Highlights were a couple of mixed flocks with 20+ species. I especially loved Long-tailed Silky Flycatchers which at one time lined the whole top of a nearby tree, maybe 12 birds, along with just lots of great looks at species like Collared Redstart, Black-cheeked Warbler, Golden-browed Chloropsingus, Ochraceios Wren, Rufous-browed Peppershrike, and many more.
By lunch, about 2 PM, Marian said uncle, and laid back to watch the hummingbird feeders while Carlos took me on a walk along the main road. We added one of my favorite birds of the trip, a tiny flycatcher that catches catch bugs from rocky perches in raging streams, hence their name, Torrent Tyranulet. By about 4 PM I said enough too, and we headed for San Isidro, with a few roadside stops on the way back to the highway hoping for a better look at the Resplendent Quetzal. While I drove up the hillside behind the resort Carlos spotted a perched young male quetzal on a branch over the road just as I drove under it. As I backed up to get a look it flew, so my only look was as it flew away. We heard quetzals a few times on the hike, but never got another look. A BVD bird for my list, for Better-view-desired.
A couple of days later Carlos took us on an overnight trip to the coast, with highlights of a stop at the Rice Fields near Playa el Rey. We were amazed as we drove on a farm road through a Palm Oil farm, at the workers carrying a pruning saw on a 50 foot long pole over their shoulders as they rode around on bicycles. Of course the Bare-throated Tiger Heron, Southern Lapwing, Mangrove Cuckoo, White-throated Crake, Northern Jacana, Prothonatory Warbler, Dickcissel, and the rest of the 60 species there were pretty cool too.
From here we drove north to our destination PN Carara. Several stops on the way were good birding, and near the park a fellow on a motorcycle pulled Carlos over, with a friendly in Spanish, Do you remember me? Carlos did not, but this fellow keeps track of a pair of local Black-and-white owls, so he took us to their roost for a small tip. Later we got twilight looks at Pacific Screech owls at another local stakeout stop.
We spent the night at a local resort, and the next day birded PN Carara and a roadside mangrove swamp. The birding at the park was great, and made for another great trip.
Carlos had his first major trip since Covid set for the next day, and was gone for the rest of our stay, so later in the trip I arranged for a 2-night stay at the Talari Mountain Lodge in the foothills just outside of San Isidro. The owner promised to arrange a guide for us there, and came through nicely. All of the local guides there have had to take regular jobs in the pandemic, but Andres Chinchilla is a great local guide who had just taken a job at a local Kombucha factory from 1 PM until 11 PM. He agreed to take us out both mornings, and did a great job. The first morning we birded the Talari grounds and then went to a feeder setup, primarily used by photographers, just outside PN Chirripo. It is in the cloud forest, on the side of a steep ravine, and the owner has a fabulous feeder setup, which you can watch from the shade of his veranda. We got some of the best looks at hummingbirds of the trip there, including Garden and White-tailed Emeralds, Snowy-bellied Hummingbird, Violet Saberwing, and Green-crowned Brilliant. A Red-headed Barbet was the photographers favorite, but I had trouble not favoring the Red-faced Spinetail and the hummingbirds.
One of the cool things about this stop was that we met Carlo’s older brother. Carlos’ older brother started a birding guide business when Carlos was young. When he was old enough to drive, Carlos became the drive and helper on his big brother’s tours. Apparently he became quite proficient, because when he was about 21 his brother informed him one day that the next week he was leading a tour, as he had double booked himself. Carlos said he was terrified, but did it, and did it well enough that the client has requested him for several later trips. He has now been guiding for close to 18 years.
On the next day we visited Los Cusingos, the home and now wildlife preserve of the god father of Costa Rica birding, Alexander Skutch. We saw our first army-ant swarm there, along with lots more great birds, and again Andres did a great job of getting us looks at everything.
For the trip I listed 295 species, of which 134 were lifers, and all were enjoyed. Until next time. Good birding and good day.
The Bird Banter Podcast #97 with Jordan Boersma Additional Info.
Jordan Boersma has chosen one of the more remote and exotic areas of the world to do his PhD field work, Papua New Guinea. In preparing for the conversation with Jordan I learned that Papua New Guinea has the worlds lowest (or at least one of the lowest) percentages of people living in urban centers (13.25% in 2019) and its citizens speak over 850 known languages. Most of the about 8 million people living in the country live in what are known as “customary communities” meaning they are ruled in accordance with their customs, as opposed to by statutory rules of a government, usually one imposed by colonization. In short it is a place untamed by much of the rest of the world, and where the infrastructure to easily do traditional research is not easily available. Things like electricity and running water are not available where Jordan is doing his research. It was really fun to hear his stories. I hope you enjoy them too.
