Wednesday 1st February – the beauty of New Mexico

Our aim at the start of the day was to drive about three hours West across New Mexico to make Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Refuge by early afternoon.  This is one of the places I had marked on the map after searching for the top ten birding spots in the States.  This time of year is listed as the best time for huge flocks of wintering geese and cranes with many more species to see as well. 

What we didn’t expect was to be taken aback by the most amazing scenery that we have seen on the road so far.  It was just how I picture a road trip through the US to look – straight road ahead going on for miles with vast space all around but with Mountains on the horizon and a brilliant blue sky.  That is what today looked like:

We were even joined by a bald eagle soaring alongside us at one point to really top-off the ‘Wow’ factor!  We also had some unexpected bonus places to visit – such as the Wild West town of Lincoln, allegedly more violent than Dodge on a good day!  This was where Billy the Kid and his cohorts hung out.  It is where he escaped from the court house, killing two guards in the process – whilst being on trial for murder!
 
We walked the length of the town but as you’ll see from the photos almost everywhere was closed as it was low season.  

A structure from the 1850s built to protect Spanish-Americans from the Apaches

I think this Chevrolet truck is almost as old as the town itself....

We had a wide choice of scenic vistas to park up at for lunch.  We stopped near the Valley of Fires State Park.  About 5000 years ago an eruption flowed into the basin filling it with molten rock.  The resulting lava flow is 4-6 miles wide, 160 feet thick and covers 125 square miles.  We ate lunch next to it and also used the lava (which has thankfully cooled down since then) to gain a higher perspective of our mountainous view:

Further on along Highway 380 we had noticed a massive area on the map marked ‘White Sands Missile Range’ but didn’t know where a possible entrance may be.  This range is historically important as the Trinity site is where the World’s first atomic bomb was exploded on July 16^th 1945.  It is where the nuclear age began.  As you can see from these photos we got as close as we could today.  The actual site itself is only open to the public on two days a year but these are in April and October.

The trinity site was only roughly 30 minutes from our intended destination.  With these added distractions it was 315pm by the time we arrived at the Bosque Del Apache Visitor centre.  Thankfully, this wasn’t a problem as we still had a couple of hours of daylight and the park remained open for an hour after sunset.  The very helpful ranger gave us a map and some tips on the best areas to head for to see the best wildlife.  Simon then asked if we could buy a bird identification guide for me to improve my skills – the cheek!
It was $5 to get onto the 12-mile auto tour route.  Along the route we stopped off as and when we wanted, binoculars and camera in hand, to perch on boardwalks and stroll along trails to viewing points.  We chatted with fellow bird-enthusiasts who were thankfully happy to identify unknown water birds and let us have a view through their superior equipment to see what the birds should look like! The scenery around the reserve was also stunning.  Towards sunset we could hear the calls of hundreds if not thousands of Snow geese and sandhill cranes as they communicated to each other, maybe about calling it a night and heading home to roost?!  It is another example of when a picture will not do it justice, but each white/grey speck in these photographs is a bird:

or maybe you can appreciate the noise level from a short video:

As well as the geese and cranes, we saw mule deer:

But luckily didn't see a mountain lion - remember folks, if one attacks, fight back HARD!

Snow geese in flying formation

But we also saw some wild boar, two more bald eagles together in one tree and numerous species of duck and small water-birds.  Simon has even agreed that we should get up before sunrise tomorrow to watch the birds fly out at dawn as the spectacle is something to behold.

 

We stayed on the refuge getting some amazing sunset pictures until the light was too poor to even be able to identify a Canada goose!  We had seen mixed reviews of the very local ‘Bosque bird-watchers RV park’  but, as the nearest one to the refuge it made sense to stay there for our early morning start tomorrow.  There was no-one in the office so we hooked up to a site and shortly after met the Trump-supporting owner (he had a ‘Trump – making America great again’ baseball cap on) who came to visit us.  He was pleasant enough and after some chit-chat we parted with $25 for the night so, right on budget!

Better get an early night for that 6am alarm call. Well, I did get up nearly as early to get to the space centre that time, so Simon owes me....