35 Statebirds in Carlsbad, New Mexico – October 2012

With a business trip to Texas I was able to add a couple days to work on my New Mexico statelist.  I last birded in NM in 1995 (before Eurasian Collared Doves invaded), and my statelist was just 162.  To minimize travel time I targeted southeast NM within a short drive of Carlsbad.  Then with the help of e-bird I came up with a long list of potential targets that included a number of eastern birds that barely get to NM, desert residents, some late lingering migrants, and hopefully a few early winterers.  So with excellent help from some local birding experts, and review of the NM birdfinding guide, I mapped out a 2-day itinerary to maximize my statebirding potential.  Not surprisingly for this semi-arid location, many of the best spots would be oases and other riparian locations.  Here are the highlights of my trip, with new statebirds in bold -

Day 1

·        Just S of Loving – 2 Harris’ Hawks on a telephone pole

·        Loving – Eurasian Collared Dove (of course I had them everywhere during the trip).  NM was my 35^th state for ECD (see map below)

·        Pond on 285 just N of Loving – 2 Dunlin, 1 Long-billed Dowitchers, 8 Least Sandpipers, along with 2 Wilson’s Phalaropes

·        Fields N of Loving – several flyover Sandhill Cranes.  3 Inca Doves at a house N of town.  I now have Inca Dove in all its regular southwestern states.  Fields were loaded with White-crowned Sparrows but not much else of interest.  In fact White-crowns were very common everywhere - at one location I found a flock of 200 birds.

·         6-Mile Dam – an excellent spot not mentioned in the birdfinding guide.  Statebirds were – 4 Virginia Rails calling, 1 Sora calling, numerous Marsh Wrens, 2 Swamp Sparrows, 3 Pied-billed Grebes, and a couple flyover Brewer’s Blackbirds.  Below the dam there was one calling Black-tailed Gnatcatcher plus 2 Eastern Phoebes (including one fighting with a Black Phoebe – not too many places in the country where that could happen!).  That pushes my E Phoebe sightings a bit to the SW now covering all the normal range of this common bird.

 

      ·        Private yard – 1 Blue Jay, along with 2 late Rufous Hummingbirds.

·        Avalon Reservoir – perhaps 2,000 waterfowl including Lesser Scaup, Canvasback, Redhead, 1 Clark’s Grebe, Eared Grebe, and 1 California Gull with a flock of Ring-bills, plus a flyover Merlin.  A flock of 500 cowbirds and Brewer’s Blackbirds was notable on the wires.  My Lesser Scaup sighting fills the next to last gap in my statebird map – I need to work on my paltry MT list!

·        Back to 6-mile Dam – thanks to a tip from a local birder I had a Barn Owl fly out of the dam structure illuminated by the light of the nearly full moon!  My Barn Owl states are really spotty – tough to get this one without local knowledge of a stakeout.

Day 2

·        Rattlesnake Springs – this desert oasis is described as one of the best birding locations in the state.  Unfortunately it was very slow the day I was there.  I started pre-dawn (29 degrees – brrr!) and the first 3 birds I had were a flyover Snipe, a calling Great Horned Owl, and a flock of Turkeys.  Migrants were limited to a number of Hermit Thrushes and some Yellow-rumps.  Only other statebirds were 2 White-throated Sparrows and 2 Brown Thrashers which are key winter targets for this site.  Likely the best highlight was a prolonged look at a Bobcat.

·        Carlsbad Caverns entrance road – I was hoping for quail or thrashers, but with no luck.  I did have 2 Brewer’s Sparrows, 1 Rufous-crowned Sparrow, and 1 Black-throated Sparrow.  Also had very close views of 4 Bighorn Sheep – including a family with young crossing the road right in front of me.

·        Brantley State Park– first stop was along the Pecos River below the dam – nothing of interest here except for a pair of flyover Greater Yellowlegs

·        Brantley SP Campground Access Road – This was an unplanned stop, but I decided to check out the campground in hopes of finding a feeder full of thrashers and quail at one of the camp sites.  Alas, there were no feeders.  But a cooperative Black-throated Sparrow was a nice consolation.  Then on a whim I went down to the boat ramp to see what might be around and had some good birds - 1 Western Sandpiper, 1 Baird’s Sandpiper, 1 Semipalmated Plover, about 15 Least Sandpiper, 4 Avocets, and 2 Greater Yellowlegs, all walking among a flock of pipits.  On the other side of the lake 1 Franklin’s Gull was mixed in with the Ring-bills.  My Western Sandpiper map shows pretty good coverage in the west and southeast, though spotty coverage in the Midwest.  For Franklin’s Gull, by comparison, my sightings are throughout the central part of the country with some vagrants in the east.

·        Brantley SP Cheapskate Point – several flocks of waterfowl included 4 Bufflehead.  Also had 8 more Leasts and 1 Greater Yellowlegs

·        Avalon Reservoir – wanted to give the waterfowl one more pass-through thinking that maybe I missed something the day before.  Although I didn’t pick out anything new in the rafts of ducks, I did find 2 Horned Grebes by themselves diving along the far shoreline.  Plus a Merlin passed over the reservoir – was this the same one I saw the day before?

I ended up with 109 species, including 35 new statebirds, putting my state list up to 197.  That’s still a long way from the ABA reportable threshold of 264, but getting closer.