Towheeblog

A Great Gray Owl gallery from Lee French in Jackson County. “Snow Gray” hunting one of the seven dwarfs?

BOSQUE DEL APACHE

These many fine photos are contributed by James Charles Wilson who visited the Bosque around Thanksgiving. Wilson and I go back almost sixty years. At age seventeen I entered Carleton College during summer term, 1963. He was my first college room-mate! That we became, and still are, friends is a tribute to his kindness and tolerance. Before that summer I had never: seen so many mosquitoes…been inside a large college library…seen a museum of any kind…seen a foreign language film…heard of Joan Baez (they didn’t play folk music on Ozark Mountain radio stations)…drunk beer…ridden a train…been inside a real book store…heard the word “explication” in English class. Yet, despite my ignorance and naivete, Wilson accepted me as acceptable. Now we still share decades of friendship, visits…and have added this bird thing.
Click on any image for full screen view.

I believe this is a Curve-billed Thrasher. Maybe. I lived my life in thrasher-deprived areas so am not good on these desert species. Here in western Oregon we have ZERO thrashers and only occasional Mockingbirds this far north.

Hummers:

I think the one on the left is a broad-billed; the right one is a white-eared. These IDs were aioded by a friend who lives in southwest for decades. Thank you, Cynthia. I note the down-curved beak…
Elsewhere around Bosque:

Above: Virginia Rail, House Finch (nee Adobe Finch), shovelers shoveling, the shorebird? Perhaps a Short-billed Dowitcher with its long beak?

It is BOSQUE, without a “C.”