How To Enjoy a Beautiful Thanksgiving

Halfway up to the cache

Got up early on turkey day and turned on the news to hear the reports of shootings and fights among the folks camped out all night to start their holiday shopping.  While watching the news I scrolled down the list of all the posts listing what my friends and family are thankful for.  After listening to the news I was thankful not to need to be near a shopping mall.  Soon there was a knock on the door.  One of the other volunteers wanted a partner to go along on a short cache run.  It was 8:30 and we had to be back by noon because of the potluck turkey dinner this afternoon.  Was I interested?  You bet!

In 10 minutes we were on the way up a narrow canyon gravel road in his jeep.  The first cache was a simple micro in a cut out along the canyon wall, then we were back in the jeep and driving deeper into Box Canyon.  The sky was blue, the temps were brisk but not too hot or too cold, and the canyon walls were high.  The next cache was on top of one of those canyons.  When the GPSr beeped at 190 ft. we stopped and looked straight up - and up - and up.  It was a no brainer to drive to the end of the canyon, park the jeep, and hike back up the other side of the canyon's edge.  Only a quarter mile hike but really a beautiful view from up there. 


Just a little hike up and over that old mine

Looks like we found it!

Back to the jeep and deeper into the canyon we found our next two caches near the remains of some old abandoned silver mines.  More parking the jeep and hiking up hills.  Oh, and there was still snow and ice in the higher climes so there was just a little slipping and sliding in some spots.  Before I knew it the morning was over and we had to drive out the other end of the canyon onto the highway and back to camp for lunch. 

 

 

 

 

Here come the snow geese

And after lunch there were the birds in the refuge.  Lots of them.  And lots of folks standing around with cameras.  I was amazed at how many dedicated birders were spending the day watching the sandhill cranes.  But as the sun set I found myself standing in there with them perhaps feeling a bit of "lens" envy holding my little point and shoot camera in the midst of cameras with long range lens so large some folks have to wear back braces to carry them around.  Still I think my pictures came out pretty good.  I hope you agree.

Apologies for the long wait on a new post

Two roadrunners NOT on the road

I am embarrassed to say that the main reason I have been so remiss in posting to my blog is technical.  Google changed a lot of their set ups and it took me a while to cut through all the new stuff to find my way back to here.  Well, there's that and there's all the birding I've been doing.  And boy are there birds here to see!

What's that knot on that tree?

The Sandhill Cranes, the main stars of the show here, are coming in day by day and the latest count shows that we have a little over 3,000 with at least twice that many coming by the end of November.  And while they are beautiful to watch, I really like the snow geese which the latest count shows at a population of over 5,000.  And I can believe that.  Some mornings I look across the highway into the flooded grain fields and it's almost a blanket of white. 

Sneaky perch

But then things get ducky!  We have over 22,000 ducks here in the refuge.  I am busily learning to tell them all apart.  One day last week I was manning my post at the spotting scope on the Marsh Deck and saw a few ducks: ring necked, bufflehead, cinnamon teal, widgeon, pintail, mallard, redheads, and ruddy ducks.  Wow, it is really hard to pick some of them out because most of the males are still in their drab summer plumage. 

Buffleheads in the afternoon sunshine

Of course there are numerous Canada Geese along with all the red wing blackbirds, the hawks, the eagles, the woodpeckers......  well, as you can see, we host a large variety of creatures here.  And I am loving it despite the wintry weather beginning to set in.  There is snow up north on the mountains but so far it hasn't found it's way here and I hope it doesn't.  Well, OK Madeline Ruth, I do think it would be pretty to see the place covered with a light dusting of snow. But just a LIGHT dusting. 

Next week the Festival of Cranes will begin and I'm told there will be over 5,000 birders and photographers here for that.  It should be interesting.  I'll try to do better at posting some pix from that.