View allAll Photos Tagged BosquedelApache
I was told this was the most photographed tree in the reserve. It stands by itself by one of the ponds where the sandhill cranes and snow geese settle for the night and of course shows a wonderful reflection.
Home from a cold overcast weekend at Bosque del Apache. Since the weekend was kind of a blur I though I'd post one for your enjoyment while I catch up!
More snow geese: this is mostly about an adult sandwiched between the two juveniles. If I were writing captions, for the adult, it might go: "see, you want to look carefully for the best shoots and grasses - yes, you've got a good one." There's also a young Ross's Goose behind the right Snow. Their bills are a tad shorter and lack the black marking. They're also a little smaller.
Bosque del Apache, NM, November 2017.
Notice the bands around both the neck and leg of this sandhill crane at Bosque del Apache, NM. I didn't get a chance to ask about why there are 2 bands. Anyone know?
In case you were wondering what Bosque del Apache looks like, this is a small part of it. This is just one field out of many in the Preserve. Some of the fields are flooded to enrich the soil and will be drained and planted at some time in the future. This is what used to happen naturally, until humans began to farm the region and needed protection from the floods that occasionally happened.
Now the Preserve manages the floods and plants food for the birds, so they can fatten up to build reserves for their long return to the North. The light tan on the right is a field of corn. They knock down only a few rows of corn every day, because it has to last for the winter.
In the foreground, hidden in the brush, are the banks of an irrigation ditch, which is part of the system to irrigate the growing crops and flood the fields. I don't know what the Geese and Cranes were eating in the field, but it doesn't seem like it's going to last all winter. Off frame to the right is where they knock down the corn and it was packed with birds much more densely than anything you can see in this image. The birds don't always go to the same place, so you have to drive around the loops to find them. We only went to the North loop and it takes about 20 minutes to drive around it.
When a Bald Eagle flew over, all the Geese you can see and all the ones next to the corn field blasted off at once, but the Cranes remained calm. There is another, smaller irrigation ditch that runs between the corn and the green field and when a Coyote was using this ditch to hunt in, both the Geese and the Cranes blasted off, before he got too close, which was even more spectacular than just the Geese.
I was there for a photo workshop during The Crane Festival, where they had vendors, food, and special events. There is a permanent visitor center, which is where the vendors were set up in tents. I was impressed by the daily bird count that was posted in the Visitors Center:
Canada Geese - 225
Snow Geese - 37,000
Ducks - 53,000
Sandhill Cranes - 6,500
Bald Eagles - 2
A pair of ducks feed on one of the many ponds at Bosque del Apache.
More water there than we've seen in several years thanks to a particularly wet monsoon season.
Greater Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis tabida) taking off from one of the pond outside the actual refuge central area. Image taken at Bosque del Apache, New Mexico.