Why call it a flag bird? It has a reddish-brown body, a white face and underwings, and bluish-gray wings, cap, and back.
This little guy (American Kestrel) was with a few other native hawks and falcons at a little stand, and it seemed agitated. They pulled out this feather from it and it was covered in blood, and apparently this feather was bugging it. Oh well. I love spotting them on wires and diving for lunch.
This is at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (a little south of Socorro, New Mexico) at the Festival of the Cranes, September 2007 (2008's festival was November: a better viewing time). Here goes another one of my lectures: This famous stretch of the Rio Grande (Bosque del Apache= "Forest of the Apache") is a re-created habitat of what it used to be. It consists of several oxbows, flooded ponds, the river (duh), agricultural fields, and now they have been working really hard to remove as many evil water-guzzling, soil ruining tamarisks as possible. This is one of the greatest southwest, both aquatic and southwestern specialty, site for aquatic birds typical of swamps (Neotropic and Double Crested Cormorants, American Bittern, Little and Great Blue Heron, several Egrets, Numerous ducks, rails, geese, grebes, and other waterfowl, and more). The greatest, and most famous, spectacle here is of the enormous concentration of arctic geese and Sandhill Cranes. Whooping Cranes have been found here, and a man living nearby raises Whooping and Sandhill cranes and teaches them how to fly. The best viewing for these huge flocks is from late fall to early spring. There has been more than 369 species recorded here, and over 100 could be seen in one day.
I could go on and on and on, but the bottom line is that this is a place worth seeing when visiting the southwest.