Audrey Gets Dressed Up For the New Year

Here is Audrey on November 1

She is a Turken or Naked Neck chicken, but when she is molting she is naked all over in patches. 

What a mess!

 

By November 18, you can see that Audrey has begun the (painful-looking) process of growing out new feathers. 

Here is a graphic illustration of what is happening. The whole technical explanation that goes with it can be found on the Cornell University Bird Academy's page "Everything You Need to Know About Feathers." It's really worth your time to look at this beautifully illustrated article.

And here is Audrey today, January 14, in all her iridescent splendor. 

Happy New Year!

Hummingbirds

It turns out that it isn't so easy to photograph hummingbirds. Oh, they are very cooperative, casually feeding just a couple of feet from where I was balanced on a step stool. The trick is to get them into focus. I tried focusing the camera on the spot where I figured they would show up, but you know hummingbirds--all that darting and moving around at an incomprehensible speed.

I took almost 60 photos the other morning, standing on tiptoe and trying not to move. After downloading the pictures, I tossed out at least half right away because the birds were a blur, or were behind the feeder, or had left the frame by the time I pressed the shutter.

I plan to practice a lot more.

The background music for these photos features an African drum called a ngungu that mimics the sound of a wild pig. It also reminds me of the hum of hummingbird wings.

Just a few more days to vote (every day, as many photos as you want to vote for) in the New Mexico Day of Enchantment photo contest. Thank you for your support--the vote count is going up and up!

Watching Birds in Las Cruces

That nice Beez gave me a tiny little Flip video camcorder for Christmas. Since it is much smaller than my regular camera, about the size of a cell phone, I brought it along Saturday morning when we went on a guided bird walk down at the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park. Starting our walk along the Picacho Drain (a hundred-year old irrigation ditch), we moved through meadows to a man-made mitigation wetland,* then along the Rio Grande.

The bird activity is picking up at the Bosque. The weather is warming and that helps the birds (and us). Last time we were there, about a month ago, it was very cold, damp, muddy, and windy; and bird activity was minimal. This time we saw or heard Ruby-Crowned Kinglets, Say's Phoebes, Bewick's Wrens, a Northern Flicker, Red-Winged Blackbirds, Cooper's and Sharp Shinned Hawks, Northern Harriers, a Great Blue Heron, White-Winged Doves, Crissal Thrashers, Western Meadowlarks, Shovelers (ducks), Mallards, Mexican Mallards (considered a subspecies of the Mallard), American Pipits, Least Sandpipers, a Red-Tailed Hawk, and American Coots. There were also some gulls--always a surprising sight so far inland--but we can't remember their names. Phew! Thank you, Auntie Bucksnort, for helping me with this list, which I would never have remembered on my own.

I understand that the park's bird list has reached 175 species. The ranger told us that many raptors would be arriving in March, and that May is the big month for warblers.

Now, grab some popcorn (you'll have to eat it quickly) and sit back to watch my very first try at movie editing with this camera and a new MacBook laptop. I'm afraid you are going to be guinea pigs for my movie experiments for a while. It's not that easy, making a video the first time with unfamiliar equipment and software. This very brief one--45 seconds long--took hours to edit from my several minutes of raw footage, giving me a renewed appreciation for professional film editors.

That's our own Auntie Bucksnort wielding the binoculars, by the way.

Next time I'll remember to turn off the camera before swinging it toward the ground, or at least to make sure I edit out that part so you won't get seasick. Tricky stuff, this high-tech business.

*****

*"Wetland mitigation is the replacing of wetland areas destroyed or impacted by proposed land disturbances with artificially created wetland areas." See Answers.com discussion of wetlands for the source of this quote and for more information.

At the Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park, wetlands were reconstructed along the old Rio Grande flood plains to replace the wetland areas that were removed during the construction of the visitor center.

Oh, Happy Bird Day!

Our house was built half a century ago right in the middle of a pecan orchard, so I just knew this place was going to be wonderful for bird watching. Since we just moved here in wintery November, we have mainly seen doves and crows up until now, as one might expect, and a few starlings.

This morning, however, is glorious! We've just had a lot of rain and the orchard is full of puddles, fattening buds, and the promise of spring. The resident mourning doves are out in force, patrolling the ground under the trees, but we have also seen goldfinches, great flocks of robins, the first of the red-winged blackbirds, and an (as yet) unidentified woodpecker.

The air is full of birdsong and my heart is happy.

Hillcrest Zoo: The Birds

Black and white; one of my favorite photos ever

Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge

We went to Muleshoe, Texas over the weekend. I don’t know why, but I just love that town. Maybe it’s the name, or maybe it’s the metalwork you see around town, but Muleshoe is just a place where I like to go.

Just 22 miles south of town is the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge, which covers 5809 acres and is the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas; it was established in 1935. It is a 49-mile ride from here in Clovis.

The refuge contains White Lake, Lower Paul’s Lake, and Goose Lake—playa lakes, which have no outlets and depend on runoff for their water supply. Only Upper Paul’s Lake is spring fed. When all the lakes are full there are 600 acres of water available for wildlife, in addition to other saline lakes in the area. Coyote Lake and Salt Lake are both nearby. The latter is part of the 3236 acre Grulla National Wildlife Refuge located near Arch, New Mexico.

Sandhill cranes winter over at the Muleshoe refuge and at Grulla as well. They start arriving in late September, with their populations peaking between December and February. According to the Muleshoe Brochure, an all time record of 250,000 cranes was witnessed in February 1982. The cranes “roost on the refuge lakes at night…at sunrise they fly to surrounding agricultural land where they search harvested fields for waste grain and invertebrates and graze in the grasslands and wheat fields.” (Brochure, p.5)

There are an amazing 320 species on the Muleshoe refuge bird list, ranging from raptors such as the bald and the golden eagle, to shorebirds like the snow goose and wood duck, to songbirds like the horned lark and the prairie warbler. Mammals include prairie dogs, coyotes, bobcats, badgers, skunks, rabbits, and porcupines. Prairie rattlesnakes are common throughout the area.

We only saw one other person during our visit to the Muleshoe refuge. She was watching the ducks at Paul’s Lake, so we just drove on over to White Lake so that we could have our very own lake to ourselves. We watched flocks of sandhills coming in for landings and joining the hundreds of birds already in the water. The sky was huge as it always is here, the sun shone on the lake below the mesa, and there was an incredibly peaceful feeling about the place. The night sky must be wonderful as there are no nearby light sources to interfere with stargazing. We want to go back and camp there and watch the stars. I suppose it will be just the two of us, the sandhill cranes, the stars, and the prairie rattlesnakes.

Grulla Bird List: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/muleshoe/Grullbd.pdf

Grulla National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/newmex/grulla.html

Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/muleshoe/index.html

Muleshoe Bird List: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/muleshoe/Mulebird01.pdf

Muleshoe Brochure: http://www.fws.gov/southwest/refuges/texas/muleshoe/Muleshoe.pdf