Guadalupe AZ and New Mexico

March 21
During the night, we heard a “goatsucker” calling...specifically a Common Poorwill. Goatsucker is the amusingly inaccurate name often applied to a group of nocturnal birds that give distinctively strange calls in the night. I had never really given this group of birds (also sometimes called Nightjars) much notice. But in Southern Texas, the call of the Common Pauraque, largest bird in the group, was so pervasive that I’ve had to stand up and take notice. The way you identify a bird you can only hear is by using recordings. We only have a car stereo, so this kind of identification only happens when we hit the road. So listening to all the goatsuckers and confirming what we’d heard was our morning’s business. We left Big Bend and headed north for the Guadalupe Mountains National Park, after doing our now-standard set of chores on the way out (wash dishes, replenish water supply, ditch garbage, fill gas because who knows when the next station will be). West Texas has a lot of desert and not a lot of towns. We managed to grab some groceries and use the internet (who knew we would stop at so many McDonald’s on this trip?) and not waste quite as much time as usual. I also discovered that, for the first time in days, the cell phone was getting reception. So I called the campground at Guadalupe, excited that I could get through. I was not so excited to hear that they were full. Spring Break. Curses. We went for a two-or-so mile hike and drove across the border into New Mexico and enjoyed our first night of “dispersed” camping, which essentially means that you drive down a marginal dirt road on Bureau of Land Management land and camp wherever you feel like it. Which in this case meant wherever there was space away from the cow herds. I don’t know how a person would have known about this “primitive camping opportunity” unless they had first been turned away from the “developed” sites. The price was right—I’ll say that much.



March 22
We got a bit of a late start because one of us was having trouble waking up. The other of us busied herself with her artistic endeavors. I won’t say who was who, of course. In the morning (shortly before noon that is) we went for a longer hike through the McKittrick Canyon. Bird activity was minimal. This was probably partly due to the late start. But we are finding also that there is something of a dead space between when the wintering species leave and the nesting species arrive. For instance, one site we’d been considering in New Mexico is known for its ducks and cranes. But both of these groups have already cleared out. On the flip-side, we haven’t been seeing very many warblers coming through yet. I’ve heard other birders saying it could be starting up any time now. The problem is that I’ve been hearing that since we arrived in Texas. We did see one magnificent bird today, a Golden Eagle. First a distant look; later a closer one. We even saw it tuck its wings back and do a little dive. One of the neat aspects to this canyon hike was the incredibly clear water in the middle of it, a rare thing in this northern section of the Chihuahuan desert. At one point, we had a vantage over the shallow water and could see a group of five or so rainbow trout hunting bugs. There were also more trees, probably as a result of the water but also due to being further north than, say, Big Bend. So there were junipers, chinquapin oaks, and big-toothed maples throughout. There was a cabin along the way, built by an oil tycoon in the 1930’s and hooked up to a strange, stunted set of power lines heading all the way through the canyon. The Park Service operates it as a historical site now. One persistently annoying employee of the park gave us an unwanted dissertation on the place. We extricated ourselves from the place as quickly as possible (not as quickly as we would have liked, that is) and continued on to the farthest point of our day, called, “The Grotto.” It was a sort of mini-cavern, full of stalactites and stalagmites, underneath the boulder on which the ongoing trail was situated. You could see open space within much farther than you could actually move about, and we wondered what strange Chihuahuan wildlife made its home there.
In the afternoon we had another planning and campground-phoning session in the parking lot, during which we realized that tomorrow is Easter (we had no idea what day of the week it was, much less that Easter was approaching). After figuring out a vague plan for the next few days, we set off with the intention of going to the nearby Carlsbad Caverns, mostly because it is so close and pretty well-known. But then we realized on the way there that it would have closed already. As if switching into the Mountain Time Zone here wasn’t tough enough, it turns out that New Mexico doesn’t do Daylight Savings (although Texas does). It seems like I just got used to Central Time. Instead of the caverns, we went to Rattlesnake Springs, near the BML dispersed camping where we would be returning for the night. At the Springs, we found a number of fun songbirds like Say’s Phoebe, Vermillion Flycatcher, Black Phoebe, and in the waning daylight, a large feathered figure, strangely protruding from a tree limb, the Great Horned Owl. It’s always great to see an owl in good light, and this was no exception. I struggled to get a focused digital picture using my binoculars, while Abby did some sketches. The body of the owl was facing directly away from us, but that didn’t stop its haunting eyes from looking right at us.

--Don

March 23
We saw the Easter bunny this morning on our way out of the dispersed camping area…he was huddled under a creosote bush looking wet and cold, not the optimal condition for a desert cottontail. Yup, the weather today is a bit iffy. But fortunately we didn’t get the forecasted storm overnight while camping, or the predicted 60-mph winds. Just a bit damp and somewhat windy. Right now we’re on our way toward the Chiricahua Mountains and Portal, Arizona (via El Paso TX and Las Cruces NM), and we should get there by late afternoon. We’re pretty excited for the famous southeastern Arizona birding. We’re also excited to find a campground with showers somewhere…it’s been six days and counting.

--Abby