Crane Appreciation Day

A picture paints a thousand words, and I have at least ten pics I'd like to post, but I'll try to narrow it down to the best three or four from the Festival of Cranes at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge south of San Antonio, NM, which incidentally is where you will find the world famous Owl Cafe and quite possibly the world's best Green Chile Cheeseburgers.

It's hard to know what pictures to choose, but I'd like to be able to show you not just the pretty birdies but also give you a sense of the natural backdrop. At one time, millions of years ago, much of New Mexico was covered by an inland sea. When you drive into New Mexico from the east for the first time, it's easy to imagine that you're driving down onto the bottom of an ocean of air. The cones and calderas of ancient volcanos seem to be everywhere, and some of the 'ocean' floor is covered with sharp black volcanic rock from ancient lava flows. The Rio Grande River runs down the middle of the state, east of and vaguely parallel to the Continental Divide - from up in the air it looks like a ribbon of green with a thin brown stripe in the middle of it. The Bosque (pronounced Boss-kay if you're Hispanic and Boss-key if you're a gringo) is on the river.