Jan 12, 2023 Day 4 Carlsbad, NM

The wind died down around 7:00pm last night and it was a relief for things to quiet down. It was chilly overnight at 36 degrees, but the sun was bright today with few to little clouds, and the temperatures warmed up to the upper 50s. Most of New Mexico is in higher elevations with cooler temperatures but the air is dry (almost too dry) and a day is the 50s with sun is quite comfortable.

I worked today and Ron did a bit of preventative maintenance along with a couple walks to capture some photos of birds. He was able to photograph 3 different species that we’ve not seen previously and that is always exciting.

The first bird he photographed was the Double-Crested Cormorant. This bird is a member of the cormorant family of waterbirds. They float low on the water and dive to catch small fish. They are all black with a yellow orange on their face.

The next bird is the Scaled Quail, say that 3 times as fast as you can! Also commonly called blue quail or cottontop (you’ll see why this name in the photos below). It is a bluish gray bird found in the arid regions of the Southwest. On our afternoon walk we came across them in the rocky desert – there must have been 15 – 20 of them. They fly but they appear to scavenge the desert for food, running here and there.

The 3rd bird we almost overlooked because we initially thought it was a Mourning Dove, which we have in abundance in Ohio. But in further researching the photos Ron took, we determined they are a White-Winged Dove. And for you Stevie Nicks fans out there, here’s a few lyrics “Just like the white winged dove sings a song, sounds like she’s singing, Ooh, ooh, ooh etc.”. We’ve seen them several times but again, thinking they were a common bird we’ve seen hundreds of times, did not stop to photograph it until today.

Justice is adapting well to the trip and likes the walks and meeting most dogs. This campground does not have a dog park, but he’s met a few on our walks. Before we left for our trip, we thought we would get him to sleep on the couch in the camper – but that’s not happening, he must be near us at night. The Airstream has twin beds, and he wants to sleep on the floor between them. For a short time, he was in bed with one of us for a few nights, but from the size of him to the size of our mattress, that’s not happening either. I figured out he likes our memory foam mattress, so I found some memory foam pillows and bought 3 of them. I then bought a body pillowcase and have the 3 pillows inside it to make a long bed about the width of the floor between our beds. It still wasn’t quite right because the pillows kept shifting, but the problem was solved by placing a heavy, cooling mat over the pillows. They now stay in place, the pillows are soft, and the mat is cooling – whew! He seems to like it really well and sleeping there all night :)!

It was a quiet day, but we have a couple busier days coming up with a shopping trip and laundry tomorrow, and Carlsbad Caverns on Saturday.