Tag Archives: North

Wings In The Sunrise

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The time is 7:48:47 am, February 9th of a year gone past. It is bitter, bitterly cold. And it is the exact moment that the conditions are just right for the thousands of Snow Geese wintering here at Bosque del Apache to lift into the air en masse. The rushing noise of their wings punctuated by their coarse honking calls creates a sound unique to this moment. As they lift and try for altitude they will pass overhead so closely you can feel the downward force of the wind from their wings, perhaps only a dozen feet or more over your head.

It is a mesmerizing sight to see, with sometimes 30,000 birds clustered together on long rafts that nearly fill the ponds they spend the night in suddenly, at some unknown cue explode into the air. They rarely circle the pond as they ascend, instead the various family groups, or tribes, or however they relate to each other begin to separate and choose the course to their day’s feeding area. Soon in mere seconds it seems, the pond is empty and quiet. Perhaps there may be one or two stragglers left on the ponds flat surface, those who have decided that they’re going to take the day off today, or perhaps the floating bodies of a few who have given up the ghost during the night, due to age or injury or just plain fatigue, but quiet. The silence is deafening.

This event takes place every morning the Snow geese are here at Bosque del Apache until one morning, again on some unknown cue,  they rise once more but instead of returning they head North to their summer range and the ponds are quiet and still until the coming Fall. Then each morning without fail you can take part in the wings in the sunrise experience. It is truly an unforgettable moment.

A Little Open Space

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Some of you around the country have been thinking of writing in to complain about the weather and how you’ve been feeling confined and when’s it going to stop, etc., like I would know, and I sense your frustration. And as one of our great, but impeached, political leaders once said, “I feel your pain.”

Consequentially I have chosen to give you a little open space this morning. I know a lot of you have been cooped up and can’t get out doors to do the simplest things, like dump your litter box, or see if you can find your car under all that snow, or get away from that significant other who has been singing “The Spirit of New Orleans” for the last three days. It seems like a little relief is needed.

So OK then, rather than look for the shells for the 12 gauge, take a moment and reflect on this image of the north end of the Lamar valley looking up at Barronette Peak. Take a deep breath and smell the clean cool air of an early fall afternoon. The sun still has some warmth left and it feels good on your back. The grass, though yellowed and dry for the most part, still has enough life in it that the grazers can graze, and way off down there, past the drainage of Soda Butte creek, a small group of buffalo are settling in.

You have the whole place to yourself today because it’s too far North for the tourist busses to come and everyone else is down in the Hayden or over at Swan Lake flats looking for grizzlies before they head uphill for the winter. The grizzlies not the tourists. The tourists will be heading back to the Holiday Inn in West Yellowstone before it gets dark and scary out here.

If you wanted too, you could take off and just walk straight towards the mountains as long as you wanted to, just remember you have to walk back, so maybe just sitting on the boulder there and finishing off your thermos would be enough.

Well we all know that this isn’t as good as the real thing but hey, it’s better than listening to you know who sing. And as long as we’re on that subject, after you’ve had your fill of whatever serenity you can muster from viewing this special part of Yellowstone National Park, why don’t you go and tell you know who that you’ll let him out of the basement if he promises to stop singing. Maybe even show him this picture and fix him a nice hot cup of tea, and if that doesn’t work the shells for the shotgun are on the top shelf in the hall closet behind the Christmas decorations. Good luck.