Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

Snow geese and other light geese taking flight

November 10th marked our 5 month anniversary of travelling in our RV and being ‘On the Road with Maya.’  And in that time we had driven almost 10,000 miles!  That meant we needed to get our first service for the Sprinter chassis – oil change, fluid check, etc.  From Santa Fe, the nearest authorized service center was El Paso and that suited our need to head south and stay ahead of the cold temperatures.  Lucky for us and right on our way was the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge near San Antonio, New Mexico (also home of the Buckhorn Cafe, famous for their green chile cheeseburgers). We had time and warm enough weather for a couple of days stop.

Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

 
Although David and I had been doing some birding all along our travels, we had not gone specifically to one birding destination. So we decided it was about time. The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is on the Central Flyway for migrating birds and is the winter home of thousands of sandhill cranes, geese and waterfowl. We had never been to the refuge and were excited to be there during migration and just a week before the 25th Festival of the Cranes.  The Festival marks the arrival of the first large waves of migrating sandhill cranes and snow geese.  It is  not uncommon to see 3,000 to 8,000 cranes and 30,000 to 40,000 geese during this time.

Sandhill cranes at sunset

Marsh area at the Bosque

The wave of migrating birds had just begun to arrive and David and I estimated that we saw about a thousand cranes and maybe 10,000 snow geese plus Canadian geese, Ross’s geese, thousands of ducks – mallards, pintails, buffleheads, black bellied whistling duck, blue-winged teal and cormorants and coots .  Throw in some white ibis, night herons, egrets, roseate spoonbills, brown thrashers, harriers, American kestrels, red tail hawks, an Aplomado falcon, and these two novice birders had a great time.  We saw more birds, we just weren’t good enough and quick enough to identify them all.  But what fun to try and what a great place to work on it!  It has inspired us to do more birding.  So, look for us on the Texas Coast this winter…