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Birding in New Mexico's Juniper Woodlands
December, 2011

As a working musician, December is usually one of the busiest months of the year for me. This year was no exception, but I needed a break from a busy fall schedule that left virtually no time for any birding or photography locally. I scheduled nothing for a week and took off to New Mexico in the middle of the month. It was a great break from a month of holiday concerts, Nutcrackers, and church gigs in Columbus in addition to subbing with the Cleveland Orchestra.

New Mexico was chosen because not only is it one of my favorite areas to explore, but it also usually has a higher percentage of days with sunshine at this time of year than many other places in the country. I did have to spend a couple of days in a hotel room watching the rain pour on the other side of the window, but otherwise I did have some nice light for the rest of the trip. I have been to New Mexico several times before in November and have visited the same areas in the breeding season. Like just about everywhere else, late May and early June is the ideal time to visit, but late fall and winter can be interesting too. Starting from the center of the state and heading west to and beyond the Arizona border are large areas of public land in the form of National Forests. All you have to do for an adventure is rent a SUV from Albuquerque, get yourself some USFS maps, and head out. There is no shortage of places to visit. Birds can be found just about everywhere. While during the breeding season all elevations in the national forests are equally productive, in the fall and winter the juniper woodlands are especially enjoyable and higher elevations aren't always very accessible due to snow on the unplowed rocky tracks.


Townsend's Solitaire
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/1000th sec., ISO 400

Townsend's Solitaires are characteristic of New Mexico's juniper woodlands in the fall and winter. The bird above is shown in a tree that had berries, but I also found them equally well distributed this year in areas where there seemed to be no berries. True to their name they aren't found in flocks and seem to establish territories on their wintering grounds. Their whistled call note is heard often and they even occasionally deliver their full song in the winter.


Juniper habitat between 6000 and 7000 feet
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 70-300 f4-5.6L IS lens (at 150mm)
f14, 1/640th sec., ISO 400

The juniper woodlands are primarily at an elevation of around 6000 to 7000 feet. On this trip, as can be seen above, these areas were still passable and the higher elevations dominated by ponderosa pines and then spruces and firs weren't. The juniper woodlands do cover a huge area in west central New Mexico from Socorro westward to the Arizona border. The composition of these woodlands vary from open grasslands dotted with junipers to dense concentrations where pinyon pines and oaks are mixed. All those areas are equally interesting and host their own mixture of species.


"Pink-sided" Junco on Pinyon Pine
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/800th sec., ISO 400

Usually the most common birds in these woodlands in the fall and winter are the mixed junco flocks. Three subspecies come together in this area of New Mexico, the "Pink-sided", "Oregon", and "Gray-headed" forms.

This trip was a chance to use my most recent 800mm lens. After completely giving up on the last two I had, I had the opportunity to try another that was for sale. I put a 1.4x teleconverter on it and it was immediately apparent that this lens was worlds better than the others I had. I even went ahead and sold my long time trusty 600mm lens to purchase a second Canon 1D Mark4 while I still had a chance. (The new 1DX coming out soon is of no interest to me whatsoever, but that's another story.) When the new camera arrived I finally got around to checking out the micro adjustments for the focusing. This new amazing 800+1.4x actually shows to be back focusing on both the LensAlign targets I have. That seems to be the trick at close range for small songbirds, let the lens back focus a bit in the tests. With one camera I just just left it back focusing, and the other I set to be dead on target, which I will use on larger birds at a farther distance. That seems to work, since I'm very happy with the results I got from this trip on both cameras at their designated tasks. The bare 800 itself is pretty much dead on target on both my cameras as was the last 800mm lens I had. What is more difficult to understand is that the same 1.4x's that cause my current lens to back focus slightly made the previous 800 I had to front focus excessively. Now that I have an 800mm that I really happy with, I'll be in no hurry to get the new 600mm lens when it comes out, especially since my new 300 2.8 is so great with the 2x.


