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11/12/08
Mountain Bluebirds at Buffalo Lake
Filed under: General, Birding & Outdoors, NM & SW US, Grandchildren
Posted by: Ken @ 10:42 pm

Entrance Sign (click on this and the other photos for additional sets of images):

Buffalo Lake Sign

We flew out to visit our son and his wife and five children in the Texas Panhandle. Our grandchildren wanted to visit Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge, located south of Amarillo, in Canyon, Texas. The refuge held some surprises today. Over the past 15 years, we have visited Buffalo Lake many times, but this was the first time we saw Mountain Bluebirds. A flock of about a dozen of these beautiful birds entertained us. As usual, we saw many deer, but we also saw two other furry and spiny creatures.

Mountain Bluebird peers at me intensely (click on photo for more views):

Mountain Bluebird Perched 20081112

This Mountain Bluebird flew down to forage in the grass, landing only about ten feet away (click photo for more views):

Mountain Bluebird Close 20081112

Bluebirds often hover in place for a second or two, and sometimes glean in trees or in the grass while hovering. I did not capture this behavior, but did catch this one just leaving a perch (click on photo for more views):  

Mountain Bluebird 2008_11_12 Buffalo Lake 016

Many meadowlarks were singing. I only heard the carols of the Eastern Meadowlark:

Eastern Meadowlark 2008_11_12 Buffalo Lake

The children were delighted when their Mom spotted a clump in a tree that turned out to be a porcupine (click photo for more views):

Porcupine Face 2008_11_12 Buffalo Lake

Also representing the mammalian class, two coyotes watched us. This one allowed me to approach within about 100 yards:

Coyote 2008_11_12 Buffalo Lake 104

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