TinSparrow has completed all 33 of the New Mexico
Challenge caches. In honor of this achievement, a 34th cache is
designed according to his specifications. His requests were for a
location in the Santa Fe area with a bit of a walk, a collaboration
between bob8bear and cougarox, and a puzzle cache. This is his 34th
cache.
If you have a problem with the puzzle, contact
cougarox. If you have solved the puzzle and have trouble with the
physical cache, contact bob8bear.
The coordinates are not for the cache; they
are the suggested parking.
The city open space area is closed between 10:00
p.m. and 6:00 a.m.. Hopefully folks will replace the cache the same
way they found it, which will help to keep it from detection. As
with all open space trails, watch for muggles as this cache
keeps getting muggled. It's now a bison tube. Please be
stealthy and put it back like you found it.
There IS a puzzle below!
Click here to check your answer
TinSparrow: New Mexico Challenged
A cache placed by Bob8Bear, a puzzle created by CougarOx, and a
listing published by NMGeocaching. Good luck and have fun!
The Taxonomy of Sparrows:
- Kingdom: Animalia
- Phylum: Chordata
- Class: Aves
- Order: Passeriformes
The Passeriformes order includes the following families:
Passeridae (true sparrows); Prunellidae (accentors); Motacillidae
(wagtails and pipits); Peucedramidae (Olive Warblers); Estrildidae
(estrildid finches (waxbills, munias, etc)); Ploceidae (weavers);
Viduidae (indigobirds and whydahs); Icteridae (grackles, New World
blackbirds, and New World orioles); Parulidae (New World warblers);
Thraupidae (tanagers and similar species); Cardinalidae
(cardinals); and Emberizidae (towhees, buntings and New World, or
American, sparrows). Passerine, or perching birds birds make up
over half of all of the known species of birds, with species
diversity roughly twice that of the most diverse mammalian order,
Rodentia (neither of which holds a candle to the Insecta order of
arthropods).
True Sparrows are some of the most common of this order. Indeed,
the order name is derived from Passer domesticus, the
house sparrow's Latin name. True sparrows are native to Europe,
Asia, and Africa, but some species have been naturalized in the
Americas and Australia. American sparrows are from the family
Emberizidae, and are more closely related genetically to buntings
and towhees than to their Passeridae cousins although these are
also from the Passeriformes order and share some morpological
characteristics such as their seed-eaters' bills and head
markings.
The Morphology, Habitat and Diet of Sparrows:
Sparrows are small ( 4-7" in length and 6-8" in wingspan) birds.
Their bills are short, stout and conical, and their tails are of
short to medium length. Their upper parts are usually dark brown,
often streaked or mottled with gray and their under parts are
white, light brown or buff. Size, coloration, and beaks vary by
genus, species, habitat, and diet. In general, sparrows live in
grasslands, shrubs or open woods.
During the winter, sparrows feed on small-seeded fruits and on a
variety of seeds, including those of grasses, weeds and cereal
grains as well as some insects. They also feed on arthropods, like
aphids, caterpillars, flies and beetles, and on spiders. During
breeding season and summer, they eat more adult and larval insects
as well as seeds and occasionally insect eggs, millipedes, and
isopods. Coastal dwelling sparrows also eat molluscs.
Some of the sparrows that you might encounter in New Mexico and
the Southwest include the following species: