April 2026

Cattle Egrets-Los Poblanos Open Space

Bird activity starts to get exciting in April, with shorebirds and other migrants moving through, rare songbirds popping up here and there, year-round residents already into their nesting activities, and summer residents returning from points south. 

Migrating Shorebirds-Los Poblanos Open Space 

April is when shorebirds start to migrate through. Their stopover spot must meet certain conditions, including shallow water, or waters with a nice open shore. The dry conditions here in Albuquerque limit the availability of good stopover spots, but when these conditions appear, word gets out quickly. When Los Poblano Open Space flooded their fields at the beginning of April, a variety of shorebirds and other avian species were quick to take advantage.

Top to bottom: Blue-Winged Teal, Franklin's Gull, Long-Billed Curlew, Solitary Sandpiper, White-Faced Ibis, Yellow-Headed Blackbird.  

 

While out at Los Poblanos Open Space for the birds, I also got to see my first ever Roseate Skimmer, a very colorful dragonfly, in the community garden.

 Rare and Out-of-Place Songbirds

April also saw an uptick in rare warblers and other songbirds, birds out of their usual range, that perhaps took a wrong turn somewhere in their migration. The UNM campus has been host to three rare warblers: A Hooded Warbler, a Northern Parula, and a Prothonotory Warbler. Right in our neighborhood, a friend found an Eastern Phoebe earlier in April, and an Eastern Kingbird was hanging out awhile at Los Poblanos Open  Space.

Here are the ones that I was able to photograph, top to bottom: Prothonotory Warber, Northern Parula, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Kingbird.

 

Summer Arrivals and Nesting Season

Finally, April is when nesting season begins in earnest. New summer arrivals and year-round residents alike can be found at different stages of their breeding and nesting cycles. 

The Ash-Throated Flycatchers have just arrived recently, but this one is already using a nesting box on the Candelaria Wetlands, and appeared to be staying near to guard it.

 

The Swainson's Hawk pair that routinely nest on the Candelaria Nature Preserve returned right on schedule. Shortly after their arrival, our survey team found them hanging out together near their nest of the last few years.. 

 

Great Horned-Owls start nesting early, and this nest on Albuquerque's westside already has a pair of owlets that may be ready to leave the nest soon.

April Paintings

I didn't add too many paintings to my watercolor journal this month, but here are a few.

 

 R.I.P Lolly 4/28/26

I don't normally post very much personal stuff here, but this month is an exception. For me, April was all about dealing with my sweet 17 yo kitty's last days with cancer.

I got Lolly 9 years ago from Animal Humane, and she has been my constant home companion ever since. Her calm sweet presence supported me through the Covid stay-at-home and through two periods of recovery from bone fractures. 

 

In her last couple of weeks, Lolly's favorite thing to do was to lie in the sun on our balcony. 

Things took a turn for the worse last Satuday. That evening I was hanging a fitted sheet out on the balcony to complete drying. Before I could get the bottom half off the balcony floor, Lolly climbed in, requisitioning a corner of the sheet for a hammock. This "hammock" became her refuge in those last painful days until I could get the vet out to euthanize her. Lolly was never a cat to seek out enclosed spaces (not even boxes!) so it was clear to me that she was hiding out because she was in pain. By the time my wonderfully compassionate vet came over, I had no doubt that she was ready to go.

 

What I've been noticing in the days since she's been gone is how I associate just about everything I do at home with Lolly, even things that have nothing to do with her. I was cleaning today and realized what it was: I no longer have a supervisor! Whether it was Tai Chi, cleaning,unloading groceries, preparing food, or even just doing the NYT online games, those eyes were always there, watching, monitoring, supervising. I'm glad she's not suffering anymore, but I so miss my soft snuggly supervisor!

 

 

 

March 2026

 

The biggest news of the month is that I got back into watercolor painting. I'll start with news of the birds (this painting of a Vermilion Flycatcher male is based on one of my best sightings of the month), and move on to the paintings.

Ducks at Winter's End

The Cinnamon Teat have been hanging out at the Rio Grande Nature Center and being quite lovely.

 

The Gadwall are still around. Here they perform simultaneous dabbling, resulting in the quintessential duck butt photo.

 

 

On the other side of the bosque near Montano, I was happy to find not just one Mexican Duck, but a male/female pair. These ducks are found mostly further south, and the ones we find in Albuquerque are mostly somewhat hybridized with Mallards. The male looks overall like a female mallard, but with a bright yellow bill. The bill is also a good way to differentiate the female Mexican from the female Mallard. The Mexican Duck female is orange like the Mallard's but lacks the block mottling of the Mallard female bill. 

As we head into spring, most ducks will leave the Albuquerque area, with the exception of Wood Ducks and Mallards. These Wood Ducks have been enjaged in the early spring activity of looking for a suitable nesting cavity in the bosque trees. Here you see then returning from the trees and preparing to go back into the pond.

 

Vermilion Flycatcher

In the first part of the month, a brilliant red rarity appeared in a park in Albuquerque's NE Heights. The Vermilion Flycatcher is fairly common in southern NM, More and more vagrant Vermilions are showing up further north in the winter and spring. They often hang around for awhile, though so far they aren't known to nest here. 

