Slow Down

I have been in CA, home for the holidays, for approximately 6 days now. I have my field guide in hand and binoculars within reach. At the very least, I figured upon capturing some shorebirds to add to my list and round out some more of the "common" species.

I'll be damned how out of sorts I feel trying to id without the comfort of a group. I've spent the last 72 hours trying to decipher what kind of tern I spotted in Santa Barbara (Caspian? Royal? Common?). I only felt a remote sense of confidence in identifying a Heermann's Gull. I feel a little like the boats that have been tossed around the Pacific as of late - small and unanchored and all turned about with no reference point.

It all happens a little too fast.

Evening Grosbeak

On Saturday, I hit the road to Santa Fe to try and catch a birdwalk at the Randall Davey Audubon Center. I have been wanting to try birding out of town to see how that might beef up my bird list. I was able to add 9 new birds:

Townsend Solitaire
Hairy Woodpecker
Evening Grosbeak
Clark's Nutcracker
Pine Sisken
Sharp-shinned Hawk
American Goldfinch
Common Raven
Dark Eyed Junco

The Evening Grosbeak was a beauty. I always liked the name - Grosbeak - but had never seen one up close. We descended into a canyon, a former reservoir that was a main water source for the city of Santa Fe decades ago, collected by the Two Mile Dam that is no more.


I learned that most birds don't have pigment in their feathers, but the structure is such that when light reflects, all the colors emerge. The yellow of the male Evening Grosbeak is spectacular, maybe my favorite color of all, along its back and above the eyes like brilliant yellow brows. You just need to look at it from a certain angle and the sun needs to be just so. And hopefully the bird is cooperating unknowingly.

It's simply a matter at being at the right place at the right time. Otherwise, you might mistake the sighting as something ordinary, when in fact you're in the presence of something rather special.

Baggage

I've taken a few more flights than usual this year, to the point where I've earned my first frequent flyer free roundtrip reward (which feels very grown up). I wasn't sure what to do with all the baggage tags that were collected in my suitcase as I conducted winter cleaning yesterday. In efforts to manage paper piles from becoming a fire hazard in my life, I've taken to scanning little printed oddities I've come across to store electronically.

Eagle

I finally saw my very first eagle during my Festival of the Cranes outing. There was word from one of the wildlife refuge employees, sightings of a Bald Eagle at Bosque del Apache for the weekend and rumors of even a Golden Eagle perching about.

I decided to walk back to the visitors center after the early morning flyout, to take in the experience of the entire weekend and absorb the quiet of the refuge before heading back to Albuquerque, 90 minutes to the north. I decided to check out the observation deck before leaving. Only a handful of birders remained, with enormous telephoto lenses attached to cameras on tripods. In the distance, a solitary Bald Eagle up on a barren tree in the middle of the pond.

Earlier on the walk, I saw a huge brown bird camouflaged atop a tree. I looked through my binoculars, curious. Half expecting another red-tailed hawk, I fixated on this raptor, not really understanding what it was I was looking at. My instinct told me this was not a red-tailed hawk of any variety. The body was too large. The head seemed inordinately smaller compared to his bulky body.

Could it be that rumored Golden Eagle? I immediately thought. I was much too much of a novice to confirm on my own. I needed help and sought out the wildlife guide. Once I got his attention, I turned back to the tree. The mystery bird was gone.

I've thought about this sighting for almost two weeks now. My instinct tells me it was the Golden Eagle. I've gone over the description in my Sibley's Field Guide: "Rare in grasslands, deserts, and other open country relatively far from people, usually in mountainous areas..." (check) "Nests on cliff ledges or less often in tall trees..." (the tree was tall) ""Very large and dark, with buteo-like proportions and wing posture..." (I first thought it was a strange red tail hawk, and it was very large) "Could be mistaken for Turkey Vulture and even sone dark buteos, but note much larger size..." (check)

What is instinct? When do you trust your gut? I need more information, more experience at this birding thing, I think to myself. It nags at me, this instinct thing, trying to understand this conversation inside and when right is right and when wrong is plain wrong. Maybe it was a Turkey Vulture after all.

But what if it was a Golden Eagle? What if I could have added that to my year list with certainty?