The Birds

Yesterday we saw large flocks of birds, actually thousands of geese in the fields of the Cibola National Wildlife Refuge. This is one of the alfalfa fields with a flock of snow geese (though I think there are some dark Canadians in the back...) --

In the back portion of the field you can see some of the stands of cottonwood and mesquite that have been planted on the refuge.


We also saw some individual birds and felt very fortunate to catch four different Burrowing Owls enjoying the sunshine outside of their roadside burrows --




The owl burrows were all marked with large cairns of rock piled around them as well as stakes. Most likely to protect them from being "farmed over" as they were right on the edges of the fields. There were twenty or twenty-five cairns along the auto trail that was open to the public.



I don't know if the office staff is just getting tired of us coming in every two days or what, but today when Forry went to the office by himself, he charmed them into letting us stay until the 17th at the reduced rate. We have reservations up at Lake Havasu on the 17th, so it looks like we will be staying here until it is time to head in that direction.