Thursday, November 15, 2007
Walk out to Fly out Don't miss the opportunity to witness one of the great wildlife spectacles in the US! It's a Festival tradition (and one of our favorite things to do)! Take a short bus ride and then walk out to watch the incredible flight of thousands of geese and cranes leaving their nighttime roosts. Warm shoes and clothing recommended. Offered Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Meet in the Visitor Center parking lot. Black Belt Birding Join Julie Zickefoose, Bill Thompson and Cecile Kimberlin for a memorable birding experience. A tour for intermediate and expert birders. You will have the most experienced guides and birding assistants the Refuge has to offer for a morning of serious birding. Coffee and pastries and ammenities are provided but the focus is on BIRDING. This event is offered Thursday and Friday. Limit 12. Sandhill Crane Behavior This morning-long workshop will teach you many of the common vocalizations, body language and other characteristics of sandhill cranes. You’ll learn to recognize juveniles; tell the subspecies apart; understand the difference between dancing and aggression; and many other details that will help you better understand and appreciate sandhill cranes. At first light we will listen to the cranes on their roosting spots to identify vocalizations and other behaviors. We then move to the classroom for breakfast and viewing many behaviors on film before traveling to different locations on the refuge to watch and interpret cranes interactions. This is the most comprehensive training on cranes offered at any crane festival. Your instructors are Paul Tebbel and Keanna Leonard. Paul has worked with cranes for 30 years, including 11 years as the director of Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary on the Platte River in Nebraska where more cranes gather every spring than any other location in the world. He is now the director of The Wildlife Center in Espanola, New Mexico. Keanna is the Director of Education at Rowe Sanctuary and helps over 7,000 students every year understand and appreciate cranes, wildlife habitat and the Platte River. Deadly Beauty Photography Photograph the hunting strategies that hawks, falcons, and eagles use to catch their prey. This event will give priority to the needs of photographers. Trained hawks and falcons will be released to fly, chase lures, and possibly even hunt wild quarry (viewers be warned!) Presented by falconer and wildlife rehabilitator Matthew Mitchell, this group will meet at the west side of the Owl Café in San Antonio at 8:00 AM and carpool a short distance to an area where the birds can be flown safely. Bring your questions, tripods, cameras and binoculars, but no dogs. Land, Sea and Air Sea birds, diving ducks, cormorants, grebes, white pelicans and more can be found in a dramatic geological setting at Elephant Butte Lake. Join Steve Green and Art Arenholz for this exciting trip aboard a 44-foot twin-engine houseboat, followed by birding on land. Breakfast snacks and a full lunch, featuring locally grown and produced foods, will be served. The boat will leave promptly at 9:00 am from Marina del Sur at Elephant Butte State Park (about a 90 minute drive from Socorro) and will return to the same location around noon. From there we caravan (5 - 10 minutes) to the riparian area at the base of Elephant Butte dam for more birding. Take exit 83 on 1-25 and follow signs to the State Park. Or stay in Truth of Consequences. We will be happy to send information on accommodations close to the tour site. The price of the tour is refundable if the weather is such that the trip has to be canceled. Be sure to note your dietary requirements on the meals page of the registration forms. Warm clothing is recommended. Limit is 14. Offered on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. All About Raptors Join two experienced raptor handlers for this comprehensive course on the identification of birds of prey. Your instructors will combine live education birds, photographs and field observation to help you learn to recognize the plumage variations in red-tailed hawks to telling the age of an immature bald eagle. This workshop will focus on specific features of different species while also providing you with interesting information about their habitat needs and behavior. Your instructors are Dr. Kathleen Ramsay and Barbara Tebbel. Dr. Ramsay started The Wildlife Center in Espanola, NM over 20 years ago and provides veterinary care for hundreds of raptors every year. She is also one of the primary field veterinarians for the New Mexico Game and Fish Department. Barb Tebbel has been a full time wildlife rehabilitator for most of the last 15 years. She covered all of central and western Nebraska for Raptor Recovery Nebraska from 1996 – 2006. Discover Sevilleta Approximately 230,000 acres in size, the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge is a vast landscape in the heart of New Mexico that supports four major ecosystems, includes two mountain ranges and embraces the largest river in the state. It is managed with limited human interference allowing the natural process of flood, fire and succession that sustain this huge landscape's functioning ecosystems. Public access is generally restricted and this tour offers a rare opportunity to visit the refuge's back country. Transportation will be provided. Bring a sack lunch and plenty of water. Dress for the weather with comfortable walking shoes. Don't forget your camera. To reach the Visitor Center take I-25 North from Socorro to Exit 169. Turn West and go 3/4 of a mile. Limited to 18 people. Papercutting Last year's brochure cover was a design cut from a single piece of paper. Want to try it yourself? Cover artist Marjorie Mullany will show you how and give you some practice. Scissors are supplied and you get to keep them at the end of the class. Refuge Birding Tour Join one of the refuge's experienced birders for a tour of wetlands, farm fields, and forests. Look for cranes, waterfowl, light geese, raptors, and more. You don't need to be an expert - beginning birders are welcome. The exact tour route will depend on the distribution of birds on that day. Offered Thursday and Friday. Meet in the Visitor Center parking lot.Limit 40. Refuge Manager Tour Explore the refuge with some of the people who know it best - the managers, biologists, and