Black-Capped Chickadee

We visited Santa Fe over the weekend. We flew into Albuquerque, spent the night, then met up with friends for lunch in Bernalillo on our way to Santa Fe. That morning I spent about 2.5 hours at the Rio Grande Nature Center State Park, a beautiful 38 acre park near the Rio Grande River with four ponds, a beautiful garden and hiking trails.  

I was excited to find a new bird for my birding list, the black-capped chickadee. We have mountain chickadees come to our home bird feeder and I've seen mountain chickadees on nearby Mount San Bernardino, but I knew right away that this was a different species. 

I was watching a pond through a cement blind with a bird feeder nearby. The chickadee came in several times and I can tell it was the same bird because it was banded. 

The black-capped chickadee is the state bird of Massachusetts and Maine and the provincial bird of New Brunswick, Canada. The range map below, does not include New Mexico, but it appears to be a regular visitor as I saw bird pottery in Santa Fe which included one and some other references. 

Black-Capped Chickadee range from Wikipedia.

It has a black cap, a black bib, white on the sides of the face and the underparts, with rusty brown on the flanks. It has a gray back, a slate gray tail and a short black beak.