One of the highlights of our New Mexico birding adventure is to spend some time at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Reserve. The sight has large impoundments surrounded by desert and serves as an oasis for migrating and wintering birds. Among the largest numbers of visitors for the winter are included the Snow goose and the Greater and Lesser Sandhill cranes. These birds fly great distances to come to the relative warmth and safety of the Bosque and birders and nature photographers fly from even greater distances to view the assemblage. Our first exposure to the refuge was beyond our wildest expectations. Literally thousands of cranes and geese swam and waded through the shallow pools where they were afforded ample supplies of food as well as protection from many of their natural enemies. Their shear numbers and the fact that they were surrounded by water kept many of their predators at bay. One of these, the coyote, was seen by us on several occasions, but it was only away from the reserve in a dry desert canyon that we actually witnessed a kill by this carnivore. More about that in a later posting. For now, enjoy the photos of the cranes, the Snow goose along with the smaller Ross's goose and the lone coyote who hunted in vain while we watched.
