I hadn't heard this before. I still want to see Basque del Apache and a few others, but seeing a few hundred thousand sandhill cranes in the Platte River Valley of Nebraska sounds interesting too.
Nebraska crane migration: The world's largest crane migration is just a day trip from Denver (denverpost.com)
I think I would take Basque Del Apache over Nebraska.Originally Posted by Kayaker72
Of course if you go there Roswell is a few hours away and you can visit the UFO Museum to find out the truth.
Then of course Carlsbad and the disappointing waste disposal sites to the east.
Birds, Bombs, Caves, UFO's and Nuclear Waste
Bosque used to be awesome .... not sure how good it is now. I know they went through some years with few birds because of no water in the roosting areas and poor crops in the surrounding fields.
It is an easy place to do a self guided thing ..... it's a big gravel road loop that is bisected in the middle by a gravel road. It is quite wide and you can pull over anywhere you like but you can't stray from the roadside on foot. They have a couple of observation decks overlooking a lake as well.
The 2 roosting areas called the Crane Pools are right next the road on the way into the preserve. They have parking areas and usually attract a pre-dawn crowd of photographers with tripods and long lenses. After the birds blast off they scatter to the feeding areas and so do the photographers.
There is a small town close by with decent hotels .... I think it's called Socorro.
Phew! I've been looking for the truth. Who knew, it was in New Mexico all along!
Bummer to hear about Basque del Apache, is the lack of water just part of an overall drought? Or has management changed somehow?
I've been to NM twice. White Sands is definitely on my list of places to go back too. I drove from there over to Carlsbad caverns. I have to admit I did not realize how many nuclear waste sites I was near or even driving past.
We went to Carlsbad a few years ago, and the path we took is from the East. I was surprised and from how it looked the only way I know how to describe it is a natural disaster waiting to happen.
In Roswell the truth I arrived at is that there are two options for the possible truth: 1, We were visited by aliens or 2, The commander in charge of guarding our Nuclear arsenal was an idiot. There might be a few less plausible truth's but #2 appeared to be the most likely and for sure the scariest.
I tried to look up articles to see if Bosque Del Apache had issues lately, really I didn't find any.
Being a migratory bird it might be late for Bosque Del Apache.
Nebraska seems like a great candidate for the Sandhill's and numbers are not to bad:
https://www.fws.gov/sites/default/fi...llCranes21.pdf
https://www.fws.gov/project/sandhill-crane-surveys
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