Tag Archives: Bosque del Apache

MoonBirds

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MoonBirds9214

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There has been a lot of talk lately about these new kind of moons, these Super Moons, that have appeared over our countryside. It’s unclear exactly where these new moons came from. Personally and it is the prevailing thought here at the Institute that we, as a country, were out of the moon making business. We had a perfectly serviceable one that had been performing adequately for years and now suddenly we have a bunch of new moons hanging around and we’re supposed to just accept them without question. Well I have a question. How much did all these new moons cost? Wasn’t this something we should have voted on? Who asked for a new moon anyway? Does this new moon have anything to do with the erosion of our personal liberties, not to mention our privacy.

One of the largest concerns we have and you should have too, is that this new Super Moon that has begun slinking through the night sky, and sometimes the day one too, acting as if it has a perfect right to be here, is already here, apparently we cannot take it back. So, if it is larger does that mean it is closer, and if it is closer does that mean that anyone on it can see us better? Are they using this new moon to monitor our night-time activities? Who exactly is in charge here? If they can just run a brand new moon past us without any warning What’s next ?!?

Where is the public outcry, the demonstrations, the indignation of the people? I haven’t seen one sign holder down on the corner of College and Mulberry shaking their signs in nearly hysterical frustration saying “Honk if you hate the new moon.”  “Super Moon Sucks!”  and “Old Moon First-ers”. People you can not get this complacent. ‘They’, and you know which ones I’m talking about, will not be content with just fleecing us for a new moon, oh no, there’s plenty more in their liberal bag of tricks. They think because everyone is more energy conscious these days that we’re going to roll over and buy this feeble excuse that ” The new moon is greener, the new lighting involved in illuminating this new Super Moon saves Americans huge amounts of money by being more efficient. 50% savings every full moon.”, etc. Well I’m calling BullPucky on that crap, so to speak.

Where are all the EPA studies? This new Super Moon for those of you who don’t read or understand fully what you see on TV, is a larger, like really huge, moon that is much brighter and more arrogant than our old perfectly good moon is, or was I should say. And because of these new aspects of this moon there are some huge environmental problems involved here, and we here at the Institute have been documenting some of them for an exclusive expose we are planning in the near future. We’re telling it like it is, black helicopters be damned, because you the reader deserve to know.

In the image above you can see one of the tragic repercussions of this wanton disregard for Nature. Who are we to think that we can just alter conditions that have been in existence for millenniums, or at least for a long time. The Sandhill cranes pictured above are having to fly a minimum, by our calculation, of 30% further to fly past this new Super Moon than they have had to do for countless years before with our old perfectly good moon. Yes this “New” moon, this Super Moon is so large that these poor exhausted birds must flap their huge wings over and over again to simply get past this new moon. No wonder the Sandhill Crane population is dwindling. They no longer have the energy required for mating, or as it is known in the birding world as “bumping their uglies” and other nighttime activities that they exercised so freely and ribaldry before. Everyone responsible for this whole mess should be made to stand out here in the cold bitter night and hear the pitiful cries of these magnificent birds as they grope their way past this new phenomenon into a lower wattage future. Our arrogance will bear bitter fruit I fear.

Take a stand. NO more new celestial bodies without a full feasibility study and public input. No more changing the environment by unfeeling, inexperienced, progress at any cost, bureaucrats. No more. Like my Dad used to say “Just leave it the hell alone.” a philosophy that has stood the test of time. The next time they float one of these new Super Moons past you, just say no. Don’t look. If enough people don’t look they’ll get tired of it and take it down and then where will they be, out on their fat, pork fed hineys’, that’s where. Stay tuned for further updates, we’ll have more on this dangerous trend in moon shifting in a month or so. Remember, Be Vigilant and if you’re passing by those Sandhill Cranes’ breeding ground some Supermoonlit night, give them some privacy, don’t look.

Come Gather ‘Round

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Usually it is the oldest crane in the flock that will call the others to join him for late night story telling but occasionally a younger crane will take over and hold the nightly gathering in their place. Some of their stories are as old as their migratory routes and some are yesterday’s news. Many times you will find that there are larger gatherings at the young cranes get-together’s than you will find at the old timers’. To their dismay the old ones find that things meaningful to them don’t have the appeal to grab the young’s attention any more especially after they have been told many, many, times. The old stories get boring the young say (not that one about the old crane that ate so much corn it couldn’t …) while something new and feather-tingling keeps the gathering fresh and exciting.

According to Dr. Beakston our resident birdologist a male Sandhill Crane is known as a ‘him’ while the female is called a ‘her’ in an effort to be able to distinguish between the sexes as they appear to be very similar to the untrained eye. However this is an acquired skill leading to many a misidentification and much hilarity amongst the ranks of younger birds. Tonight it is a young crane calling the flock in for the nightly narrative and his story is absolutely riveting to the younger audience.

His adventure of flying over a hip hop concert and almost being shot out of the sky by  appreciative concert goers exercising their right of self-expression left his listeners nearly speechless. They too secretly and some not so secretly, wished that they could have been almost shot out of the sky over a concert so they would be cool and have stories to tell when it was their turn to hold the meeting.

Afterwards as always there were the usual warnings issued by the older members of the flock about the dangers of concert flyovers such as, “it might be fun now, but wait until someone gets an eye out and then where would you be”.  But of course, during moments of great excitement like this those warnings went largely unheeded. The young are invincible after all. There were many meetings held that night by whomever could drum up an audience and this one at the middle pond at Bosque del Apache was no better or worse than others, a little louder perhaps but a lot more exciting to those reveling in their youth. There would be many an eye peeled for future concerts and the thought of the risk and danger ahead kept this group hopping into the early morning hours.

Bosque Sunset

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Bosque del Apache is a wildlife preserve located in New Mexico near the town of Socorro. Primarily a bird sanctuary it is the place to go if you want to see almost all the snow geese alive in the world today. OK, That might be a slight exaggeration but only a little. There are a lot of snow geese down here. They number in the thousands during the winter months and completely fill up the ponds so that it seems like there isn’t space for one more bird to land, but they do. Having said all that these are not Snow geese pictured here. These are Sandhill cranes. I’ll show you Snow geese in another post later. The Sandhills are here in record numbers too and they are really the main attraction for me as far as I’m concerned. Where the Snow geese are noisy and spectacular in the morning when they all take off at the same time, these guys, the Sandhills, are more graceful and sophisticated. They can be noisy also but it is usually when they land, or are calling their mates, or telling that neighbor he is way too close. They have a stately walk, they don’t scramble, they are polite to their mates bowing and nodding and will often engage in an impromptu dance to reaffirm how much they like each other. All in all, very nice birds. They congregate in small groups and those groups will make larger flocks and so on, but they seem to find smaller family gatherings preferable. In the early morning as they are getting ready to go to work they collect their other group members and begin the preparations to leave. In the evening as they return they glide in to the pond areas in formation and settle down for the night. This is the time when they seem to interact with each other the most. They talk over the days events, decide where they’re going tomorrow and then settle down until morning.