It's the day after Christmas, and we decided to do a little birding. We didn't expect to see much, but it felt good to get out anyway. It was a sunny 23 degrees and slightly windy. That last storm left us with a lot of snow. We went out Highway 472 to Stanley and then up North 41. It's a windswept stretch of wide open space. Beautiful in it's own way.
We had fun watching road-hugging flocks of Horned Larks. In fact, at first we got such good, close-up looks that we tried to make them into anything but Horned Larks. That's a bird that we usually just see darting away in a flock, identifying them by their behavior, more than their field markings. Gosh, they are pretty little birds.
We also were surprised to see lots and lots of Meadowlarks. It was startling to see their vivid yellow and black markings. Meadowlarks always say "summer" to me, and it's so weird to see them in the middle of a snowy winter.
We headed over to Galisteo, a quaint little New Mexico town. We discovered a riparian area there last spring when several rare birds like the Blackburnian Warbler were spotted there and reported on the Rare Bird Alert. It's a wonderful area to hike around down by a nice little stream.
We noticed a new sign by the wooden bridge. Is it just me, or is it odd to have a memorial sign that says nothing about the person, not even when or where he died. But it sure had the names of the Council members all over it. Hmmm.
Well, we didn't see many birds. Robins were drinking from the stream and Ring-necked Doves were lurking around in the bushes, but that's it. That's ok, though. It was a beautiful day to be out enjoying the fresh air and quiet sounds of nature.
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| Lorene enjoying a winter day. |
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