CuRVWander

The air is hot and the ground is warm.  Things are starting to stir here on the refuge.  Most of the migratory activity is done and we are settling down to the birds that will be with us for the duration of the summer.  Some are migrators that decided they like it here just fine and let their compadres move on while they set up housekeeping right where they are. White-faced Ibis It's not a very good shot because it was taken at such great distance but this is fourteen white-faced ibis on a pond in the north sector, a section that is restricted to public access.  I'm going to keep stalking these guys and see if I can get a close-up. Red-winged blackbird The red-winged blackbird we have aplenty.  Between them and the dove I can't hardly keep food in the bird feeder.  But the picture above is where I caught one perching out near a marsh.  All those little spots in the picture are not dust on the lens, but gnats on the wing.  Those gnats ...

While temperatures have been plenty warm since we arrived the first of April at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge (Roswell, New Mexico), desert life has been a little hard to come by.  But in recent days here in the middle of May things are starting to emerge. One of the duties of volunteers at the refuge are to water the vegetation "islands" in the visitor center parking lot and around the building.  These islands are made up of native, hardy desert plants but a lack of measurable rain for the past eight months is even a little much for them so we are hand watering every week or so.  This little bit of moisture has made a difference, we are getting blooms here at the visitor center. Claret Cup Cactus Ocotillo Butterflies and hummingbirds come in for these Ocotillo blooms. We had not been near an ocotillo since our volunteer days at Big Bend National Park in 2013/14.  We had almost forgotten how extraordinary the transformation from what looked...

Today's adventure takes us to the middle of New Mexico.  Our activities will center around Socorro, NM, beginning to its south at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge .  We've a 3-hour drive to get to the refuge.  We'll repeat some of the same track as yesterday, passing through part of the Hondo Valley, turning in Hondo itself to stay on highway 380 towards Capitan and then on to San Antonio (the New Mexico one, not Texas).  At San Antonio we turn due south arriving at Bosque del Apache in just a few minutes. Bosque is very much like Bitter Lake, only more than twice the size at just over 57,000 acres.  There are managed marshes with a plethora of birds.  We visited with the volunteer visitor center hosts for a short while before heading out on the driving tour. Herons and Egrets My new favorite duck, the Cinnamon Teal.  It's not the black one in this photo. My former favorite duck, the Mallard. Great White Herons G...