I’ve been hearing about Bosque del Apache for years: this wondrous wildlife refuge in the center of New Mexico that hosts thousands of wintering snow geese, sandhill cranes, other waterfowl, and even a few dozen whooping cranes. The sight and sounds of tens of thousands of snow geese taking off at dawn as they leave their night roosts to head out to their feeding areas is supposed to be something to behold.
I finally had the opportunity to visit the Bosque in late January of this year. A friend and I drove over from Tucson, arriving in time to drive the tour road and enjoy a beautiful sunset.
We spent the night at a hotel in Socorro, and arose precisely at 4 am to make sure we were in place to observe the take-off of the 55,000 snow geese that had been observed at the refuge. What I’m calling snow geese here are actually Snow and Ross’s geese, which are difficult to tell apart.
As we drove up to the parking area it was still pitch black outside, illuminated only by a few stars. The geese and other waterfowl were muttering faintly out on the ponds. I tried to record the sound, but the arrival of other cars – tires crunching on gravel – drowned out the recording. We were treated to a spectacular sunrise, reflecting off light clouds to the east. Just about the time it was light enough to see out on the ponds, the geese began calling with an increased urgency, and at some unknown (to us) signal, they all arose, and circled overhead a couple of times before heading north to grain fields that the refuge grows and prepares just for them.
Unfortunately, there weren’t 55,000 geese. We estimated roughly 1,000. It was almost anti-climactic, as the sound of 1,000 geese can’t compare to 10, 20 or 50 times that. It was still a beautiful sight, but a bit of a let down. Shortly after the geese took off, the sandhill cranes joined them, noisily croaking over the ponds as they headed out en masse to the fields. As the sunrise faded into a light overcast sky, we took a short hike to warm up and exercise Shadow, who got to stay snug in the car as we fidgeted outside in the freezing temperatures. Then we spent the day driving around the refuge trying to figure out where 55,000 geese were hiding.
We found lots of sandhill cranes in the ponds and fields. We found lots of Canada geese and other waterfowl, and I was able to get a short recording of them as they fussed and fed in the flooded fields.
We found a small group of snow geese feeding in the fields, and even found one snow goose that seemed to prefer the company of cranes.
We also saw some great raptors, including a bald eagle, and red-tailed, rough-legged, Swainson’s and Cooper’s hawks.
And, as the day came to a close, we were treated to another beautiful sunset, with the wind on the water creating a very different effect then the smooth water from the evening before.
We repeated the adventure the next morning, with another spectacular sunrise, but about the same number of geese and cranes.
We never solved the mystery of the missing 54,000 geese. But it was a great couple of days nonetheless, and we have an excuse to go back someday.
But as I was doing some background research for this post, I discovered the true irony of 54,000 missing geese. Apparently the farmers and wildlife refuges have done such a great job of helping the overwintering geese, that there are now too many of them, and they are having too great an impact on their arctic breeding grounds. Snow geese are already heavily hunted throughout most of their southern ranges, but there are now calls to increase hunting limits even more. This seems to be a recurring theme. A century ago many populations of wildlife – deer, bighorn sheep, waterfowl, numerous predators – were nearly eradicated by overhunting. Regulations were put in place to limit hunting and in some cases improve habitats. Populations of many species rebounded, but most of the recovery was species-by-species, without looking at a holistic, ecological approach. Most of the prized hunting animals were managed for high hunting quotas, not to maintain any form of ecological balance. Human hunters do a poor job of replacing natural predators for maintaining healthy populations, so until wildlife managers start thinking a little more holistically, these imbalances will continue.
For more reading: Facing consequences in bid to save a goose. (NY Times article.)
Recording notes: Recorded on a Sony PCM-M10 with an Audio-Technica AT2022 mic with Felmicamps SK3.5 preamp. For more of my recordings, see my Soundcloud page.