Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Sandia Crest - Rosy-Finches - 2

Sandia Crest east of Albuquerque is one of two must visit winter sites in New Mexico. (The other is Bosque del Apache; I am still processing photos from Bosque, but will be posting some soon).

We drove to the summit (10,600 ft) on a Sunday morning. Only problem was that we arrived too early. The lodge did not open until 10am, so we had to spend about 20 minutes outside watching birds - (life can sometimes be difficult).

During the winter months when the Rosy-Finches are present, the Rosy-Finch Project does bird banding on Sunday, so we had a considerable additional plus to our day.

One of the banding team assesses the health of a Mountain Chickadee ...

Mountain Chickadee
A Brown-capped Rosy-Finch is about to receive a radio transmitter which will enable researchers to track its movements and where it roosts at night ...

Brown-capped Rosy-Finch
Birds are not caught in mist-nets, as is typically done when banding songbirds. They are trapped in a manually triggered metal cage. This Black Rosy-Finch has already been banded. Re-trapping banded birds over years helps to determine life span, and within a single season and from year-to-year assess the health of individuals and populations.

Black Rosy-Finch
A banded Brown-capped Rosy-Finch considers whether it can grab a seed from inside the cage and get out before slow human reflexes can trip the trap.

Brown-capped Rosy-Finch
Red-breasted Nuthatch wears aluminum jewelry, compliments of the bird banders ...

Red-breasted Nuthatch
Stellar's Jay begs for anthropomorphizing - intelligent, curious, cautious, sassy - but definitely gorgeous ...

Stellar's Jay
Two more photos ... just because ... Black Rosy-Finch ...

Black Rosy-Finch
Brown-capped Rosy-Finch ...

Brown-capped Rosy-Finch
 Good Birding!

2 comments:

Laurence Butler said...

It sounds like an amazing experience over there at Sandia Crest. Thanks for sharing your lovely photos with those of us who can't make it right now : )

eileeninmd said...

Great post and I love the Rosy-finches. Wonderful birds and photos. happy Birding!

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