Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge lies in the Rio Grande valley in west central New Mexico. For eons rain flowed down the mountains into the valley to the river. Monsoons would flood the river and new channels would form. The old river beds and wetlands supported wildlife and was a corridor for migrating birds. Some would spend the winter in the Bosque area.
Ten minutes to sunset:
Sandhill cranes over Chupadera Mountains
For thousands of years native tribes hunted, farmed, and lived in the valley and each year the birds returned. New settlers could not live with a river that flooded and changed its course. So the river was dammed, irrigation canals were dug, and the river was tamed. Wetlands disappeared, food for the birds was gone and the birds, too, began to disappear.
Sandhill crane and cottonwood
In the 1930s, giving jobs to young men who were devastated by the Depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps began restoring the floodplains in the Bosque del Apache. In 1939, President Roosevelt signed legislation protecting over 57,000 thousand acres and adding Bosque to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge system. Birds began to return.
Bosque del Apache is one of over 500 national wildlife refuges managed by the Department of Interior. Staff regulate gates and ditches to mimic the seasonal flooding of wetlands. Water moves through fields, marshes and ponds and back to the Rio Grande. Invasive plants are removed, and natural food sources such as millet and chufa are returned, and other grain crops are grown. The flooded areas are nighttime homes for thousands of sandhill cranes, snow and ross’s geese, in part to protect them from coyote and other predators.
Sunset:
Sandhills may be the oldest living birds with 2.5 million year old fossils nearly identical to the current species. While they eat mainly grains and vegetation, they are omnivores and will happily take on insects, amphibians or small mammals. A young bird near me once pulled a mole out of the ground and had quiet a struggle getting it down, but eventually was successful. Though some subspecies stay year round in Florida, Mississippi and Cuba, most migrate to and from the Arctic. Pictured here are those part of the western flyway. I live under the eastern flyway, and as I prepare these images I heard a couple groups heading south even this late in the year. Their ancient call is remarkable, and I can hear it inside the house, and go outside and see them hundreds of feet in the sky.
When the birds begin landing, they usually “balloon” or “parachute” in with feet down, toes spread and wings akimbo. It is as if the nearby petroglyphs have come to life and are falling from the sky.
Desert southwest sunsets and sunrises can be breathtaking, but you need clouds for the colors to explode. I kept checking forecasts for my two mornings and evenings at Bosque, but they kept saying clear skies with the possibility of clouds the second day. The second afternoon skies were clear, but the forecast was for clouds. And they came! Of course, the images so far are with long telephoto lenses. But after the sun set and the colors began to change, it was time to reach into the bag for a wider view.
It can be a bit of a frenzy photographing birds in flight, though sandhills are pretty predictable and relatively slow. A peaceful sunset can be just as frantic capturing the rapidly changing light, searching for compositions, changing perspectives, and getting different lenses. And trying to simply enjoy the majestic scene developing in front of you.
A tough tip to remember during spectacular sunrise and sunset shows is to look behind you. This one lit the sky in all directions. Here’s looking behind where I took the last image.
And back looking the other way again to the most intense colors of the evening.
As the light fades, the birds continue to come from the fields in the surrounding areas where they’ve spent the day. The places with water are rare. The intense drought has continued for a couple years. The staff at Bosque del Apache cannot flood as many fields this year. An interview with Debora Williams, the director of the NWR explains the efforts to maintain the refuge under the challenges of drought. The interview starts at 33 minutes in, but this link might take you directly to that part of the show. Will we confront climate change? Will we invest in infrastructure and jobs like the CCC in the 1930s to enhance lives and the environment?
As the light fades, sandhills continue to parachute in. Time to get the long lens out and concentrate the last of the light. The Friends of Bosque del Apache support the refuge, staff the visitor center and the adjacent desert arboretum from where I’ll share more images. If you’d like to support their efforts, you can donate or purchase raffle tickets for a sandhill crane quilt. The raffle ends today!
Though many birds stay or travel through the refuge year round, the thousands of geese and sandhill cranes (and many turkeys, white pelicans, blackbirds, etc.) concentrate in the refuge from mid-November through January. If you haven’t yet, I hope you have the chance to visit.
