Bosque del Apache
Here’s another interesting activity for the winter months in New Mexico. At the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge there are tens of thousands of birds during the winter time. Every morning at sunrise there’s a mass-ascension and every evening when the sun sets there’s a mass fly-in. Thousands of cranes, geese and ducks will lift off at the same time or gently glide back down to the water.
We packed our car on Saturday morning and took the 150 miles drive down to the South. The Jeep was packed with all of Pia’s stuff, two dogs, photo equipment and, most importantly, the cooler with snacks. As usual we start working on the sandwiches 5 mins after leaving home …
When we arrive in Socorro (be gentle with the web-site, especially all those broken images/links) we find out that it’s too early to check-in at the hotel. So we drive to the historic part of Socorro and have a coffee with some cake as a refreshment. Rejuvenated we go back to the hotel, check-in, drop off our stuff and then head further down south to the “San Antonio” exit of I-25. At the visitor center we try to orient ourselves and find the “best spot” for the fly-in later that day.
Once that’s been sorted out, we go on the “Marsh Loop Tour” (see the map at http://www.friendsofthebosque.org/tourmapsmall.gif).
The park is beautiful and volunteers/rangers have done a very good job in providing viewing platforms and maintaining the gravel roads there. We see geese, cranes and all sorts of ducks. Pia is still a bit tired from the car ride, but she gets in a better mood when she sees all the water and birds on the water.
There are some areas where a walkway over the water is provided. This is great, because it allows you to get very close to the birds on the water without getting your feet wet.
Yes, we brought the dogs. At the visitor center we found out that dogs are allowed all over the park, but that they (obviously) have to be kept on a leash. The dogs freak out when they see all those tasty birds and are not allowed to chase them just a teeny little bit. It’s like taking a kid to Disney World and then not letting the kid get on any of the rids …
As sunset time is approaches we make our way to the “Flight Deck” (viewing platform 7 on the map) and await the fly-in of the birds. During the day the birds feed in areas close-by and in the evening they are drawn back to the lakes of the Bosque. Unfortunately it seems to be the one day where a) it had to rain exactly as the fly-in was supposed to happen b) the birds decide to land where they are not even within range of the long camera lenses.
Our friends Amy + Gavin (plus Marika) are also in the Bosque this weekend and initially we had planned to have a picnic together. But the teething baby decides to get awfully cranky when we get back into the car and we decide to rather head back to the hotel and prepare the little one for bed.
I take the dogs for a quick walk and get some (really yummy) take-out from a Mexican place called El Sombrero while Candice puts Pia down in the pack-n-play. When we return the baby’s already asleep.
We feed the dogs, feed ourselves and then get ready for bed. The two puppies sleep in the corner of the room on their dog beds. It’s hot and the dogs are restless in the small, unfamiliar room. At 11:00pm the nightmare starts. Frisco starts whining and pacing between the door and our bed. I’m afraid they will wake up Pia and ask them politely to return to their beds. It doesn’t help and a few minutes later I hear something that sounds like …. uhhh …. a “wet fart”. When I switch on the light, I see that Frisco (who had suffered from a bit of diarrhea on the walk earlier this evening) had left some “marks” on the room’s carpet. GREAT! JUST GREAT! I get dressed, because I know that he has to go out soon and while I’m still getting dressed he drops the biggest pile in front of the bathroom door. Within minutes the room smells like the bathrooms on Amsterdam’s main railway station.
I take the dogs outside and Frisco drops a few more puddle-piles. I know that this will go on the whole night and I don’t want to interrupt the babies sleep, so upon return to the room I cleanup the mess (abusing two of the towels in the room), pack the doggie beds, put them in the back of the car and decide to spend the night out there with them. Temperatures around the freezing point, a dog that wants to go outside several times and way too little space in the car do not offer a great sleeping environment. I probably sleep for about an hour that night and I get back into the room at 6:30am. Now it doesn’t smell that bad anymore. We have a quick breakfast, check-out (we do mention the towels, but we tell them that we had an accident in the car - that’s why I don’t want to provide more details about the hotel), load up the car and then head back down to the Bosque.
I get a few good shots of the cranes in the morning mist, but by far not as many good photos as I had hoped for.
We complete the whole tour loop and then drive back up to Santa Fe where we arrive at about 1pm.
Everybody is happy to be back home, you can almost hear the sigh of relief from the dogs and Pia celebrates by dancing in front of the house on “her” rock.
Next time we go, I think we are going to leave the dogs at home with a dog sitter …
.:. I really like this shot of your gorgeous daughter, she’s so cute. The outfit, I’m really loving it LOL it looks like it could be from the Hmong culture or Tibetan… Either way this picture is adorable .:.