White-shouldered Fairywrens are a small bird of the open fields of Papua New Guinea. You’ll hear lots more about them from Jordan on the episode.
Ice worms are another topic we discuss. I can wait to ask Peter Wimberger from episode #30 more about these next time I see him. They are tiny worms that live their whole lives at temperatures very close to that of ice, i.e. zero degrees Celsius. They cannot tolerate extended periods much above or below freezing, somehow don’t freeze themselves despite as a worm obviously being cold-blooded. (do they have blood?) They appear to be a significant source of nutrition for the Gray-crowned Rosy Finches breeding on Mt. Rainier near the glaciers where they live.
Please leave comments or suggestions for future guests if any come to mind.
Until next time; Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #96 with Neil Paprocki Additional Info
Neil Paprocki is a raptor researcher studying for his PhD at the University of Idaho. You can follow him on both Twitter and Instagram. He is studying the movements of Rough-legged Hawks primarily in his PhD work, using geolocators on the hawks to track their annual journeys from breeding in the Arctic to wintering in mostly the lower 48.
I always love getting my fix of RLHA both at the Skagit and Sammish Flats and on Eastern Washington trips in winter. Rarely we get them in the south Puget Sound area. When one is sighted in Pierce County it is much chased by we county listers.
On the episode Neil talks about the two primary types of geolocators used on these hawks, the type that gives near real-time location using satelite communication, and the type that uses cell tower communication for uploads of data, meaning the researchers only get data when the birds are in cell range, i.e. for RLHAs not really on their breeding grounds.
Neil has also worked with the California Condor reintroduction and monitoring project with the Peregrine Fund. These are spectacular birds. I first saw them soon after their reintroduction from the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, but got my first listable condor at Pinnacles National Park in California. These are spectacular birds, gigantic, and unmistakable. I cannot find my photos of these birds quickly now, but here is a link to my eBird list with photos.
Neil has also worked with Hawk Watch International, as a biologist. Hawk Watch International has a wonderful network of sites staffed by professional hawk watchers and counters placed along the flyways of raptors where at many of these birders can visit and watch the migratory spectacle for ourselves. I have limited experience at hawk watch sites, really just at Cape May and at the Butler Mountain site in New York. I hope to spend more time at these wonderful sites in years to come.
Thanks for reading and listening.
Good birding. Good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #95 with Eric Heisey Additional Info.
Peter Wimberger, a Tacoma friend, UPS professor, birder and prior guest on episode 30 referred my guest on The Bird Banter Podcast #95 Eric Heisey is my guest. Eric is a recent graduate of Guelph University in Ontario, Canada where he did research at the Ryan Norris lab on Savannah Sparrows, working primarily on an island in the Bay of Fundy with the advantages of a fairly stable population as many islands do, making study of the population more reasonable.
Eric is actively birding one of the most beautiful areas of Washington this winter during the pandemic. The Methow Valley is a spectacular place year around, and in winter is a cross-country skiing paradise. The birding there is pretty great too, with easy access to not just winter specialties in town like Common Redpoll, Bohemian Waxwing and Pine Grosbeak, but an easy day of birding on the Waterville Plateau, along with lots of places near the several rivers that course through the area.
For a taste of the birding in these areas see my birding post on our winter trip there this past January.
You can reach out to Eric by email heiseyew-at- email-dot-com
Please leave a comment and review and review
Thanks. Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #94 with Jon Anderson Additional Info.
Jon Anderson is a hard guy to miss on a birding trip. He is a big guy with a big moustache who is not shy about joining in any conversation, enjoys both birding and birders. Jon has been a birder for decades, but has been more active since his retirement a few years ago. We talk a bit about what he calls his Perigrination, defined as, “a journey, especially a long or meandering one.” This nicely and humourously describes Jon’s year, which he journals on his blog, “Peregrination.” In addition to his biggish year of birding after retirement we talk about his birding story and his career with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Here is an article on the Caspian Tern Relocation Project we talked about.
Here is the Westport Seabirds website.
Jon helps with field trips for WOS, and here is the WOS field trips page.
You can contact
Jon by email festuca-at-comcast-dot-net If you have ideas for guests you’d like to hear from please leave a comment or use the contact page above to reach me.
