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The temperature was 47 degrees when we arose at 7 am at elevation 7212 and we hit the road at 8:40. The landscape quickly changed from sporadic junipers to arid grassland. Finally it began to green up again.
The first blessing of the day was the very smooth and unbusy divided highway, with few trucks. It was so lovely I thought of just driving back and forth to Santa Fe for the rest of the trip, but realized that would not get us to Texas birds!
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Along the way we saw 2 antelope and as we entered Roswell saw our first oil well and the humongous Roswell Solar Plant on both sides of the road, rows of mirror-like panels that rotate with the sun.
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We arrived at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge near Roswell, New Mexico at noon. The Visitor’s Center is beautiful and ably staffed by friendly volunteers.
When we drove into the parking lot, strange skinny chicken-type birds with white fluffy topknots ran all over in front of us. Scaled Quail—a life bird! They quickly disappeared before we could photograph them.
We also enjoyed colorful cacti at the Visitor's Center.
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We drove the 8 mile auto loop. Although the refuge hosts thousands of Sandhill Cranes (now gone north) and a dragonfly festival in the Fall, today nothing unusual to us was happening birdies.
We did see a lot of waterfowl common to us, most too far away to photograph except this Eared Grebe
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| We did have an adventure of a different sort on the auto loop. Suddenly I could not find my phone and it did not ring when Paul called it. We somewhat frantically retraced our route with no luck. Finally I reported it to Apple as a lost phone and locked it. Then when Paul called my phone again it buzzed. It was under my seat! I had the sound turned off so we couldn't hear it until Find My Phone locked it. That was the second blessing of the day! Then, we saw this Say's Phoebe taking flight. |
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Back at the parking lot we flushed a couple quail again with no good views or photos. Then I happened to notice across the road a long row of quail darting through the sagebrush. We were able to get a few poor photos as they ran like ducks in a shooting gallery.
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When we arrived at our RV Park in Roswell, elevation 3563 feet, we were greeted by a noisy, chattering, whistling, chortling, loudly screeching bird over our campsite. It was naturally hiding in the top of the tree overhead. Finally we saw and identified and cursed the Common Grackle! Unbelievably noisy!
The temperature was 92 degrees—quite a shock to us after all the freezing nights! We changed from jeans to short pants!
The third blessing of the day was a lovely meal at Pepper’s Mexican Restaurant in Roswell. I remembered to take off my binoculars but not my hat! It is the first time I dined formally with cloth napkins in my baseball birding cap!
Back at camp, we turned on our RV air conditioner to discover that it was not up to the job of cooling down our van, so we opened the doors and windows and let the wind do it! It was very windy. We had tried the AC briefly at home and it seemed to work fine. Another day, another challenge. |
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Today Our Noses Were On . . .skunk roadkill three times
Today our Ears Were On . . . the cacophony and symphony of grackles above our RV site
Today our Eyes Were On . . flat arid country . . .and a parade of disappearing Scaled Quail, another Life Bird, so . . .
Our Mouths Were On. . . Chocolate!
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Mom and I just finished reading your blogs in their entirety. Although I had been pretty well up to date, I enjoy reliving the ones I had read and reading the new ones for the first time with Mom.
ReplyDeleteChallenges are part of the adventure, aren't they? They, also, become highlights of the stories you'll remember and retell. I love it!