2016-04-10 Sights South Of Albuquerque

Members of Jerry’s camera club recently described San Lorenzo Canyon to him. On Friday, 2016-03-18, we set out to find this place in the desert above the Rio Grande. We climbed into my Travato and headed south on I-25. While en route about 12 miles south, at the town of Los Lunas, Jerry asked me to turn off the interstate and look for Burrowing Owls. Jerry had seen them on an earlier visit, and he wanted to check if they were still around… they were! We spent a brief time with them, but vowed to return another day. Today we had unexplored country to find.

After a couple of false starts on trails that were unfruitful, and a call to one of Jerry’s buddies, we finally found the road were seeking. By the time we found San Lorenzo Canyon the sun had climbed high in the sky. The canyon points to the rising sun, so we knew that the best light would be the early morning light. The vistas became more interesting the further up the sandy wash we proceeded. By the time we reached the terminus in the box canyon where the ‘road’ ended, the surrounding walls of the canyon were steep and richly carved by floodwaters over the millennia. Bad light or not, I took a few pictures (for the record).

With ample light remaining in the day, and being so far south, we paid a visit to Bosque del Apache. The geese and cranes had moved north about two weeks before my arrival. Any season there can provide opportunities to see birds and other wildlife. I was hoping for shorebirds, American White Pelicans, and Neotropic Cormorants. I struck out on the pelicans and shorebirds, but I captured the cormorants, though in poor light.

Bosque used to be one of the premier birding locations on the planet. I understand that the past head biologist here made many questionable decisions in managing the resources at hand, so that many of the bird-rich areas became overgrown with weeds, making it hard to view the birds. There are other factors at play. Because it is a federal reserve, the restriction for growing GMO corn crops reduces the food supply for geese and cranes. We hope that the next head biologist here will bring this reserve back to its former glory.

When we reached the end of the day, we headed out past the nearby town of San Antonio and had an enjoyable meal at the locally owned and run Mexican restaurant. Images from this day can be viewed below: