Texas and New Mexico Day 8

This morning saw us heading high into the Sandia mountains and the visitor centre at Sandia Crest. This is 10,478 high and there was snow on the roadside on the way up, the air was pretty thin as well and we were all puffing a bit a we climbed the steps from the car park to the centre.
Our targets here were the Rosy-Finches which come to the feeders outside the restaurant. It wasn't long before we saw our first, a Grey-crowned Rosy Finch on the roof of one the buildings.

Grey-crowned Rosy Finch

We then staked out the feeders on the balcony outside the restaurant and had good views of more Grey-crowned and then Black Rosy-Finch.

Black Rosy-Finch

Black Rosy-Finch

We also had more Junco's, this time the Red-Backed variety, as well as Steller's Jay and Chihuahuan Raven.

After some souvenir shopping and a coffee we headed back down the mountain.

In the afternoon we relocated to the flat grasslands around Estancia and were very lucky when Adam spotted a large raptor as we were driving. Stopping and piling out it turned out to be our only sighting of Golden Eagle.

Golden Eagle

We also had large numbers of Chihuahuan Ravens going to roost before heading back to the motel and packing for our flight to Texas the next day.