Sunday, March 13, 2011

Birds at the Randall Daves Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Santa Fe, NM

The following photos were all taken at the Randall Davey Audubon Center and Sanctuary, located east of downtown Santa Fe at the upper end of Canyon Road.  The organization puts out feeders and it's a place a photographer can easily spend the day photographing birds.  I'm usually there, as in this instance, in the winter, so my time limit is not so much patience but how much cold I can tolerate... and when I'm photographing birds I have a rather high limit!  The sanctuary often has snow on the ground (and sometimes falling) when I visit at Christmas. 

This first bird is a Black-billed magpie which I almost always encounter on the way to the sanctuary and not on the grounds of the sanctuary itself.  I think these birds are magnificent, but that's because we don't have them in my area and I'm not a farmer.  They have a reputation for marauding farmer's crops. 


I'm hoping that this next bird is a male House finch, my identification being the striped flanks.  If you disagree let me know! 


This is the Gray-headed race of the Dark-eyed junco and they are very plentiful as the sanctuary. 



2 comments:

  1. I agree it's a House Finch. The male has a brown cap to distinguish from the Purple Finch. I appreciate the Junco pic. also. Nice to see something different from the Oregon variant we have here. Hard to believe they are the same species. Thanks.

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  2. I have a lot more of these junco photos if you want a couple. Email me at joehalt@aol.com.

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