"Gray-headed" Junco
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/640th sec., ISO 400

Back to the birds. The above junco subspecies is the Gray-headed form which nests further north in the southern Rockies. The resident junco subspecies in the Magdalena unit of the the Cibola National Forest, the Gila National Forest , and the adjacent Apache National Forest in Arizona is the Red-backed form. They can be found in shady areas at higher elevations in the breeding season, but never seem to come down to join in the mixed join flocks in the juniper/oak/pinyon woodlands in the fall and winter here. If looking at the field guide the Red-backed form doesn't look a whole lot different that the Gray-headed form, but if you visit this area in the breeding season you'll soon realize that they're very different birds. Their song is more complex and not just the simple trill that other Dark-eyed Juncos perform. The Red-backed song is more similar to the Yellow-eyed Junco found not much further south. To those that love to study bird songs, I can't highly enough recommend visiting the vast ponderosa pine woods in the Gila National Forest near Reserve, New Mexico in the breeding season where Red-backed Juncos are numerous along with Olive, Grace's, and Audubon's Warblers all demonstrating their full repertoires. The confusing sounds will leave you bewildered as you try to track down the singers high above you. That's the most fun kind of birding to me. I didn't see any Red-backeds at all on this trip, but I have seen them on previous November trips at higher elevations when the roads were passable up there.


Mixed Juniper/Pinyon/Oak woods along slope
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 24mm f1.4L II lens
f13, 1/250th sec., ISO 400

The above photo looks on the edge of a mixed woodland of junipers, pinyon pines, and oaks. Like the young jack pine tracts, it's difficult to really show these areas when you're right up next to them since all the trees are densely packed and all roughly the same height. The dead ponderosa pine in the foreground at least gives some interest to the composition. While usually found mostly at higher elevations, ponderosa pines can also be found along the (dry) riverbeds to the right of what this photo shows.


Juniper Titmouse
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f10, 1/1250th sec., ISO 400

You can't talk about juniper woodlands without showing this bird. Juniper Titmice are found year round in the denser woods throughout the area. This bird was photographed in the woodlot shown in the previous photo. There aren't too many other permanent residents among the small passerines in these areas. Bewick's Wrens being one of the few others that come to mind. Bridled Titmice are at the northeastern part of their range in the mountains of the Magdalena unit of the Cibola National Forest, but I have only seen them a few times here, and none were noted on this particular trip. In the spring and summer the only breeding warblers in the juniper woodlands, especially where there is a good mix with oaks is the Black-throated Gray Warbler. Once getting into the ponderosa pines Grace's Warblers can be common, and Red-faceds can be found at the northern edge of their range here in shady areas with spruces and firs. Painted Redstarts occur too, but are scarce. During some November trips in past years Mountain Chickadees and Bushtits have been common at this elevation, but both were very scarce on this trip. Finches also can occur as variably here as anywhere. This year I only saw House Finches and Pine Siskins in these woods, but it past years Cassin's Finches, Red Crossbills, and Evening Grosbeaks have been found, mostly in years with abundant juniper berry and pinyon nut crops (not this year). Western Scrub Jays are widely distributed though these areas as long as there are enough oaks, but the jays that really grab your attention are the Pinyon Jays that make a lot of noise and can gather in huge flocks. Despite consistently finding large numbers of Pinyon Jays, I haven't had much luck photographing them.


Canyon Towhee
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/1600th sec., ISO 400

Canyon Towhees are another characteristic species of the area, mostly in oak scrub. Mostly they're found at the lower elevations in washes, but this year I found them much higher up pretty much everywhere I went. There also seemed to be a lot more Spotted Towhees in the same areas than I have seen in past November visits in the juniper/oak thickets. In the breeding season Green-tailed Towhees can be found in the open juniper woodlands, but they retreat further south in the winter. I did see one on this trip in the Rio Grande valley near Truth or Consequences.


