Larry Gorbet lgorbet at mail.unm.edu
Albuquerque, NM

Last Saturday, I had a remarkable day of birding with two friends, Charles
Black and John Parmeter. But this is preamble. We went out to a migrant
trap in eastern New Mexico and managed to see some pretty good birds and
one REALLY good bird. The former: a YELLOW-THROATED VIREO, AMERICAN
REDSTART (pretty regular in small numbers). The latter a brilliant male
GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER (which I got pretty good photos of as it fed, with
minimal attention to the humans around, on and near the ground). It was
probably the second or third confirmed record for NM. We got back to
Albuquerque just in time to get a phone message that a RUFF (actually,
Reeve) had been seen at Bosque del Apache Refuge (100 miles south). We
saddled up and shot down and got good looks and passable photos (for NM's
first confirmed record).

While there, I got to chatting with my banding companions Nancy & Steve Cox
and they talked me (or so I will claim) into meeting at 4 am Sunday and
heading for the migrant trap again! Well, I'll skip the little details. We
didn't find the golden-winged warbler, but we did end up spending about
30-40 minutes with the most intense flock of NM passerines I've ever seen
(or heard about, for that matter). Probably about 20 individuals
(*possibly* close to 30, but I really doubt it):

Ruby-crowned Kinglet (several)
YELLOW-THROATED VIREO (2) probable pair (based on behavior and

plumage difference) and probably first
multiple in NM
TENNESSEE WARBLER
Orange-crowned Warbler (1-2)
NORTHERN PARULA female, a state bird for me 2 wks ago
Yellow-rumped Warbler (5-10?) both Audubon's and Myrtle
BLACKBURNIAN WARBLER male, a very good bird in NM
AMERICAN REDSTART female
Wilson's Warbler (several)

A pretty generous April for me ( <-- excessive understatement!!),
list-wise. I started the month with a New Mexico list of 412 species (thank
you Rosy-finches) and added 6 new ones going birding just 5 days. Though
the last were mostly eastern vagrants, I began with two unlikely western
ones (a lingering but hard-to-find GLAUCOUS-WINGED GULL and a pretty
unusual for spring HERMIT WARBLER). *All* the new state birds were almost
unnaturally cooperative so far as giving good looks and even photo
opportunities :-)