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 the Chinese man pointed out to me on our first morning at the rim. Although it looked like a California Scrubjay, in the Southwest, the local jay was split a few years back from our Scrubjays and declared a separate species, Woodhouse’s Scrubjay (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 much greyer in color, especially on the breast and having different facial markings. I’ve included a shot of a California Scrubjay here for comparison (last photo). I'm also including a couple of photos of other animals we saw, notably a very tame squirrel and Mountain Goats that looked perfectly at ease on the steep faces just below the Grand Canyon rim.