pecari tajacu
Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico
Thursday, May 5, 2022 — 6:45 am
I had just reached the refuge for some early morning birding and was checking in at the self-pay station when I spotted four dark animals about 70 yards away, partly hidden by vegetation. For one brief second, I wondered if they were small bears, but once I looked through my binoculars I knew they were Javalinas.
I finished paying, then pulled around on a road that ran right next to the animals. I was within 50 feet of them now. There were six or eight of them strung out almost single file and they seemed to be grazing on the grass. There was a half-grown young one, colored like the adults. They were aware of me and kept moving, but they didn’t panic and run off.
A few hours later, I saw a herd of perhaps 30 grazing through the grass along an open field.
At Paton’s Center for Hummingbirds in Patagonia on Sunday evening, one came out of the brush along the creek bed and fed under the feeders, not 30 feet away.
And on Thursday, at Patagonia-Sonoita Creek Sanctuary, I saw two wading in the creek and eating vegetation.
