9:01 am: Watching roadrunner in the backyard. Unsuspecting sparrow flies up. Snap. Sparrow dead, spectacle of roadrunner breakfast kinda gross. 9:05 am: Two house finches and a white-winged dove sit on power line, watching roadrunner eat sparrow. Are they, in fact, “watching”? Do they care? 9:09 am: Roadrunner sitting on a stump, wiping off his …
IMG_0252 Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. That’s the Rio Grande you see there – the entire Rio Grande, as it leaves Cochiti Dam 40 river miles north of Albuquerque. It was flowing at about 1,000 cubic feet per second today when Lissa and I drove by during a Sunday wander. Cochiti, completed in the early 1970s, …
Roadrunner Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. We had a ringside seat this afternoon when Speedy, our neighborhood roadrunner (seen here atop our car last December) stalked across our front yard, eyeing a mourning dove. Speedy has the moves of a cat on the hunt – furtive, able to hold still. He hid behind plants, darting from …
I almost crashed the bike this morning, distracted as I zoomed on the bike trail beneath Interstate 25 near the north end of Albuquerque. The bridge abutments are prime swallow turf, and I was looking to see if any have returned from their southern sojourn. I almost took a header into the trailside railing, and …
Continue reading ‘Wednesday Bird Blogging (Bike Blogging?)’ »
Spring? Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. I’ve got work to do this afternoon, but I’m completely distracted by the show outside. It’s been so dry here that I had to turn on some water in the backyard. That’s drawn the birds like nutso – juncos, sparrows and house finches mostly, but I saw a couple lesser …
Birds Flee Changing Habitats (ad/sub req.): Birds and butterflies offer the earliest signs that ecosystems are changing in response to a changing climate, according to Craig Allen, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “They’re mobile,” said Allen, an expert on the effect of climate change on New Mexico’s environment. Climate has always changed, Allen …
Continue reading ‘More Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: Back on the Bird Beat’ »
Re last week’s post about the dead owl, which Jaime and I saw while out bike riding. This is one of those “I’ve got the best job in the world” things. I was over at the Museum of Southwestern Biology, talking about pink iguanas. When I was done, I stuck my head in the office …
Sunset Canyon is quite possibly my favorite mile of cycling in Albuquerque: View Larger Map If you like to climb (as I do) and you’re stuck in town either because of time constraints, or because it’s winter, there are a series of short, steep, lovely climbs on the neighborhood streets that make up the Sandia …
Went bicycling looking for killdeer. Found one, but in the process also saw more than a hundred pigeons. (I counted. Somewhere I wrote down the number. It was something like 167, but when the subject is counting pigeons, you shouldn’t trust three-digit accuracy.) There’s a great book about feral pigeons, called Feral Pigeons. Google books …
Continue reading ‘Feral Pigeons: Notes From a Blog Post I Never Got Around to Writing’ »
Roadrunner Originally uploaded by heinemanfleck. Lissa was on her way out the door this morning when she stuck her head back in and shouted to me, “Speedy’s back.” Lissa took this picture last week. I’m pretty sure it’s a pair, because this morning’s bird had the more dramatic color behind the eye than it looks …