Until next time. Good birding and good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #93 with Debbie Beer Additional Info.
Sometimes while recording a podcast episode I wish I had more time to visit with and get to know a guest. This episode with Debbie Beer was one of those times. She has a goal to bird in each of the 50 states with her sister, and to see 50 species in each state. This is a standing invite to Debbie and her sister to visit WA and I’ll show them the state and far more than their goal of 50 species.
I also mention Blair Bernson as a resource for this goal, and his website. Blair was a guest previously and we talk about his quest to see 50 species in a day in each of the 50 states while birding with a local birder.
Debbie Beer is a birder, traveler, and works at Nature Lands, a land trust in the Delaware Valley area. We talk about her birding and travels. Sometimes on an episode it is fun when I learn that I share experiences with a guest. Both Debbie and I have birded in Kenya and Morocco, as well as the greater NYC area. Enjoy.
Debbie is active in the Delaware Valley Ornithologic Club, and won the Bob Billings Big Year award in 2020.
On the episode we talk about birding in Africa. I visited Kenya with my late wife Kay, Bruce Labar and leaders John Sterling and James Bradley. On the episode I say we birded from the east to the coast. Actually we started in Nairobi at Nairobi National Park, worked our way west all the way to Lake Narusha and the Kakamega Forest then looped back east seeing Tsavo West and Tsavo East and ending our trip at the coast near Watamu. My eBird list has Kenya as the country with the second most species of any country after the U.S. at 548 species. A spectacular trip.
Interestingly Debbie also toured Morocco, and that is the only other African place I’ve birded. Pervious guests Bruce LaBar, Heather Ballash and Marcus Roening were also on this trip with me. The really cold place I mention on the episode was in the Atlas Mountains at a ski area.
Here is a link to a podcast episode with Michael Carmody, the trip leader for the Morocco trip.
The John Heinz NWR sounds great. Here is a link to their web site and the eBird hotspot
After recording this episode I did manage to get out to see my county first White-Breasted Nuthatch with Bruce LaBar at the backyard feeders of a really friendly homeowner.
I hope this finds all of you happy, healthy and finding birding good as winter progresses and spring is around the corner.
Until next time. Good birding. Good day!
The Bird Banter Podcast #92 with Cyndi Routledge Additional Info.
Cyndi is yet another great guest whose passion for her work and for birding is easy to hear in her voice and her words on the episode. Hummingbirds are the focus of birding for Cyndi, and she has become a leading hummingbird bander and a strong advocate for hummingbirds in the Americas. She leads The Southeast Avian Research Project and has birded several places in the Americas where hummingbirds can be seen.
On the episode we talk about lots of hummingbird facts, some trivia, some key to understanding these amazing tiny creatures.
Thanks for listening and reading.
Until next time. Good birding and good day.
The Bird Banter Podcast #91 with Alex Patia Additional Info.
Have you ever found yourself off to a great start birding in a certain area and decided maybe you should see how many species you can find in that area for the year, sort of a kinda-big-year? That describes many of the recent years of my guest this episode, Alex Patia. The ABA, New Mexico, Washington and Clallam County big years have come about this way for Alex since he became an avid birder and lister in about 2014.
We talk about his career as an environmental educator. He has worked for Nature Bridge, as well as at a camp in Maine, Camp Chiwonki
While at Camp Chiwonki he led several trips to Eastern Egg Rock. You can learn lots more about this area as well as Atlantic Puffin Reintroduction programs on The Bird Banter Podcast #57 with “Puffin” Pete Salmonsohn. The boat ride out to Eastern Egg Rock is one of my favorite easy short boat rides ever. I got my life Atlantic Puffin and Northern Gannet on this ride years ago.
I was fascinated to learn about the great birding in New Mexico too. I have birded just a little in NM, on a soccer trip with my daughter Jean when she was 13 and playing a regional tournament in Albuquerque, and on a vacation in Santa Fe with friends when we made it up to the Sandia Crest Lodge in Cibola to see Black Rosy-Finches at a feeder there.
I would love to get to Guadalupe Canyon there if that is still within my physical capability. This is a link to the eBird Bar Chart of species that can be found there.
Here is a link to Birds of the World that I talk about in the introduction. I love this website.
Last, here is a link to the Bird Banter Podcast #55 with Suzie Gilbert to hear and learn more about bird rehab centers and Suzie’s novel Unflappable.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. Thanks for listening. Until next time. Good birding and Good Day!