Nine life-birds

It doesn't get much better than this. We expected to find some new life-birds on our trip to southcentral New Mexico, but 9 in one day? We travelled south about 1 1/2 hours from our motel in Socorro to the Perga Dam region. Our first stop was at Animas Creek Road, a small one lane road through scrub desert and an irrigated nursery. One life bird after another made an appearance starting with the cardinal-like Pyrrhuloxia and quickly followed by the "clownfaced" Acorn woodpecker. Say's phoebe, Brewer's sparrow, the White-winged dove (new for our North American list), Brewer's blackbird all made an appearance along this species-rich stretch of blacktop. Later at the Perga and Elephant butte dam areas, we added the Western and Clark's grebes and the Lesser goldfinch. Nine in one day! Definitely worth the time and effort to get to the "Land of Enchantment".