Geese approach the valle with the Sandias behind them.

Tonight after work I decided to head back down to Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge to check in on the birds. I knew the Cubs game played this evening was blacked out locally, so I couldn’t go home and watch it. And I also didn’t feel much like going home to sit around. I had hiking boots in the truck and the camera bag with me, so it was a “what the heck”.

Grand fields for geese.

Field of feed.

It was nice to get there after work on a Tuesday. Mostly, because no one else was there, except for a guy who was driving around a baling tractor around the refuge roads like a crazed fiend.

What is that comet jetting toward me?

It is this unusual and unaerodynamic vessel, fueled by Red Bull, methinks.

I stopped for a few moments on a road in the fields to watch geese arrive and circle and land for dinner. There were quite a few strings and vees of birds coming and going and hanging out in the taller grass at the south side of the fields.

The gaggling part of a gaggle, I think.

Chilling with the fam.

I was immediately treated to seeing three coyotes emerge from the bosque and cross fields before me, probably looking for dinner.

It’s a poor photo, but not yet having Tim’s 70-200 lens [or one like it] for wildlife images, it at least shows two of the three coyotes.

I drove past the chilling birds and headed for the parking area by the bosque, and then wandered into the trees to try and find the river. I found golden sunlight and thick plants by the river banks, and I found mosquitoes.

I stuck around in the sticks until the sun dropped, and then I came back to my truck and enjoyed the last light of the sunset.

It was a nice treat to spend some time in nature, and to see hints of fall in the trees and the visiting fowl, and to just get a little exercise.

I came home, and the Cubs clobbered the Diamondbacks 9-1 to edge closer to securing their division championship and a spot in this year’s playoffs.

If you would like to see birds on a fall (or spring) pilgrimage stopover and don’t have the time to head down to Bosque del Apache, I’d encourage you to visit Valle de Oro. Seven miles south of downtown Albuquerque on 2nd street in the South Valley, Valle de Oro is a super accessible place to get your fill of fall fowl and foilage.