I spent the first part of this week finishing up stock tanks and getting the windmills on. We picked up 2 tanks that have rusted out bottoms and moved them up to the house where Georgia is using them as gardening containers. I say that like it’s an easy thing to do, but moving 10’ metal stock tanks is some heavy lifting. But, we got it done and are moving a little closer to being 100% ready for cattle.
After that was done, it was time to go look for peregrines again. This might be my last hurrah since the girls need to go to ABQ next week for a home-school convention, leaving me and the boys here to man the fort. I had a couple of new areas to check and then wanted to go back to one that we visited 2 weeks ago.
Speaking of forts, we were traveling on roads that were totally new to me and in the process I got on a wrong road- to my defense, there are TWO roads with the same name, going the same direction. We ended up at (cue drumroll....) Fort Union Monument, which was fine with Georgia and David, both being museum nuts. And it was a neat museum- we have plans to come back and spend some hours touring the actual fort.
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| Fort Union |
Back on the road again, we drove deeper into northern New Mexico, eventually arriving in the area I wanted to look at. After a few duds, we found another cliff, glassed it, and ta-da!!! Two peregrines sitting up at the top in the snags. We watched them for awhile and then drove on to our next destination- [Unnamed City]
Arrived, set up camp, and drove around looking at cliffs. We walked to the exact spot we’d previously and unsuccessfully glassed . After a minute, Georgia exclaimed “There’s a bird!” and sure ‘nuff, at the top of the cliff, with its back to us- making it nearly invisible until it turned its head, just like the Pterodactyl in Jurassic Park III- was an adult peregrine. Now, up to this point, Georgia has first spotted all of our 5 peregrines! I needed to get busy, so I scanned the cliff and found a little white dot that, under 30x on the scope, turned out to be… another peregrine! Great!! These birds did nothing but sit on the cliff, so after a bit, we headed on down to camp and a good night’s sleep in our Coleman pop-up camper.
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| An adult redtail perched on cliff top. Wish they were all this obvious. |
Next day, we surveyed some more cliffs and found an active golden eagle nest and a redtailed hawk defending a large chunk of rock, putting both of those sites out of contention. The rest of the day was spent working our way back home. The biggest adventure was a road that popped up while we were working our way north to another town. It was marked and was nicely paved, so we took it. Well…the pavement gave way after 4-5 miles and then it went dirt. Nice dirt, though, with a good hard packed gravel surface. Another 4-5 miles and that turned into rocky road (and not the ice cream, either). Another 4-5 miles and it got narrower. I’ve been on jeep trails that were better- remember, I'm pulling a Coleman camper here! We soldiered on, though, and actually passed a couple of cliffs, one of which held another active golden eagle nest. We eventually came out onto pavement again, all our tires intact and full of air.
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| New Mexico is just one big desert |
Our tally of peregrines now stands at 3 pairs for 840 mi driven. Nesting activity hasn’t really started yet, although it will any day now. I’ll now wait until mid-May when there’s a possibility of chicks and start looking for the actual nest site. At that point, I’ll have to decide whether or not the site is accessible (.ie can I rappel into it?) In the meantime, I’ll be spending time on a rope, practicing rappelling and ascending.
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