Open dry grassland with scattered junipers
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 24mm f1.4L II lens
f14, 1/300th sec., ISO 400

At the other extreme from the dense juniper woodlands are these open areas pictured above. While these areas can occur anywhere they are most notable on the eastern edges of mountain ranges that get less rainfall. Here the junipers dot the grasslands and can be mixed with sagebrush, and cholla cactus. It may not look like much, but the area shown above hosted Mountain Bluebirds in the thousands on this trip. The junipers here didn't offer much in the way of food from what I could see, but all those bluebirds must have been finding something to eat. Western Bluebirds are usually common in the denser woodlands, but I found few on this trip. American Robins were plentiful everywhere though. A large area of this type of habitat separates the Cibola and Gila National Forests and is known as the Plains of San Augustin. The area is best known as the location of the VLA Radio Telescope, but in the breeding season it's a good place to find Sage Thrashers and Brewer's Sparrows at the southern edge of their breeding ranges.

On another photo gear side note, my 24mm lens, as always, performed well here and the full file is razor sharp from corner to corner. I did wish for a slightly more "normal" length lens here between 35mm and 50mm to keep the mountains in the background more present. In the past week I decided to try the popular 24-105 f4L lens again. It was awful at the corners wider than about 40mm, and that's on my 1D4 which crops out the edges. I sent it back. Both that lens and one I tried a few months back were "refurbished" lenses, but I didn't find either acceptable. That lens is popular with people using the full frame Canon 5D2, but I see how or why. From what I can see the edges at the wide end aren't acceptable on even a cropped frame camera. I suppose I should try another, but from what I can tell it's a worthless lens for me. I will probably add the 35mm f1.4L to my camera bag within the next year sometime. I have no doubt that better copies of the 24-105 exist, but I don't really want to waste any more time with it. Meanwhile it's no rush since my 24mm serves me very well here in Ohio.


Mountain Bluebird - male
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/1250th sec., ISO 400


Mountain Bluebird hovering before landing
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f8, 1/2000th sec., ISO 500


Mountain Bluebird - female
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f10, 1/1250th sec., ISO 400

Mountain Bluebirds always make enjoyable subjects for the camera. Being so abundant in open areas make them one of the easiest birds to photograph. When big numbers congregate on a single juniper, they hover in place before landing to look for a vacant spot.


Crissal Thrasher
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/640th sec., ISO 400

December was already springtime for one species. Like many other thrashers in the southwest, this Crissal Thrasher was already singing on territory and I was lucky to find it obligingly pose early one morning. I wouldn't really call Crissal Thrashers a typical bird of junipers. They're usually found in mesquite scrub at lower elevations. This bird was just using it as a singing perch in an otherwise brushy area dominated by dense sagebrush and oaks. On some of my previous November trips to the area Sage Thrashers have been fairly common in the junipers, but not this year. I only saw a few. Curve-billed Thrashers (and Cactus Wrens too) can occur in the open juniper woodlands where there are dense tracts of cholla cactus.


Rufous-crowned Sparrow
Canon EOS 1D MarkIV, Canon 800mm f5.6L IS lens + 1.4x
f11, 1/800th sec., ISO 400

One last type of habitat where junipers are present is also worth mentioning since it hosts it own array of species, and that's the rocky outcrops. In the breeding season junipers in those areas can host Gray Vireos, which are scarce in this part of New Mexico and worth looking for. Those areas can be beautiful, but unfortunately I never got around to doing any photography there since the birds had my full attention. Birds of the rocks such as Rock and Canyon Wrens, and Rufous-crowned Sparrows are present all year long but less conspicuous when not singing. I have a lot of favorite sparrow species, but Rufous-crowneds are definitely one of them. I always make an effort to find them when in their habitat. I enjoy their wren-like behavior and calls.

The west central part of New Mexico is one of my favorite areas any time of year. While ideally I think a three week visit in late May and early June is the best time to visit to do it justice, it can be enjoyed any time of year for shorter periods. Maps for the Cibola National Forest (Magdalena Unit), and Gila National Forest in New Mexico, and the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest in adjacent Arizona can be purchased wherever you buy your National Forest Maps, but online at the  National Forest Store  has been convenient for me. There are plenty of motels in the area. Socorro, Magdalena, and Reserve in New Mexico, and Springerville in Arizona are good places to base your forays into the National Forests. There is also no shortage of places to camp in the forests. A high clearance 4-wheel drive SUV is the recommended way to get around. This is a fascinating area that is underbirded. An adventure can await around every corner.