Description:

This WhatBbird.com field guide identifies the birds that are most commonly seen during the winter at Sandia Crest, just east of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Situated at 10, 678 feet elevation, the Sandia Crest House Gift Shop and Restaurant comfortably provides spectacular views through its many picture windows. During the winter, bird feeders attract high-elevation bird species, including Red Crossbills, Cassin’s Finches and large flocks of rosy-finches. Naturalists from everywhere come to see the rosy-finches, as this is the most accessible place in the world where all three species gather. Brown-capped, Gray-crowned and Black Rosy-finches breed in disparate, distinct, and sometimes distant places, yet converge here during the winter. This book, with seventeen large format illustrations and full species descriptions, is dedicated to the memory of Ryan Beaulieu, a teen researcher who studied these birds and inspired many with his birding knowledge and skill. Ryan died tragically in 2005.