Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge

Yesterday, Mike and I drove north about 40 miles to the Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge.  This time of year the Sandhill Cranes arrive for the winter and being able to hopefully see these birds and who know what else sounded good to us!  Turns out the Snow Geese also call the preserve home for the winter and, wow, what sights we saw!

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We saw snow geese immediately after entering the refuge along with several types of ducks

The refuge estimated the snow geese count to be well over 22,000!

we spotted about 60 Canadian geese, they looked out of place here;)

this coyote was a long ways off and the only large animal we saw though we were told there were mountain lions in the area and two had been spotted just a couple of days ago in the refuge

here come the sandhill cranes!  lots of them, and they are big birds!!

the count for sandhill cranes was over 3,000

can't miss a Sandhill Crane with those red caps!

a young roadrunner

we saw a couple of blue herons, also from a distance

this beautiful raptor is a juvenile Red Tail Hawk....

...and there were Harrier Hawks all over but so quick!

close up of some Snow Geese

this small group of Canadian Geese seemed reluctant to enter the water with the Snow Geese

In this amazing pic, something stirred up the geese and a lot of them took flight and circled around for a while...it was deafening and a bit unnerving but so awesome!!

a juvenile snow goose looks just as beautiful as an adult