11/22/18 Thanksgiving Day at Bosque del Apache

On Thanksgiving Day, I drove around the refuge.  The driving 'tour' covers only a small portion of the 57,000+ acres of the refuge. The refuge is managed like a 'farm' for birds. The section above is for ducks. Can you see them swimming beneath the tree?

This is what the ducks look like up close. There were about 50 of them feeding here.

Each white dot in the photo is a snow goose! This is the 'snow goose' section of the refuge.

Here's a close-up of part of the flock.Can you guess how many are in all? Luckily, the refuge keeps a count and then they know how many acres of food they need to grow for the birds to survive the winter.

Of course the birds are not in cages, so they are free to fly wherever they want!

Imagine this roadrunner on the side of the road in the refuge!

When I drove by, it ran into the bushes and I could see what great camouflage it has! Happy Thanksgiving!

11/20-21/18 Bosque del Apache: Cranes and Geese

On Tuesday and Wednesday around dawn I went back to the wetland and was greeted by the sight of thousands of birds!

There were sandhill cranes, snow geese and several different species of ducks!

The gray birds are sandhill cranes. The white birds are snow geese.

You can see them better here! 

Soon the sandhill cranes started flying away to their feeding grounds.

See how big the cranes are compared to the geese! The cranes walked carefully through the flock of snow geese until they had enough room to take off.

They flew off in groups of two or three.

While some cranes flew off, others stretched their wings in preparation for flight.

What a beautiful morning!

11/19/18 Bosque del Apache: Sandhill Cranes

On Monday, November 19th, I drove to the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge, about a five hour drive away from the Cliff Dwellings. I arrived there around sunset and parked next to a wetland in the refuge.

There were a few sandhill cranes at the wetland when I arrived.

Soon others started flying in.

Then I could see flocks of sandhill cranes flying in toward the wetland.

Sandhill cranes are about four feet tall and their wingspan is about 5.5 feet, so they really have to put on the brakes when they land!

Sandhill cranes live in small family groups during the day, but at night the all come together for protection from predators. There were several hundred cranes in this wetland by the time it was dark. They were so noisy that I couldn't carry on a conversation with the person standing next to me!

11/6/18 The Catwalk

     I have been hearing about a place called The Catwalk since arriving at the Cliff Dwellings last August, so today I drove to The Catwalk to check it out.  It's about 65 miles west/northwest of Silver City and just before you get to it, there's a sign that says, "Road May Flood."

     Just my luck that there would be water on the road today! It just so happens that last week I was talking to a visitor at the Cliff Dwellings who felt inspired to inform me about the dangers of water on the road. She said before you drive across water on the road, try to determine how deep the water is, how strong the current is, and whether there are rocks, or debris, in the water.

      The water looked to be about a foot deep, the current looked strong, but there didn't seem to be rocks, or debris, in the water. In addition, I could see the tracks left by other vehicles that had recently driven through the water on the road and made it to the other side, so I decided to take my chances and cross it.

These gorgeous red sumac bushes were waiting for me on the other side!

So were these trees along the banks of the river.
The Catwalk trail starts here. Parts of it are wheelchair accessible. 

Very soon you are walking in a canyon with steep rock walls towering above you on either side.   (Geronimo, a famous Apache, and his band, hid out in this canyon in the 1800s! Pottery of the type made by the Cliff Dwellers has been found in this area also.)

     Soon the earthen trail is replaced by a metal catwalk. As you walk, you can see the stream rushing through the canyon about 30 feet below you.

As it travels through the canyon, the stream rushes over rocks making many small waterfalls.

The catwalk winds through the canyon.

     The U.S. Forest Service is working to make as much of the trail wheelchair accessible as possible, but you can see what a difficult task that will be! Here, the engineers built a sidewalk under two huge boulders and then they built stairs on the other side.

The Catwalk  trail is a loop about 2.2 miles long. 

As you can see in this photograph,

the trail ascends and descends along the river.

 There were a surprising number of trees and shrubs still in summer green in protected areas along the bottom of the canyon. 

This photograph shows the reflections of the trees in the river near the beginning of the Catwalk trail.

Though The Catwalk Trail is on the western edge of the Gila Wilderness, the mountains in the distance look similar to the mountains near the Cliff Dwellings.

     I took this picture on the way back to Silver City, but the vegetation looks the same as that on the TJ Trail near the Cliff Dwellings.
     Now I can understand why people have been encouraging me to go see The Catwalk! Next on my list is City of Rocks State Park near Deming, New Mexico.

11/5/18 The Changing Seasons

The leaves of the oak trees in Cliff Dweller Canyon are turning colors!

They are spectacular against the fall sky!

But soon they will be on the ground like these leaves that color the trail.

These three lizards are taking advantage of the sun-warmed rocks of the cliff dwellings.

The angle of the sun has changed with the season.

Now the late afternoon sun shines into the cliff dwellings.

11/5/18 Miscellaneous Photographs

Fog has been sitting in the valley in the mornings when I drive to work.

This spider web was in the trailer we use for recycling. It was covered in dew on the morning I took the recycling 'out.'

There are prickly pear cactuses all around, but every once in a while there is a barrel cactus, like this one, hiding among the grasses.

This unusual looking plant is a star puffball, a kind of mushroom. Supposedly, it's edible, but I didn't try it!

Those are frozen drops of water on the wire fence around the pasture where the sheep were in September!

Sunset often brings storm clouds, but they clear away and then stars fill the night sky!

11/4/18 Yucca

Yucca is native to this area. The Cliff Dwellers and Native Americans used it for many things.

Yucca roots were made into soap and shampoo. The leaves were woven together to make mats and sandals.

Those strings were used for thread and the tips of the leaves are sharp enough to use as needles. Artists also used the leaves as paint brushes!