Arizona - New Mexico Border

We are presently staying at Rusty’s RV Ranch near Rodeo New Mexico just on the Arizona and New Mexico Border. One of the roads that is popular for birding here is state line road which, as the name implies, is the dividing line between the two states. This is close to Portal, Arizona, a very well-known birding area in the eastern edge of the Chiricahua Mountains which you see in the image above. Where we are staying is about 4,100 foot elevation out in the flat desert land to the east of Portal. The weather has been great since we have been here.

Here we have two old friends, Common Ravens, just chatting in the morning sun. We are looking for an image or two of some Chihuahuan Ravens that can be found around here. They are smaller than common ravens, have a slightly different call, and other subtle different field marks. We will keep looking.

There is a Forest Service information station just up the road from Portal. They have several hummingbird feeders. This Blue-throat Hummingbird was in feeding. I am hoping to get there in better light. At the campsite we had a single female Anna’s come into the feeder. We were really surprised and did not think that the desert country, with it’s void of trees, would have any hummingbirds.

Rusty, the lady for whom the RV park is named, and whom owns and runs the park has a variety of exotic birds. She sells them. Most are in cages but these are in a little pond on the south side of the RV Park. I have no idea as to why they don’t fly away. There were also five wood ducks and two black swans in the same pond.

Here is what I would call a standard looking Red-tail Hawk. You can see the band on the belly and the reddish color on part of the tail that gives the hawk its name. Many of the Red-tail here in the southwest have very faint belly bands.  

I was taking a picture of this Red-tail Hawk sitting in a tree. He then started to shake himself and so I got this image. Many of the Red-tail hawks, up north, fly away if you stop to take their picture but many of them here just sit tight and look at you. That is great for getting some images.

Red-tail Hawks can come in a variety of color patterns, they are called Morphs. Morph is not a good term in that once the bird is a certain color pattern it will not change. This Hawk is called a Rufous Red-tail for the obvious reddish overall coloration.

This Swainson’s Hawk has been the most surprising bird to me of the entire trip thus far. It was totally unexpected. I thought they would all be south in Argentina for the winter, as they mostly migrate there returning in the spring to spend the Summers in North America. Apparently not, guess nobody told this bird. Beautiful rufous morph Swainson’s Hawk.

You can find these Yellow-eyed Junco here in southern Arizona. They don’t range very far into the United States from Mexico. This bird is appropriately named “Yellow-eyed” because it does have a Yellow eye. The bird naming folks sometimes name birds and you ask yourself, where the heck did that name come from. Here it is obvious. There several different species of Junco to be found in Southern Arizona.  

The Lark Bunting is a fascinating bird in that during the spring and summer, the male in their breeding plumage, has a very strong overall black coloration. Here they have molted or changed into their winter coloration. It is quite different from the breeding plumage. We found a flock of about 76 birds while out one day, in past years there have been flocks of hundreds of these Lark Buntings around here.

This is a Savannah Sparrow. I am always surprised when we see them here in the south west. They are a very common sparrow, what surprises me is that they are much darker in overall coloration than we are used to seeing further north.

Here is just a fun picture. This bird is a Pyrrhuloxia, (where the heck did that name come from?), sometimes called the desert cardinal since he is part red and looks a bit like a Cardinal. He is standing on a small branch in the wind. It really did not seem that windy when we took the picture but it sure looks like he thought it was. He is doing quite a balancing act.