It was fairly impromptu, but this morning my Mom, Dad and I hopped in a car and headed out of Albuquerque around 8 AM to go visit the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge south of Socorro, NM. Bosque Del Apache is famous for the amazing number of waterfowl- cranes, ducks, and geese- that congregate in its pools and fields for a month each fall as the birds migrate for the winter.

Upon arrival, we were pleasantly surprised to find that on this weekend, the annual Festival of the Cranes was powering up for the day, and the Visitor Center parking lot was already full of the vehicles of others who had made a pilgrimage to enjoy the refuge for the morning.

The Festival itself, as we experienced it, was a small array of exhibition tents and booths that made a white plaza behind the visitor center. One exhibition tent featured displays by professional camera equipment vendors, as well as sections featuring wilderness protection groups, birding societies, and friend of animal groups. Another tent hosted lectures throughout the day on the birds of the refuge, among other topics. Among the booths in the makeshift plaza were a few food vendors, a handful of staff members promoting Valle de Oro- an urban wildlife sanctuary newly established in Albuquerque’s South Valley area- and bird society stations, where presenters displayed falcons, hawks and owls clutching to their gloved arms.

Before leaving the Visitors Area, we watched a small Hopi group provide visitors with a colorful welcome dance, and then we visited the Visitor’s Center, where I picked up two thin books- one, a short history of New Mexico, and the second, a book of words related to the Southwest. I thought the writer in me might find that booklet handy.

Once we left the Visitors Center, we enjoyed a slow roll through the viewing loop. Birds were present, but these were the remnant that was probably most casual about migrating, and the bulk of them were in one of the four or five groups we saw on the water or eating in the fields. The bleached brown corn stalks, reeds, and wild grasses, and the dark-colored burnt-out fields were a wonderful contrast to the blue in water pools, the red and orange in the foilage, and the blue in the clear sky.

It was a nice mellow morning of sightseeing, concluded by a lunch stop in Belen on the way home at Pete’s Cafe, a tasty New Mexican restaurant in town by the Harvey House Museum. The food was delicious, and I was grateful to spend a day with my folks, and the birds.