Bosque del Apache

I took a couple of days and went to visit my sister in Springerville, AZ. I left Rio Rancho and drove to Socorro, NM and then a half hour south to the village of San Antonio, NM where I turned off on another road to go to the Bosque del Apache Bird Refuge. I have been there several times over the years but it had been about 15 years since I was last there. It is a wonderful place where you can see just about any bird that can be found in New Mexico there most of the year. In the winter the place is home to lots of migratory birds, especially the Sandhill Crane and Snow Geese, as well as Canadian Geese and about a dozen kinds of ducks. Or they usually are. I was disappointed to not see the thousands of cranes and geese I had remembered seeing the times I had been there before. I did see more deer than I remembered seeing before as well as lots of Redtailed Hawks and Cooper's Hawks and 3 Bald Eagles. This refuge was started in 1939. The Festival of the Cranes is held every November when the Cranes come back with lots of special people to talk about birds and other things at the refuge. There are lots of other animals here, too, like deer, coyotes, bobcats, rabbits, javalena (a type of wild pig native to the Americas) There are many different kinds of lizards and snakes, too. There is a large visitors center and gift shop.

Canadian Geese

Redtailed Hawk

Bird viewing deck

Redtailed Hawk

Pair of Bald Eagles in the tree. A bit hard to see in this photo.

Bald Eagle using my zoom lens

A different Bald Eagle sitting on dead tree that I remember having been in this pond for at least 30 years.

Mule Deer

Sandhill Cranes

Canadian Geese

A pair of Mute Swans were grazing in a pasture outside of the Refuge near a private home.

Old train depot, I think, as it was by the tracks in San Antonio, NM

Old church in San Antonio, NM that is no longer in use. There was a fence around it so couldn't get close. Couldn't find out any history on it.

Bluewater Creek Canyon

We took a road that we had seen deer, elk, and turkey on many years before. It was rough and got rougher until we found we had come to the end of the road. We decided to step over the barbed wire fence where others had done the same before us. We walked out to the edge of a canyon and looked down, or tried to. We couldn't see the bottom. We could see many miles to the northwest beyond the canyon. The rock ledge was intriguing. There were black streaks down the almost smooth rock at one place. I wondered what could have caused the streaks like that. Had it been water falling over the ledge some time in the past when there wasn't the drought we are having now?
     Suddenly we heard an eagle scream. The big bird did it over and over. And then we saw the birds flying against the side of the ledge. Knowing that they are such big birds they looked small up against the side of the huge rock wall. They disappeared but then were back to fly right over our heads. We were so interested in looking at the eagles we almost forgot to try to get some photos and the only one I got was blurred.
       It was a wonderful experience to see the eagles. I think they were golden eagles. They just didn't look right to be juvenile bald eagles that have the dark heads. We agreed that rock wall would make the perfect place for an eagle nest but as much as we looked we couldn't see any sign of one. But we could only see the wall across from us and not the one right under our feet.

      When we got back I goggled around until I found out that the canyon was the head of Bluewater Creek Canyon that runs into Bluewater Lake that is just west of Grants according to the Cibola National Forest website. There is a hiking trail along the creek that is about 2 miles long. I would  love to be able to take the hike but old age doesn't make for good hikes. 

Eagle Cams

At this time of year there are seveal places that have web cameras on bird nests. I was watching one of an eagle in Iowa just minutes ago. Some of the eagles are starting to lay eggs but it may be a couple of weeks before there are any chicks. Most eagles will come back to the same nest year after year so it is easy for watchers to set up the web cams so that thousands of people can watch the birds at the same time. This is one really good use of all this electrion technology that is available now.
You can visit the one I watched at http://www.raptorresource.org/falcon_cams/ This site also has links to some of the other raptor bird cams but not all were working when I tried them.
It is so cool to watch these wonderful wild birds as they raise their chicks.