Bosque's Gone to the Dogs

The Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, located 80 miles south of Albuquerque, New Mexico, holds a special place in my heart. For about 30 years, I have ventured there every November that I could swing a trip. (I've probably been at least a dozen times.) This refuge is very popular with the public, and especially with birders and photographers.

In the late fall and winter months, over 10,000 Sandhill cranes, 40,000 Snow and Ross's geese, and thousands of other waterfowl use the refuge as a wintering stopover or home. Bald and golden eagles are commonly seen, as are coyotes, deer, and elk. I'll share some of my photos from November 2005, taken with just a little digital point and shoot camera. (Click on photo to enlarge.) For really good photos, just do a little searching online. There are hardcore photographers that go there with thousands of dollars worth of equipment every year, and take far better pictures than mine.


Although it's brutally cold (below freezing) in mid-November, it is well worth dragging yourself out of your nice warm hotel or B&B bed before dawn to head to the refuge for the dawn flyout. The light geese congregate in one large pond before dawn.


They take off en masse around dawn in an absolutely spectacular flight. (Listen to the recording of the noise they make here at the Friends of Bosque website.) The entire sky above is filled with flying white-colored geese.


The geese feed in the fields during the day.


Here are a few cranes in with them, too. (The larger gray birds are the Sandhill cranes.)


By afternoon, the geese settle back in the ponds all over the refuge.

After the dawn flyout, the rest of the day is spent slowly driving around an auto tour loop, stopping frequently to look and listen to the wide assortment of other birds at the refuge.

The place draws me back because of the spectacle and because I never know what I might see that year. When I first started going as a youngster, a few Whooping Cranes would show up each year. It was always a challenge to try to spot 3 or 4 white cranes in amongst ten thousand gray Sandhill cranes. Getting to know where certain types of birds hung out was fun. Watching for coyotes trotting along the edges of the fields kept me busy, except for the year when they were incredibly easy to spot because a disease was sweeping through the Snow geese and they had easy pickin's. The coyotes looked like show dogs that year, filled out and flush with glossy coats from all the goose fat. The last time we were in Bosque, in 2005, we watched a large herd of elk come into a pond in the evening and had a great view of the bull male.

On our way home from this trip, we were to pass through Socorro, the closest town to the refuge. Since we were coming home early, we decided to salvage the vacation aspect of the trip and spend a morning at Bosque. We had never been to Bosque in the spring and didn't quite know what to expect. There would be no cranes, no light geese, no Bald eagles, and far fewer waterfowl. There would also likely be far fewer people, which turned out to be a very nice bonus. We checked the website and found out we could go with Angel. I'm sure they didn't used to allow dogs on the refuge, even in a vehicle. There may have been a time when they were then allowed but had to stay in the car. Now they are permitted on the refuge but must be on a leash and absolutely cannot harass the wildlife.


There was no need to arrive at dawn, so we took our time getting to the refuge in the morning. As we started around the auto loop, Angel was interested enough in the new sights and smells to forgo her napping. We let her out on the leash a few times but often left her in the car while we walked to an observation deck. She seemed just fine. We headed down a road with ponds on both sides. The smells were strong and I noticed Angel's head right next to mine as she sniffed the air coming in my open window. I laughed and mentioned to my sweetie that her nose was really twitching. His mistake was rolling her window in the back down halfway. She sniffed and sniffed.


We stopped to look at some egrets on our left after checking the ducks and Canada geese on our right to see if there was anything new. The Canada geese were at the edge of the pond and pretty close to the car, and apparently were too much for Angel to ignore.

All of the sudden, we heard scrambling noises in the back and turned to see Angel heading out her window. My sweetie was yelling at her to stop while I was trying to get turned around to grab her. By the time I did, her butt was the only thing left in the car. Her back feet were up on the window's edge and she was heading for a goose dinner. We, of course, were panicking because of the potential disaster brewing here. Would she really kill a goose? Would we be able to get her to come back? Would my sweetie have to go into the water to fetch her? Would we be banned from the refuge forever?

Knowing it was futile, I grabbed at her butt and got a chunk of fur just above her stumpy tail. There was no way I could reach up to get her harness or stop her and I knew she was going to be gone in another second. Amazingly, she dropped back down into the car! I didn't even have hold of skin. My sweetie thinks she was a little bit stuck in the window since it was only open halfway. I don't know what happened but we were both incredibly relieved that she didn't get out. We rolled the window up, all the way, and tried to calm down.

Angel was rather unhappy at her failed attempt to chase the biggest, most interesting bird she's ever seen. She gave us dirty looks and huffed occasionally for the rest of the tour.


We now know that our lazy dog can move fast when she wants to. We also know she will never, ever, be allowed to hang with the chickens if we ever get some (for bug control in the garden). She is not to be trusted, no matter how cute and innocent she may appear.


"I could've had goose."