I'm currently being re-programmed by my girlfriend to become an "ex bird hunter", and had a feeling one morning that will stay with me.
in the fall she is a regular fixture at the Bosque Del Apache, the Sand Hill Crane arrival is more important to her than Christmas is to children. I on the other hand have vast memories of jump shooting ducks and geese off the ponds in Bernardo, and off the river South of Socorro.
Snow Geese
the Snow Goose and SH Crane arrival in the Bosque is like nothing you can describe, and even though it gives me the shakes to be on ponds before light without a spread of deeks, I go with her because I love her, and she likes sharing the birds her way, not mine.
The snow goose population in fall can be in the tens of thousands, literally packed together in oceans of white honking chaos, waiting for "fly time". Every fall morning the honkers gather on the refuge ponds and burst into the air all at once as if on some secret signal and out into the fields. One morning, the honking was overpowering it was so chaotic, the sheer number of birds on water keep the pond from freezing, but everything else was deathly quiet, and frozen in place.... except for honkers on water and the crane out in the distant fields. The sun had just barely exposed the whole pond, and the 2-3 ACRES of snow geese whipping themselves into a flurry, again anxious for that "fly time". With no warning the chaos on the pond suspended itself and for just a second it was almost silent, there was an electric anticipation you could almost feel. Then BOOM like white tidal wave they peeled off the pond and blocked the sunrise as they came over. The honking was deafening, the lowest ones maybe 40-50 feet above and god only knows how thick the flight really was. The park ranger is the one who told me "that was 20 plus THAOUSAND Snow and Ross geese you just felt" Honestly, there was a change in the air pressure you could FEEL as they came over, never never seen anything like it. One wide circle around the ponds and 99.99% of the geese were gone all at once, stunned the group of 15 to 20 people just starred at each other in disbelief. I stand out in the birding group like a coyote stands out in a chicken coop, but I think they all forgot what I am for just a minute, and I felt what a bird lover feels, and it was truly amazing.
I'll never be fully "re-conditioned" and/or accepted into her group of birder people, but I'll never see the sunrise over a pond the same way again, and I'm pretty confident that I'll spend more mornings looking through binoculars then I will on bead sights.
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