Birds of New Mexico
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Welcome
My name is Nancy Penchev and I am an Albert Einstein Fellow in the office of Rep. Melanie Stansbury from New Mexico. Einstein takes K-12 STEM teachers from the classroom and brings them to DC to work in federal government for the year. We bring a teacher voice to our offices and learn more about government to bring back to the classroom.
Each month I prepare a learning activity based on themes, holidays, and events and build them around New Mexico. You can find all of the work on my website. If you have questions or suggestions, please reach out!
nancypenchev@gmail.com @penchevable
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Science with birds
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Technology with birds
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Engineering with birds
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Art with birds
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Math with birds
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More with birds
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Birds of New Mexico
Each bird has a coloring page linked on the bottom left side.
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Bird: Greater Roadrunner
A bird born to run, the Greater Roadrunner can outrun a human, kill a rattlesnake, and thrive in the harsh landscapes of the Desert Southwest. Roadrunners reach two feet from sturdy bill to white tail tip, with a bushy blue-black crest and mottled plumage that blends well with dusty shrubs. As they run, they hold their lean frames nearly parallel to the ground and rudder with their long tails. They have recently extended their range eastward into Missouri and Louisiana.
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Bird: Dark Eyed Junco
Dark-eyed Juncos are neat, even flashy little sparrows that flit about forest floors of the western mountains and Canada, then flood the rest of North America for winter. They’re easy to recognize by their crisp (though extremely variable) markings and the bright white tail feathers they habitually flash in flight. Dark-eyed Juncos are among the most abundant forest birds of North America. Look for them on woodland walks as well as in flocks at your feeders or on the ground beneath them.
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Bird: Sandhill Crane
Whether stepping singly across a wet meadow or filling the sky by the hundreds and thousands, Sandhill Cranes have an elegance that draws attention. These tall, gray-bodied, crimson-capped birds breed in open wetlands, fields, and prairies across North America. They group together in great numbers, filling the air with distinctive rolling cries. Mates display to each other with exuberant dances that retain a gangly grace. Sandhill Crane populations are generally strong, but isolated populations in Mississippi and Cuba are endangered.
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Bird: Ross’s Goose
A diminutive version of the familiar Snow Goose, Ross’s Goose is also white with black wingtips but has a shorter neck and stubbier bill. These gregarious waterfowl can form huge flocks on their own, and smaller numbers also join enormous flocks of Snow Geese. Both these species have seen population explosions as climate change has warmed their arctic breeding grounds, reducing snow cover and increasing plant growth. The two species seem to be hybridizing more frequently as warming allows their breeding ranges to come into contact.
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Bird: Pinyon Jay
The Pinyon Jay is a crestless, blue jay that travels in large noisy flocks throughout pinyon-juniper, chaparral, and scrub-oak woodlands in the western United States. This strong-flying jay gives a crowlike kaw to keep in touch with the group. Flocks stick together year-round, breeding and foraging together. They scour the landscape for food, especially the seeds of pinyon pines, which they eat on the spot or hide by the tens of thousands to eat later. Their excellent spatial memory helps them find buried seeds.
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Bird: Prairie Falcon
A raptor of the West’s wide-open spaces, Prairie Falcons glide above shrubby deserts and grasslands searching for ground squirrels and other small mammals and birds. In flight, look for the dark triangle of “armpit” feathers that distinguish it from other light-colored falcons. On the breeding territory you may hear a Prairie Falcon pair’s loud courtship calls, but roosting birds can be tough to spot: their muted cream, brown, and gray plumage blends perfectly with the steep bluffs and cliffs where they nest.
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Bird: Gray-crowned Rosy Finch
This delicate pink-and-brown songbird is among the hardiest of all birds. Gray-crowned Rosy-Finches nest in the highest parts of the highest mountains in North America—the Brooks Range, the Rockies, the Cascades, and the Sierra Nevada—as well as on Alaska’s Aleutian and Pribilof Islands. These little birds flash pink bellies and wings as they forage, seemingly at complete ease, on snowfields, forbidding talus slopes, and in high winds or snowstorms. In winter they move downslope to avoid heavy snow and may visit feeders, sometimes alongside other rosy-finch species.
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Bird: Brown-capped Rosy Finch
With its rosy pink belly and brown upperparts, the Brown-capped Rosy-Finch looks like raspberry ice cream smothered in chocolate. This rosy-finch breeds almost entirely in Colorado, in high alpine areas near remote glaciers and snowy meadows where they feed on seeds and insects along the edge of melting snow. In winter, they descend in flocks into forested habitats at lower elevations. They often show up in large numbers at feeders in mountain communities.
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Bird: Black Rosy Finch
Above treeline in the mountains of the western United States resides a chunky finch seemingly oblivious to cold and snow. The Black Rosy-Finch nests in cliffs and crevices in alpine areas where few people go. This nearly black finch has a gray cap and pink highlights on the wings and belly. It descends to slightly lower elevations in the winter when snow cover is deep, foraging at the edges of melting snow, along roadsides, or at feeders.
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Bird: Common Black Hawk
A soot-colored hawk with massively broad wings, the Common Black Hawk cuts a distinctive profile in wet wooded habitats along rivers and streams of the southwestern U.S. The adult's black plumage is offset by a broad white tail band and yellow bill and legs. Juveniles are streaky brown. Common Black Hawks are rare in the U.S. but common in Mexico and southward. They typically perch over water and drop down swiftly to take prey, such as crayfish and fish.
