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Bosque
"Bosque is the name for areas of gallery forest found along the riparian flood plains of stream and river banks in the southwestern United States. It derives its name from the Spanish word for woodlands. In the predominantly arid or semi-arid southwestern United States, the bosque is an oasis-like ribbon of green vegetation, often canopied, that only exists near rivers, streams, or other water courses. The most notable bosque is a 200 miles-long ecosystem along the middle Rio Grande in New Mexico that extends from Santa Fe past Socorro including the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. The five most common trees in the bosque habitat are generally smaller species which rarely exceed 10 metres, such as mesquite. Larger cottonwood trees are also common in some areas. Because there is only a single canopy layer and because the tree species found in the bosque are generally deciduous, a wide variety of shrubs, grasses, and other understory vegetation is also supported. Desert hackberry, blue palo verde, graythorn, Mexican elder, virgin's bower and Indian root all flourish in the bosque. The habitat also supports a large variety of lichens. For a semi-arid region, there is extraordinary biodiversity at the interface of the bosque and surrounding desert ecosystems." Definitions.net
It was fun to try to capture some silhouettes of the cranes as they came in to roost around sunset with the sky ever-changing its hues.
Bosque del Apache, N.M. 12/13/2019.
A group of Sandhill Cranes glide into one of the ponds at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for an evening sojourn. Oh how I miss this place, I hope to get back some year here soon. This one is from the trip I first used my D300.
Happy Weekend All! ;-)))
We watched this Great Blue Heron at Bosque Del Apache fly onto a small pond. Don't know if he intended to land on the ice or not, but he/she missed the open water by several yards. The poor bird spent the next 15 minutes trying to unsuccessfully walk on the ice before finally getting enough grip to fly off.
Bosque
"Bosque is the name for areas of gallery forest found along the riparian flood plains of stream and river banks in the southwestern United States. It derives its name from the Spanish word for woodlands. In the predominantly arid or semi-arid southwestern United States, the bosque is an oasis-like ribbon of green vegetation, often canopied, that only exists near rivers, streams, or other water courses. The most notable bosque is a 200 miles-long ecosystem along the middle Rio Grande in New Mexico that extends from Santa Fe past Socorro including the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. The five most common trees in the bosque habitat are generally smaller species which rarely exceed 10 metres, such as mesquite. Larger cottonwood trees are also common in some areas. Because there is only a single canopy layer and because the tree species found in the bosque are generally deciduous, a wide variety of shrubs, grasses, and other understory vegetation is also supported. Desert hackberry, blue palo verde, graythorn, Mexican elder, "virgin's bower", and "Indian root" all flourish in the bosque. The habitat also supports a large variety of lichens. For a semi-arid region, there is extraordinary biodiversity at the interface of the bosque and surrounding desert ecosystems." Definitions.net
Early Spring at the Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in Mew Mexico. The migratory wildfowl that uses the refuge had already headed north but it was still a nice place to visit.
Seeing the Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico was high on my bucket list. So, I marked it off in November 2017.
I've not posted a landscape for a while, so here is an image the Bosque del Apache, New Mexico, taken during a beautiful golden hour in December. You can see a few sandhill cranes in the water and field.
Hope you are enjoying a beautiful Wednesday. Thanks, as always, for stopping by and for all of your kind comments -- I appreciate them all.
© Melissa Post 2018
Loggerhead Shrike (Lanius ludovicianus). Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, USA.
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Resembling the crowds on an LA freeway on a Friday afternoon before a 3-day weekend, thousands of snow geese take to the air en masse to search for their next feeding site at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico.
Snow geese {Anser caerulescens} congregate in a marsh at Bosque del Apache ready to lift off with the rising sun. Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis) can be seen in the pond's far side. Some birds are already airborne in the background.
From my first predawn morning at "the Bosque", we heard we should be early so we got to the "staging area" before dawn - in fact, it was still so dark you could hear all the wonderful sounds of the sandhill cranes at the pond, but you couldn't SEE them. So this one is pre-sunrise, and it was the only morning we got some great color in the sky. The cranes were there, and the geese actually flew in before a later "blast-off". I added a link to the video below - check it out with sound up and be submerged in the spectacle.