Visiting New Mexico's Crane festival — news.mongabay.com

Every winter cranes and snow geese migrate from Montana, Idaho, Canada, and Alaska to Bosque del Apache, a National Wildlife Refuge in Central New Mexico. For the past twenty-one years the refuge has celebrated the bird migration with a Festival of the Cranes. People travel from around the state (and country) to see the Southwest skies fill with birds. The festival lasts a week and includes educational stands, social gatherings, tours, hikes, and speakers on natural history and the environment. For this one week the small town of Socorro becomes overrun with birders, scientists, and tourists. The name of the refuge, Bosque del Apache, translates to ‘Woods of the Apache’: the Apaches used to camp here, under cottonwood trees near freshwater.

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