Columnist Susan Snyder: Red Rock group is unflappable

Monday, April 4, 2005 | 8:14 a.m.

Rita Schlageter hoisted a tall field scope over her shoulder and joined a small group of people huddled against brisk morning winds at Floyd Lamb State Park.

The objective of the Red Rock Audubon Society's Thursday field trip started as soon as the bird-watchers emerged from their cars.

"Oooh, look at that, next to the white truck," Schlageter said, locking the scope's tripod and pointing to a large bird perched atop a post across the parking lot.

The truck inched forward and blocked the view.

"Darn it," she said, still focusing the scope. "It was something large ..." the truck moved out of the way. "Oh, yes! It's a red-tail (hawk). A young one."

The dark bands across its breast and absence of red tail feathers revealed its youth.

Seconds after Schlageter explained the day's trip, we watched the hawk fly into a large elm tree, where a handful of mockingbirds squawked and dive-bombed the raptor perched in "their" tree.

"I'll come out by myself and see four birds," Jann Shevin, a Red Rock birder, said. "But I'll come out with Rita and see 20."

By noon we'd spotted 42 species. They included some with impressive names, such as ruby-crowned kinglet and black-crowned night heron. Others had less heady names but were no less impressive to see, such as the lesser goldfinch and Anna's hummingbird.

A bird walk with Schlageter is an education. Once you get the knack of looking up -- rather than down -- and learn to spot the slightest movement in a shrub, it's hard to avoid seeing the birds. It's even harder to see them all at once.

While my binoculars were still locked on the brilliant orange and steel-gray feathers of an American kestrel (a falcon) perched atop a park building, Schlageter and others had honed in on a phainopepla sitting in a tree behind me.

The sleek black bird (a flycatcher) has red eyes and a pointy tuft on its head. Its Nevada presence is limited to the Las Vegas Valley, where it thrives on berries from mistletoe growing in undisturbed mesquite trees.

The bird teetered on its branch as land-moving machines whirred beyond the park boundary. Habitat degradation and house cats threaten its existence.

"They're a marvelous bird," Schlageter said. "I just hope we don't lose them in the valley."

Becoming a birder isn't complicated, she said. Anyone who loves one aspect of the outdoors migrates to other areas -- like birding. Even a short morning walk through the neighborhood can be an adventure.

"You never really know. You might see something new and exciting," Schlageter said. "Sit in your backyard and get to know the birds there first."

A guide with good pictures helps. Schlageter and others favor the "National Geographic Field Guide to North America."

Eric Blumensaadt, 62, recently moved to Las Vegas from Pennsylvania and just joined Red Rock Audubon. The duck hunter and retired high school teacher said Thursday's outing was his first, but definitely not his last.

"This is a lot more fun than I thought it would be," he said, adjusting the tripod hunting scope that he now uses to watch birds. "I'm glad I joined."