Saturday, November 15, 2008

Community gears up for festival's takeoff

Business community prepares for the Festival of the Cranes

Nat Holland El Defensor Chieftain Reporter, nholland@dchieftain.com

The Socorro County Chamber of Commerce and the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge are gearing up for the annual Festival of the Cranes.

As part of the preparations, the chamber has trained some of the employees of local businesses who deal most often with tourists, such as hotel staff. How far is it to the refuge? Which highway do you take? Where and when are the best times to view birds?

As part of the training, members from various businesses were given a tour of the Bosque del Apache to experience things firsthand, and to be better equipped to answer questions.

The real work, for those who went on the tour, including this reporter, happens year-round at the refuge. Countless hours of work, much of it from volunteers, are put in to make not just the Festival of the Cranes a success, but the well-being and preservation of dozens of avian species that call the refuge home.

Cranes, herons, pintail ducks, coots, pie-billed grebes, mallards, Mexican black ducks, Canada geese, white geese, gadwalls and bufferheads were spotted on the casual morning tour, as well as a northern harrier, redtail hawk, roadrunner and a pheasant.

Moist soil management, which involves regular flooding and draining of land all over the 53,000 acre refuge, is the key to attracting and caring for the migratory birds that winter at the refuge.

Most of the birds spend each night in one of the water-filled areas, either floating on the surface or standing up on their tall legs. In the morning they will fly out to forage, often in corn fields grown on the refuge specifically for the birds. Corn is knocked down regularly to feed an appropriate amount to the number of birds currently on the refuge.

Proper flooding also allows vegetation rich in seeds eaten by the birds to grow.

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