New Mexico Adventure 2018

Festival of the Cranes and Other places in New Mexico.

I flew to Albuquerque and after picking up my rental car I drove to Santa Fe. As soon as I arrived at the hotel it started snowing. At first it was just flurries but soon turned into larger flakes. I headed down to the Old Town area to look around. On my way to find some dinner I noticed there was a break in the clouds which made way for a fiery sunset amidst the continuing snow.

Monday morning I awoke to a blanket of snow with a layer of ice underneath. Once I was able to clean off the car and get a cafe mocha, I went back to Old Town. It was fun walking around in the snow and not too many people first thing. I visited the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and the Loretto Chapel which is know for its spiral staircase.

Tuesday morning I headed south to Socorro for the Festival of the Cranes. Windchill in Santa Fe is 3 degrees so heading south is a good thing. Stopping in Bernardo first to see if there are cranes and other birds.Other than the sandhill cranes, I also spotted a bunch of Gambel's Quail, Says Phoebe, Kestrel and a red tailed hawk.

I checked into the Holiday Inn in Socorro then drove down to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge where I would spend the next five days. After getting the obligitary souvenirs, I drove the refuge to look for birds. There were tons of snow geese and sandhill cranes. The festival starts on Wednesday with workshops and classes.

Wednesday I arrived at the crane pool early even though my first workshop wasn't until the afternoon. The temperature was around 9 degrees so the cranes were partially frozen into the ice. They usually leave as the sun comes up to feed in the corn fields. They were a little late leaving due to the ice layer. My afternoon workshop was supposed to be about waterfowl but the ducks were not in abundance like last year. They were spread out and in ponds that were not as easy to photograph. We ended up back at the crane pool for the evening fly-in.

Northern Pintail in Flight

Sandhill Crane coming in to roost.

The second day of the festival I did a class with Mollie Issacs. We met at the refuge bus stop at 6 am before going out to the flight deck for sunrise with the snow geese.