Great Backyard Bird Count Day One

The first morning of the Great Backyard Bird Count did not dawn. The light incrementally increased through clouds and fog.

Here are our mountains as they looked this morning from the living room window. Tijeras Canyon and the valley are covered a fog below the peaks.

We did our observing while walking the dogs through the open space meadow behind our house, and on up to the high meadow above the new road.



The first animal signs we saw were not birds at all, but the deer tracks frozen into the mud on the meadow.

The deer have been out every evening and every morning, and the meadow paths and game-trails are just covered in deer prints, overlain by coyote tracks, deer and coyote scat, and even a few rabbit prints.

In the meadow we saw a two ravens riding the wind, hunting the meadow. They then went soaring away to the north, where we saw them settle on the road. They were probably breakfasting on road-kill or someone's carelessly put out trash bin.



Here is our first specimen perched at the top of a Rocky Mountain Juniper just outside the living room window. This one, like most in this range has red bars on his wings. I thought he was a dove until I saw the markings and the beak, because he looks so gray in the light we had this morning.











In the upper meadow, we saw two of these Southern Rocky Juncos. Although according to the species list, they are not called that any more. It is thought that all of the Juncos are the same species, and are divided by color. They are just called Dark-Eyed Juncos. These are the gray and slate variety seen in the southern Rockies and down here just south of them.




Our total count today was:

• Redtail Hawk--1
• Northern Flicker (red-shafted)--1
• Stellar's Jays--3
• Ravens--2
• Black-capped Chikadees--4
• Dark-eyed Juncos--gray-headed --2

It is supposed to snow tonight, so it will interesting to see what kinds of birds (if any) are out and about tomorrow.