Tucked away in the middle of New Mexico you’ll find the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument. Its three distinct sites offer a glimpse into a unique time in history—a time entrenched with cultural borrowing, conflict, and struggles. These sites continue to stand as reminders of the Spanish and Pueblo peoples’ early encounters and prompt exploration of today’s interactions among different people.

For hundreds of years, the Missions, Pueblos, Kivas, and Homesteads of Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument have stood as testaments to the people and cultures that have called this area home. From the prehistoric Ancestral Puebloan and Jumano groups to the 17th century Spanish Franciscan missionaries, the returning settlers of the 1800s, and the 19th and 20th-century archaeologists and Park Service employees, the People, Places, and Stories of the Salinas Pueblo Missions make this a special place.

By National Park standards Salinas has modest dimensions, scarcely exceeding 1000 acres, and even these are not contiguous, but split into three units spaced as far as 35 miles apart. And yet, while considerable diversity of birds and habitats might have been expected in such a scattershot park, the homogeneity of habitat in this piñon/juniper life zone is a decidedly unifying factor, which allows the Salinas bird list to be broadly applicable to all three units. Still, each of the units (Gran Quivira, Quarai, and Abó) has its distinctive signature, dependent in large measure on the availability of wetland resources. Amazingly, in seven short years (1996-2002) more than 150 bird species were documented for Salinas. And if you’re looking for birds, Quarai is the place to find them.