Road Trip Day 4-Birding

We left the hotel room sometime this morning after finally pulling ourselves out of bed for the continental breakfast. The other day we had waffles and I was craving them again, but they didn't have the set up for them. Absolutely disappointed. Oh well. Tonight's hotel, the same chain, doesn't have them either. Dang it!

We went to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. We went mostly for the birding, however, we did get to see a deer and then it disappeared. In its place were five coyotes. And they say that coyotes don't hunt in packs anymore. HA!

Jenna kind of enjoyed the park as well because to our surprise the lady at the gate told us the dog could be out, but had to be on a leash. So she was allowed to get out some places. Her first adventure was out on a boardwalk and she was quite intrigued with the coots and other birds in the water. At the places where we did not let her out, she enjoyed pouting.

When we first arrived at the boardwalk, we spooked a coot from under the boardwalk and it flew for a little while. Then it thought it was landing on water, but slid on its ass across the ice. It was one of the funniest things I have seen.

The birding was mostly a vehicle tour with Murray saying stop, back up, etc. He was the spotter and then I would stop, get out, slam the door, and the bird would fly off so I couldn't get the photograph. But I did get some photos...

And more

We drove on to another town today and found our same chain hotel. Tomorrow we head for Arizona. We are still looking for warmth.

Happy Holidays

The wildlife: 5 coyotes, 1 deer, northern shoveler, bufflehead, kestrel, snow geese, merlin, northern harrier, hooded mengauser, northern pintail, sandhill crane, says phoebe, killdeer, northern flicker, gadwall, coopers hawk, golden eagle, bald eagle, ring necked duck, ring-necked pheasant, widgeon, sandpiper, marsh wren, pied bill grebe, green winged teal, and others we didn't identify.