Welcome to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. This western diamondback rattlesnake greeted us one morning. Actually a regular volunteer that lives in Socorro and volunteers every weekend at the refuge swerved to miss this big guy as she was pulling into the compound to park her car. We all had to go out and take a look-see. It was a cool morning and the snake was trying to soak up as much heat as possible before moving on. Rattlesnakes are a fact of life here, and it puts us on kind-of a heightened alert when we take the dogs out for walks. Terriers will go after anything…

We have completed our second week of working three days each in the visitor center. The volunteer coordinator is much more involved and hands-on in our training and orientation. It’s a refreshing situation, one in which we have not experienced so far in our volunteer career. However, being more involved means having more specific procedures and ways to interact with the public. There has been a learning curve coming here, and we like that. Proves the old grey matter can still learn and adapt.   

The VC is a short walk from where our motor home is located making it easy to go back and forth for lunch We start work at 7:30 and end our day at approximately 4:30; so, we take an hourish for lunch giving us an 8-hour day. We work only three days and have 4 days off. Hurray for the NWR! Three days we can handle. We start our day by checking the rain gauge, and even I mastered that chore the first time. Rain gauges in the desert are not noted for having much rust… We drive into San Antonio, 8 miles one way, to deliver and pick up mail during the morning hours; otherwise, we spend most of our time in the VC. We are starting to be encouraged to get out and drive through the wildlife areas so that we can be up on what birds are present and interact with people looking for birds. Only one of us at a time will go so that one of us is always at the VC.

The refuge is in excess of 57,000 acres. It is part of the longest riparian cottonwood forest in the US. The name “bosque” means “woods” and more accurately refers to woods along a river system, hence a riparian forest. The refuge is managed to support migrating birds that spend the winter in this part of the world. The dominant birds which attract as many people are the sandhill cranes and light geese (snow and Ross). Currently, the fields are being readied for their arrival by discing and mowing. Many of the fields will be flooded which help provide sanctuary from predators and things in their diets they don’t get feeding on the upland sites. During the daylight hours, they fly to surrounding corn and grain fields to forage. Right now there are no cranes or geese here, and our line to folks asking is that they usually start to return the second week in October.

The refuge is very dry right now including the Rio Grande River flowing along the east side of the refuge. There is water in some of the canals that flow through the refuge and presumably these will be the source of the water when they start to flood the fields. There are two small ponds on the refuge which currently provide almost 100% of the water bird sightings. In a few weeks the hope is that the area will be teeming with birds and visitors will be greeted with a cacophony of honks and squawks and whistles and caws and whatever other sounds that emit from birds. It may be time to turn down the volume on my hearing aids.