Places I'm Visiting: Birds in Texas and the Southwest

In nine days of traveling between Texas and Las Vegas, I had hoped to see many new birds or at least many birds less common than those I routinely see in Sonoma County, but I was disappointed. There were few birds in most of the locations we visited aside from the Crows and Ravens that seemed to be everywhere.

In Dallas and Fort Worth, I saw Boat-tailed Grackles here and there, and saw a handful of Robins and a pair of White-winged Doves in downtown Dallas along with a large flock of Starlings just before dark, but little elsewhere in Texas or in Oklahoma. Here and there I noted vultures – Black Vultures rather than the Turkey Vultures we commonly see at home. In Santa Fe, it was Crows and Ravens again and a handful of House Sparrows.

Somewhere along the way, I can’t remember where, I had a fleeting glimpse from the car of a red bird that I imagine was a Northern Cardinal and I had a similar brief glimpse from the car of a Magpie of some kind, but it wasn’t until the Grand Canyon that I began to see more birds. Monument Valley, was largely empty of birds aside from House Sparrows, although I imagine there must be species that live in the area besides these and the ubiquitous Crows and Ravens.

Along the rim of the Grand Canyon, I noted Crows and Ravens, but also Dark-eyed Juncos, Mountain Chickadees (always fun, as these are different from our Northern California Chestnut-backed Chickadees), and Pygmy Nuthatches. Most fun, however, was the bird that a Chinese man pointed out to me on our first morning at the rim. Although it looked like a California Scrubjay, it was not. In the Southwest, the local jay is Woodhouse's Jay. It was split a few years back from our Scrubjays and declared a separate species. Both species were called Western Scrubjay in the past. 

So, despite a general lack of birds on the trip, I did get this new life bird for my list and I was pleased to be able to get good photographs of one. Woodhouse’s Scrubjay (first photo) differs from our California Scrubjays in being a bit greyer in color, especially on the breast and in lacking the blue band across the breast typical of our California Scrubjays. I’ve included a shot of a California Scrubjay here for comparison (last photo). I'm also including a photos of one of the Mountain Goats we saw that looked perfectly at ease on the sheer cliff faces just below the Grand Canyon rim.