other staff who work here daily. You'll travel behind-the-scenes and learn how and why of refuge management - from crops and wetland management to saltcedar removal. This is your chance to ask, and have answered, your questions about day to day life on a national wildilfe refuge. Offered Thursday and Friday. Meet in the Visitor Center parking lot. Limit 40. Bird is the Word Write a poem, a story, an essay that captures your experience with our feathered friends. Open to all writers: beginning and seasoned. This all day event includes lunch on the Mezzanine. Facillitated by Chellis Glendinning, author of five books-including the award-winning Chiva: A Village Takes aon the Global Heroin Trade; Off the Map: An Expedition Deep into Empire and Global Economy; and My Name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization - and a bilingual folk opera about immigration, De Un Lado Al Otro. Birders Guide to Duck Butts John Vradenburg is the Senior Wildlife Biologist at Bosque del Apache NWR and has extensive experience with wetlands and waterfowl. John will show you how to identify the dabbling and diving ducks that we find at the refuge in November. This event includes lunch and a field trip. It is offered on Thursday, and Friday. Be sure to mark a lunch choice on your reservation form. Protecting Cultural Sites SiteWatch: A call for the STEWARDSHIP of our resources. Earth history and the story of humankind are woven through many millennia. With rapid environmental and social change the protection of our natural and cultural/heritage resources is becoming more complex due to economic pressures that have resulted in the destruction and theft of our precious and sensitive resources (some of which are non-renewable); adding to natural forces already at work. Many tools are being used worldwide to help protect our heritage resources, including: education, technology, enforcement, and monitoring. This session will look at these tools, with specific attention that the role that volunteer site steward programs in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas and Utah are playing in protecting our fragile legacy for future generations. Lunch on the Mezzanine We will be serving a hot buffet lunch on the mezzanine at Macey Center. This is an opportunity to meet other Festival attendees as well as Festival speakers. Seating is limited to 40 and is by prepaid reservation only. Available Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Sketching Quick sketching is a wonderful way to train your eye to truly observe
nature. Valerie Graves, Taos NM Artist and Festival of the Cranes exhibitor,
will be offering a class in Bird and Landscape Sketching at the Festival.
Participants will be able to sketch outdoors on the Refuge and inside
the Lannan Annex in the Visitors Center. Learn to observe movement of
the birds and use various plants and vegetation to add authenticity to
your sketches. Plan to bring binoculars, colored pencils (or oil pastels,
charcoal, conte crayons, lead pencils, etc.), a sketch book, clip to
hold papers, a folding chair, hat, sunscreen, layered clothing, bug spray
and a camera for working outside. Inside you can finish preliminary work,
study the various bird exhibits, visit and compare ideas and sketches.
Hopefully these VLA Tour The VLA (Very Large Array) sits on the Plains of San Agustin, 50 miles west of Socorro and is used by radio astronomers from all over the world. It consists of 27 230-ton dish antennas, which can be moved along three 13-mile legs of a Y-shaped array. A staff member will discuss the history, operation and mission of this "other-worldly" project. Take Highway 60 west to Magdalena. Continue west for 19 miles. Turn south on Route 52 and follow signs to the VLA Visitor Center. Allow one hour travel time from Socorro. Offered Thursday and Friday. Cave Swallows In 1978 Steve and others began a study of Cave Swallows in Texas and
New Canyon Trail Hike Local naturalist Bob Merkel will lead the group on a 2-1/2-mile round trip along a wide, sandy arroyo and then into a fascinating narrow canyon replete with geologically interesting formations. They are from Tertiary time, millions of years before the Rio Grande existed, and evidences of floods, eruptions, and desert dunes are there for all to see. Look But Dont Touch Join naturalist (and cactus grower) Daniel Perry and Friends volunteer Percy Deal, for a walk through the Laura Jean Deal Desert Arboretum to commune with the cacti. These special plants are symbolic of the southwest and are found only in the New World. We will discuss identification, propagation, cultivation and appreciation of these prickly plants. There are also a few imposters we will learn to identify. Offered Wednesday and Thursday. Walk in to Fly in An evening extravaganza! Watch as the evening sky fills with thousands of geese and cranes returning to the nighttime safety of the marshes. A bus ride and a short walk will take you to the roost area. Wear comfortable shoes and dress warmly. Offered Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Meet in the Visitor Center parking lot. Bosque Management Reception Friends Annual Dinner The Friends of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge invite you to join in the fifth annual Friends Banquet on the Macey Center Mezzanine. Open to everyone, the banquet provides you the opportunity to meet the Friends in an informal setting. Refuge staff will be available before dinner to discuss projects and initatives in the biology, visitor services, and fire programs. We have a number of activities planned and there will be an exhibit by local artists. There will be a no host bar. Be sure to make your dinner selection on the registration form. Keynote Dr. William deBuys Dr. deBuys is professor of the Documentary Studies at the College of Santa Fe and the author of six books. He will discuss the many ways the Rio Grande binds us to our geographic homes and to each other. Dr. deBuys will talk about our relationship to the Rio Grande and how it connects us by way of shared experience to people all around the globe who must contend with striking a balance between short term economic development and environmental protection. He will cover how we struggle with the complexities and frequent injustices of water allocation in an increasingly thirsty world.
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