Sandhill Cranes

We took a trip to Bosque del Apache to see the Sandhill cranes which winter in the marshes around the Rio Grande river in New Mexico.

Each night the cranes fly in from the surrounding area and sleep in a shallow flooded ‘lake’. In the morning, they fly out to find food. They move at dawn and dusk and it takes about an hour for all the birds to arrive and depart.

Along with the cranes, there were lots of snow geese, ducks and a variety of smaller birds. We saw one roadrunner.

Along with watching the birds, we did a couple hikes. One up to Chupadera mountain which had a small but interesting canyon of hard volcanic rock. The second was to Mount Baldy where we saw a small tarantula.

Check out the photo gallery.