Most of my birding in Santa Fe is done at the Randall Davey Audubon Sanctuary at the upper end of Canyon Road.  The center has feeders and a few bird baths which attract a lot of the local birds.  This year for the first time I saw a small flock of turkeys.  But on to the photographs.

This is a White-breasted nuthatch, at least one of which I see on every visit.  And these photos are of a typical posture, almost always seen traveling DOWN a tree trunk.  I seldom see nuthatches (White-breasted or our own Western Washington Red-breasted) actually eating seeds.  Instead they industriously store most of the seeds they get in cracks and crannies in the bark of trees for later consumption.

This is a Dark-eyed junco (Slate-colored race), one of the few I have ever seen outside our yard in Skagit County.

The most prevalent of the Dark-eyed juncos at the Sanctuary appears to be this Gray-headed race, but I also saw a few of the Oregon race.  I think there is at least one other race that may be found at the sanctuary but the distinguishing characteristics between the races are too subtle for me to identify!

I observed several visits from noisy Western Scrub jays who always want to announce their presence at the feeder.

This male House finch was picking at berries left on one of the trees.

And one of my favorite birds that can always be found at the sanctuary is a Mountain chickadee.  We supposedly have these birds in Skagit County but one has yet to make it to and be observed in our yard.

We saw many other species of birds on our New Mexico trip for which I haven’t posted photos.  My next posting will be of birds back in Skagit County, WA.