CO-NM-AZ Trip ~ May 1, 2009

My ‘birding mom’, Babe Webster, and I flew from Philadelphia to Albuquerque, New Mexico, rented a Ford Focus from Alamo, and took a 7-day, 2300-mile whirlwind trip to visit Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. Albuquerque was picked as the airport because of its location midway between Colorado and Arizona. Target birds included Gunnison Sage-Grouse, Sinaloa Wren, Northern Pygmy-Owl, and two birds that I had seen but Babe hadn’t----Blue Mockingbird and Ruddy-Ground-Dove. We were also hoping to get to see the Flame-colored Tanager that had visited Madera Canyon for six previous years, but we had not heard any word of its return by the day we left. As it turned out, we had a pretty successful trip, given the circumstances.

After picking up Babe at around 3:15 AM, we headed to the Philadelphia airport and got on a United Airlines flight to Denver. We switched planes there and flew to Albuquerque. After getting our rental car around 1:30 PM, we hopped on I-25 and started the 340-mile trek to Gunnison, Colorado. Birds seen along the way in New Mexico included American Kestrel, Western Kingbird, the seemingly ever-present Common Raven, Horned Lark, Western Meadowlark, Brewer’s Blackbird, and Common and Great-tailed Grackle.

A stop along Highway 285 just south of the New Mexico – Colorado birder produced Sage Thrasher and some great looks at an immature Ferruginous Hawk.

Highway birds seen in Colorado included many of the same birds seen in New Mexico plus Swainson’s Hawk, Eurasian Collared-Dove, Black-billed Magpie, and Red-winged and Yellow-headed Blackbird. A quick examination of the Waunita Hot Springs lek at dusk revealed several winnowing Wilson’s Snipe.

We rolled into Gunnison at around 9:30 PM, stopped at a Safeway to get most of our week’s supplies and then indulged ourselves with personal pan pizzas at Pizza Hut. We spent a very short night at the Gunnison Inn, setting alarm clocks for 3:30 AM.

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