 

 

 

As Spring arrives, the survey has been a fun time to observe the rituals that come with breeding breeding season. The Red-Winged Blackbird males, who have laid low all winter, are now pulling out all the stops to show off their colors.

 

 

We always check this nest box and a nearby cavity on the  northwest end of our route for roosting raccoons. This raccoon really knows how to relax.

 

 To end the bird section of this post: A male Belted Kingfisher at Tingley.

 

 Watercolor Painting 

 I took a 5 week watercolor painting class February-March with Sean Hudson. The focus was landscape painting, which is something I have found challenging. The class was great and I was happy with what I was able to do. Here are a few of the paintings that I did during the class.

 

 Brush Miles

The instructor talked  about how the main key to improving our skills was putting in "brush miles." To put in my brush miles at home, I pulled out a sweet little blank page book that my sister gave me awhile back. I was waiting for an inspiration for how to use it

 

 

So now I'm filling my "elephant journal" with watercolor paintings. It's not high quality watercolor paper, but I kind of wanted that so as not to be so precious about the products of my practice. I've been pretty happy with what I've done so far. Here are a few of the paintings in the book.  

 

 

Plein Air-The Next Frontier?

I've been so far working from photos for watercolor painting. Plein air is a whole other challenge. With my sketchers group the last Sunday of March, I decided to attempt a plein air watercolor at the Rio Grande Nature Center. This is the painting that I started there. Full disclosure, what I painted while at the Nature Center I thought was an unmitigated disaster. I worked on it more at home and was able to save it somewhat. You can see the difference though, from what I've done using a photo for a model. 

 

 

 

 

February 2026

 

February's blog will be a little short, but I do have a few birds and stories to show and tell. I started a watercolor class this month. My opening image is of a painting I did in the class. It's based on a photo from the City of Rocks.

Bird Survey-Rio Grande Nature Center

The weekly volunteer survey at the Rio Grande Nature Center can be counted on to get me out with the birds at least once a week. This month brought a few interesting ducks to the center, including this super-sharp Bufflehead male and this subtly-colored Lesser Scaup female that presented the team with a bit of an ID challenge. 

We continued to have a lot of Bluebirds, both Western and Eastern. The subtly-colored female in these photos was a little bit of an ID challenge also. Some of the team thought her belly and throat looked gray (Western Bluebird) while others thought white (Eastern Bluebird) She turned out to be a female Eastern Bluebird. What threw us off was that there was no hint of a rusty colored throat. But plumage is variable, and SIbley's guide shows an illustration of a "drab" female Eastern with a whitish throat like this one.

Out by the river, I watched this Northern Mockingbird foraging in the same area where I saw a Mockingbird in December. It seems likely to me this is the same bird, who must have wintered in this area by the Rio Grande. 

        Hairy Woodpecker male in the  Bosque.                                                                   

Sketchers Gathering-Los Poblanos Open Space

In mid-February my sketching group gathered at the Community Garden. Sandhill Cranes were foraging in the adjacent field. Most of us lined up our chairs at the edge of the field to sketch them. They stayed so close, unbothered by our quiet presence.

 

Further south in the fields, a lone Ross's Goose (similar species to a Snow Goose and a bit smaller) was hanging out with the Canada Geese.

 

And a Roadrunner was doing its barking "song" that we only hear during courtship and breeding time. This sound is mostly associated with the female, calling from a tree to attract her mate.

 A Walk at Tingley Open Space

 

Late in the month, I joined a friend to walk around the ponds at Tingley Open Space. At the Cormorant roost, most of the nests were occupied by pairs of Neotropic Cormorants. One pair was engaged in an interaction which I imagine is part of their courtship. The lower bird is in adult plumage. The upper bird is browner, still in juvenile plumage, so a first year bird. I know of other bird species (eg-Cooper's Hawk)  that retain juvenile plumage through their first breeding season, yet still are ready to breed. This must also be the case for Cormarants. 

 

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The south pond in the open space continues to host fewer birds than usual this winter.compared to past years. Past winters have found healthy numbers of Wigeon, each pair associating with an American Coot. The Coot will dive, and the Wigeon wait for the food that the Coot's diving brings to the surface. On this day, a pair of American Wigeon were associating instead with a Redhead male. Redheads, like Coots, are divers. We watched a while, and sure enough, the Wigeon were grabbing food that rose to the surface while the Redhead was under water. All went swimmingly until one of the Wigeon grabbed some food right out of the Redhead's bill. At that point, the Redhead swam off. The Redhead's presence in the south pond is another unusual thing this winter. This is the more shallow of the two open space ponds and does not normally host diving ducks. I wonder what has changed this winter: Are the water levels higher for some reason?

 

 

 

On the north pond, a Great Egret stood on the island in a lordly stance. This is probably the same Great Egret that has been ranging around the Albuquerque Bosque all winter, though I hadn't seen it since early January.

That's it for February. So long til  next time!