Our Trip to Manzano State Park

Manzano State Park is located about an hour and a half south east of Albuquerque.  We first visited it during the summer of 2015 when I was taking my course at the Hypnotherapy Academy of America.  We liked it so much we put it high on our list of campsites.  We camped there during June of 2016.

It is blessed with great hiking trails, many birds and fauna.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the bird feeders near our trailer.  It shows two humming birds feeding at once.  Originally I misidentified them as Rufus, but was corrected by Margaret's niece and nephew.  I believe they are broad tails.  It is unusual to see two feeding at once because they are pretty aggressive, but probably not as much so as Rufus.

Margaret was enjoying relaxing in the shade, a precious item at New Mexico State Parks.  Our campsite was located close to a humming bird feeder and a seed feeder, so we were able to enjoy bird watching and photography every day.

Here is one of the broad tail humming birds at the feeder.

This is a nuthatch at the feeder.

The Black Chinned humming bird is quite pretty, but fast and hard to photograph.  Patience and persistence pays off.

I believe this is a Western Tanager.  The Tanagers only came in about 10 am each day and stayed for a few minutes.

This Stellar Jay came by from time to time, but I never saw him at the feeder.

These three pictures show the Albert's squirrel running towards me, feeding on the ground, and feeding on the bird feeder.  Although it is called the Albert's squirrel (a common name), a more common name given to it by the campers is the skunk squirrel because when it is running away from you, with it's stripped tail raised, it looks like a skunk.  It is often mistaken for one, and while camping there we heard several people call out a warning of "skunk!"  We never actually saw a skunk at the park.

Notice in the last picture the white stripe on the squirrel's tail.

We saw a lot of Fly Catcher activity around the feeder and the park office and rest rooms.

Here is the reason there was so much activity by the fly catchers There nest was right above the entrance to the ranger's office.

This a Black Headed Grosbeak.  We saw both the mail and the female of this species.

On my next post I will show some of the plants and animals we saw during our visit to Manzano.