Read the current issues of Ravens.

This is the eighty-third in an on-going series of twice-monthly bird sighting reports of local interest in the four counties of southwestern New Mexico. Please contact me if you have sightings to report (species, location, and date); and feel free to inform others that they can receive these reports if they send me their e-mail address.

Photographs appearing in these Reports are the result of the generous contributions of subscribers, and may not be used for commercial purposes without their consent.

Summer vacation plans will slow the frequency of these reports in the next few months. There will be one Report in mid-July and one in mid-August. The regular twice-monthly schedule will resume in September.

Thank you.
David Beatty
On the web at: http://swnmaudubon.org/index.html
Learn more about the SW New Mexico Birding Trail

---

This just-hatched chick will be difficult to call, even for experts, without some context. Here is one important piece of the puzzle: the nest is located under eaves of a house. The species will be identified at the end of this Report.


Very unusual for Grant County is an appearance of a Prothonotary Warbler. Roland Shook found a male bird on June 8 along the Gila River in the Cliff-Gila village area. A migrating Virginia’s Warbler showed up at Dale and Marian Zimmerman’s Silver City yard on May 17. Here is Dale’s photograph.


Gene Lewis reports that a pair of Inca Doves continue as probable nesting birds on or near his property. The male sings frequently on the patio and both birds come to feed there. On his most recent (6/15) visit to the Tyrone ponds Gene found 5 Cinnamon Teal and 33 (Mexican) Mallards among a diminished number of species in the area of the ponds.

Jim Rogers was surprised that this Burrowing Owl allowed a photograph to be taken - from Highway 180 near Hurley on June 9. We don’t often see this raptor nearby.


Visiting birder Wes Hetrick went to Catron County’s Catwalk on June 5 and came up with sightings of several Band-tailed Pigeons, White-throated Swifts and an American Dipper. On his way to Glenwood, Wes stopped at The Nature Conservancy’s Iron Bridge Preserve along Highway 180 and noted a high-soaring Zone-tailed Hawk about 100 hundred feet above a pair of also-soaring Common Black-Hawks. Here is Wes’s picture of one of the Black-Hawks prior to its taking flight.


Farther east, in the Mimbres River drainage Jim Rogers spotted a Common Black-Hawk off Highway 61 south of the village of San Lorenzo on June 2. Nearby on this date he found and photographed this Warbling Vireo in the trees next to Royal John Mine Road.


Jerry and Debbie Bird spent a few days camping recently at Valle Tio Vincens in eastern Catron County and found a pair of Mountain Bluebirds on May 30, and had a calling Flamulated Owl on the same night, and a calling Northern Pygmy Owl on May 31.

Black-throated Sparrows are infrequent visitors close to downtown Silver City, especially in breeding season. Dale Zimmerman found this bird a couple of miles south of town off Highway 90.


By the way Dale reports on June 19 that the Black-chinned Hummingbird which he photographed on-nest on a light bulb on a a wire under the eaves in Paul Stuetzer's Silver City yard, (the photograph appeared in the last issue of this Report), may now be the occupant of another nest a few feet along the same wire on another light bulb. The bird began incubating on June 16. The original chick in the first nest successfully fledged on June 1.

---

The species responsible for the nest and its contents at the beginning of this Report is Say’s Phoebe. Laura Casas took the picture from her Mangas Springs property on June 12.

Our next Audubon chapter field trip will occur on Saturday, June 21. We go to Cherry Creek campground and environs north of the village of Pinos Altos, leaving from the WNMU south Fine Arts parking lot at 8 a.m. and arriving between 8:30 and 8:45. We will return to Silver before lunchtime. Breeding birds should be plentiful in this rich mountain habitat. Call 534-4940 for more information.

You can find more information about our chapter’s activities at http://swnmaudubon.org/index.html.

Look for the next SWNM Audubon Bird Sightings Report around July 15.
DB