Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge

National Wildlife Refuge, Roughly 57,000 Acres Of Managed Wetland, Farmland And Desert On The Rio Grande; Winter Home To Tens Of Thousands Of Snow Geese And Sandhill Cranes · San Antonio, New Mexico

Bosque del Apache sits where the Rio Grande runs through the Chihuahuan desert, and the refuge exists because the river no longer floods the way it did. Since 1939 the staff have flooded and drained the wetlands on a schedule and farmed corn and alfalfa deliberately, which is why tens of thousands of snow geese and around ten thousand sandhill cranes winter here in a landscape that would otherwise not support them. The spectacle everyone comes for is a narrow one: from about mid-November to mid-February the geese lift off the ponds together at first light in a single roaring mass, and the cranes come back in to roost at dusk in long ragged lines against the Chupadera Mountains. A twelve-mile auto tour loop runs through the managed ponds with pullouts, decks and short trails, so most of the viewing is done from a car or a few steps from one. Outside the winter it is a quiet desert refuge with good spring and summer birding.

1001 Highway 1, San Antonio, San Antonio, New Mexico, 87832, United States

The refuge auto tour loop and trails are open daily from one hour before sunrise to one hour after sunset, all year. The visitor center keeps shorter daytime hours and closes on some federal holidays. The flight deck and the ponds are at their best in the hour before sunrise and the hour after sunset in winter, which is why the gates open and close when they do. Sections of the loop close periodically for habitat management and water work.

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