Life birds

I remember taking a wonderful trip with Arline Thorn to a wetlands area near Huntington, West Virginia. On that day Arline, an avid birdwatcher as well as a wonderful poet, added a “life bird” to her list (sadly, I can’t remember the name of the bird she was so pleased to see that day). Afterwards, we had dinner at a restaurant, and she showed me a well-worn Peterson’s guide in which she kept track of all the different birds she had seen and identified. It was an impressive list, much longer than mine will ever be. When Arline died a few months ago, I think some birds must have mourned along with a lot of people.

But yesterday I added a new name to my own life list: the sandhill crane. In fact, I added about a thousand of them — at the Monte Vista National Wildlife Refuge in Colorado, about a two-hour drive from Taos, where the cranes pause during their migration each spring and fall.

Although the big birds (taller than I am, I think) did not get close enough for my camera to capture adequately, I was able to watch them up-close for an hour or more, using a large telescope that the NWR has thoughtfully provided. The tops of their heads are bright red, and their wingspan is enormous. On land, they walk delicately — like someone aged and lanky, taking great care — on legs that resemble the folding parts of some large drafting table lamp. And watching a few hundred of them lift off at once, with a noise of wings and voices that sound like something between geese honks and a woodpecker’s drumming, was thrilling.

There’s also a 2-1/2-mile-long driving tour through the wetlands area. The refuge is beautiful, quiet, and full of other wildlife, as well. I saw many other waterfowl (mostly mallards and geese), some small birds I couldn’t identify, and a herd of deer.

And, on the way home, the sky did this:

Just another New Mexico sunset. I’m trying to save them up in my mind….