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Bird: Gray Vireo
Gray Vireos are lively residents of the punishingly hot deserts of the southwestern United States and adjacent Mexico. Gray above, whitish below, this species blends in well with the grays and greens of its surroundings. Male Gray Vireos sing steadily during the breeding season, but the birds spend much of the rest of their time foraging for insects in dense brush, often close to the ground. They swing nimbly among the fine, often thorny branches and have a habit of flicking the tail frequently.
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Bird: Red Faced Warbler
The startlingly pretty Red-faced Warbler is a mix of gray, black, and fire-engine red. Mainly a bird of high-elevation coniferous forests, its core range is in Mexico but it breeds as far north as Arizona and New Mexico. It forages among branches and needles fairly high in the trees, but makes its nest in a depression on the ground. Its narrow range and preference for mature forests makes it vulnerable to logging in the region, and for these reasons it's included on the Partners in Flight Yellow Watch List.
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Bird: American Three Toed Woodpecker
A small, unobtrusive woodpecker of northern North America and western mountains, the American Three-toed Woodpecker specializes on the plentiful insect populations found in bark beetle outbreaks, young burned areas, and other disturbances. Its distinctive foraging style involves chipping sideways at dead and dying trees until flakes of bark fall away, revealing insect larvae in the sap-rich tissue just beneath. It has a distinctive drumming style that begins rapidly and trails off at the end, similar only to its larger relative, the Black-backed Woodpecker.
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Bird: Bendire’s Thrasher
A secretive bird of open desert habitats, Bendire’s Thrasher is a lanky, dusty brown songster with a curved bill that is somewhat shorter than in other desert thrashers. Bendire’s Thrasher spends much of its time on the ground, catching insects or digging them out of crevices in the ground. It sometimes ventures into low vegetation where it hunts insects or eats small fruits. It has undergone sharp population declines and has a small range, two vulnerabilities that have placed it on the Partners in Flight Red Watch List.
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Bird: Lesser Prairie Chicken
The Lesser Prairie-Chicken is a pale grouse of the southern Great Plains, found only in prairie and agricultural land with shinnery oak and sand sagebrush. Once widespread and abundant, its numbers have crashed following heavy hunting in the 19th and early 20th centuries, and then conversion of its natural habitat to cropland and rangeland. Like its close relative, the larger, darker Greater Prairie-Chicken, male Lesser Prairie-Chickens gather in spring on “leks,” sites where males compete for females by performing spectacular displays.
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Bird: Orange-billed Nightingale Thrush
Small, plain-breasted thrush of tropical and subtropical woodland; mainly in foothills, but also in highlands. In winter many birds move to coastal lowlands of west Mexico. Feeds mainly on the ground, but also in fruiting bushes. Sings from low to middle level perches, usually well hidden. Unlike most thrushes, sings year-round, but less often in winter. Told from similar species by mostly to wholly orange bill, narrow orange eyering, and brighter pale legs. Song distinctive: slightly jerky and tinny.
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Bird: Crissal Thrasher
A lanky, gray-brown bird of desert washes, the Crissal Thrasher generally stays hidden and close to the ground as it probes for insects and seeds with its long, curved bill. It is easily mistaken for a Curve-billed Thrasher with its long tail and light orange eyes, except for a subtle black-and-white mustache, rich cinnamon patch under the tail, and pale, unspotted belly. Its mellow, musical song makes it one of the finest desert songsters.
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Bird: Eared Quetzal
The eared quetzal (Euptilotis neoxenus ), also known as the eared trogon, is a near passerine bird in the trogon family, Trogonidae. It is native to streamside pine-oak forests and canyons in the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico south to western Michoacán and southeasternmost Arizona in the United States. This range includes part of the Madrean Sky Islands region of southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico, and northern Sonora.
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Bird: Fan Tailed Warbler
Attractive, rather large warbler with long, expressive, white-tipped tail. Occurs in tropical forest of foothills and lowlands, mainly in winter, especially in areas with open understory and boulders. Forages mainly on or near the ground, flipping its tail loosely from side to side; regularly attends army ant swarms. Sexes look alike, with white face spots, blue-gray upperparts, and rich orange-yellow breast.
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Bird: Flammulated Owl
This tiny, reddish owl, scarcely larger than a small juice can, spends its time foraging for insects near the tops of massive pine or fir trees. These aspects make it hard to spot, although its repetitive, low-pitched hoot is easier to notice. Once thought to be rare residents of mountainous pine forests, Flammulated Owls can be common in forests of large trees and are highly migratory. It winters in Mexico and Central America, but little else is known about the species in its wintering areas.
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Create your own bird page!
Use the following slide to create additional bird fact pages.
Right click on the slide and click duplicate slide to make more.
Click insert, video and paste in the video link from YouTube.
Make sure to paste the link for your images and information in the speaker notes at the bottom to show your references.
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Bird:
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Additional Resources
20 birds of the Bosque del Apache video
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge video
Falcons in New Mexico (6 Types with Photos) - Bird Feeder Hub
All You Need To Know About Finches In New Mexico (ID And Song Guide)
Hawks in New Mexico (12 Species With Pictures) - Wildlife Informer
15 Species Of Hawks In New Mexico – Picture And ID Guide
Woodpeckers In New Mexico - 9 Species To Search For
24 Species Of Warblers In New Mexico (ID, Song, Season Guide)
Owls In New Mexico: 13 Must-See Species Part Of The Population
Birds of New Mexico: 21 Must-See Species | American Bird Conservancy’
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Digital Notebook made by:
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