A BELATED HAPPY TURKEY DAY
This is a little late...but we have been busy. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving.
No big dinner or lounging around watching the Detroit Lions game for us.
We arrived at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Bosque is a 57,331 acre wildlife refuge that is a key stopover for migrating waterfowl. It is best known for the thousands of sandhill cranes, geese, and other waterfowl.
So we are in a campground just over a mile from the refuge. Bosque is along the Rio Grande river and between the Chupadera Mountains on the west and the San Pascual Mountains to the east, at an elevation of 4500 feet. Being in the high desert the mornings are cold and the afternoon temps are comfortable. A 30 degree swing between sunrise and noon is normal. This morning my truck said 26 degrees as I drove into the refuge a half hour before sunrise. Right now it's 9:30 am and the temp is at 50 deg with a forecasted high of 72 degrees. I am sure you have all heard it's a dry heat. Well let me tell you the flip side of that saying is that it's a dry cold. To me 26 degrees in the desert feels a lot colder than it does in the midwest.
Wednesday evening we went to the visitor center for some orientation and maps. Did a short hike on a desert trail near the visitors center then went to the "crane ponds" for "fly in". As the sun was setting hundreds of sandhill cranes started to arrive. By sundown there had to be a thousand or more cranes on the water.
We were back at the ponds for sunrise. There were still hundreds of cranes in the water, but then it started at about 15 minutes before sunrise. First you hear it, then when you look up to the south, here they come....thousands of snow and Ross's geese. They kept flying our way and then set there wings and glided into the pond, landing amongst all of the cranes. What an event to witness.
The geese came in about 3 waves. What a racquet all of the geese and cranes made. Constant chattering by thousands of birds all talking at once.
For Thanksgiving we drove the auto loop (15 miles) and did a few short hikes. Then we had our Thanksgiving dinner which Gloria had cooking in a slow cooker while we were away. 2 Cornish hens. It was great. Sundown is at 5:00pm so we called it a day after dinner. Some family phone calls and then early to bed. Sunrise comes at 6:47 am, so I need to be back out.
Dinner picture below. The first morning I was shooting video and will post a few clips in a future post. Right now keeping batteries charged and images backed up it a full time job.
iPhone DNG image, taken with and edited in Adobe Lightroom CC
No big dinner or lounging around watching the Detroit Lions game for us.
We arrived at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.
Bosque is a 57,331 acre wildlife refuge that is a key stopover for migrating waterfowl. It is best known for the thousands of sandhill cranes, geese, and other waterfowl.
So we are in a campground just over a mile from the refuge. Bosque is along the Rio Grande river and between the Chupadera Mountains on the west and the San Pascual Mountains to the east, at an elevation of 4500 feet. Being in the high desert the mornings are cold and the afternoon temps are comfortable. A 30 degree swing between sunrise and noon is normal. This morning my truck said 26 degrees as I drove into the refuge a half hour before sunrise. Right now it's 9:30 am and the temp is at 50 deg with a forecasted high of 72 degrees. I am sure you have all heard it's a dry heat. Well let me tell you the flip side of that saying is that it's a dry cold. To me 26 degrees in the desert feels a lot colder than it does in the midwest.
Wednesday evening we went to the visitor center for some orientation and maps. Did a short hike on a desert trail near the visitors center then went to the "crane ponds" for "fly in". As the sun was setting hundreds of sandhill cranes started to arrive. By sundown there had to be a thousand or more cranes on the water.
We were back at the ponds for sunrise. There were still hundreds of cranes in the water, but then it started at about 15 minutes before sunrise. First you hear it, then when you look up to the south, here they come....thousands of snow and Ross's geese. They kept flying our way and then set there wings and glided into the pond, landing amongst all of the cranes. What an event to witness.
The geese came in about 3 waves. What a racquet all of the geese and cranes made. Constant chattering by thousands of birds all talking at once.
For Thanksgiving we drove the auto loop (15 miles) and did a few short hikes. Then we had our Thanksgiving dinner which Gloria had cooking in a slow cooker while we were away. 2 Cornish hens. It was great. Sundown is at 5:00pm so we called it a day after dinner. Some family phone calls and then early to bed. Sunrise comes at 6:47 am, so I need to be back out.
Dinner picture below. The first morning I was shooting video and will post a few clips in a future post. Right now keeping batteries charged and images backed up it a full time job.
iPhone DNG image, taken with and edited in Adobe Lightroom CC
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