Hwy 2221, Sparrow Road, 1/27/08

I spent three hours walking and driving along Hwy 2221 also known as Sparrow Road and got precious little to show for it. This is where we normally find desert species in Hidalgo County. But the fall was so dry that there's very little to eat out there and consequently there's few birds. Last winter I found some neat stuff like Green-tailed Towhee and Sage Thrasher but not this year. Unusual were high numbers of Black-throated Sparrows (38) and Pyrrhuloxia (70). In fact I pished in 25 in one field. Here's few of them with a Lark Bunting.



Lark Bunting is not always easy to find down here.



Black Vulture 3
Harris's Hawk 5
White-tailed Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Kestrel 3
Merlin 1
Mourning Dove 15
Inca Dove 3
Common Ground-Dove 5
Greater Roadrunner 1
Golden-fronted Woodpecker 2
Ladder-backed Woodpecker 2
Loggerhead Shrike 2
Horned Lark 2
Verdin 3
Cactus Wren 3
Bewick's Wren 3
House Wren 3
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Northern Mockingbird 25
Curve-billed Thrasher 2
Orange-crowned Warbler 4
Cassin's Sparrow 1
Vesper Sparrow 7
Lark Sparrow 5
Black-throated Sparrow 38
Lark Bunting 10
Savannah Sparrow 25
Northern Cardinal 6
Pyrrhuloxia 70
Red-winged Blackbird 2
Great-tailed Grackle 10
House Sparrow 5