We began the day by visiting the City of Deming Waste Water Treatment plant. On the way Adam had spotted a 'Thrasher' and we had stopped to investigate. We could not relocate what we had hoped was a Crissal Thrasher but did chance upon a group of Lark Buntings and Horned Larks. We also had another covey of Gambel's Quail drinking from a roadside puddle.
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| Lark Bunting |
We then carried on to the Water Works which took some finding but was very worth it as there was a variety of wildfowl on show with Canvasback, Lesser Scaup, Ring-Billed Duck, Redhead and many other common species such as Northern Pintail, Northern Shoveler and Mallard.
A juvenile Peregrine Falcon made repeated unsuccesful 'swoops' over the pools sending the birds into a panic before making a vain attempt to catch a passing Ring-Billed Gull.
Our next stop was the Deming Cemetery where we spent an hour or so wandering around. Here we saw more Junco's, mostly Pink-Sided and Oregon. We also added Eastern Bluebird, which was uncommon for the area.
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| Eastern Bluebird |
A large Fir had a roosting Great-Horned Owl, Our third sighting in two days.
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| Great-Horned Owl |
We then headed off to find some lunch before making our way back to Alberquerque on route 66.We stopped enroute when James spotted a raptor on a pylon which turned out to be a Ferruginous Hawk, so we used the opportunity to have lunch and study the raptor.
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| Ferruginous Hawk |
On the way back to Alberquerque we stopped a few more times and saw our only Rough-Legged Hawk and Crissel Thrashers of the trip.
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| Crissel Thrasher |
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