40 sandhills hundreds of ducks big redtail while crossing rio grande at isleta cottonwoods less color here

trees in Albuquerque are still yellow gold red ... beautiful fall colors the bosque will be wonderful again this year.

am heading for festival 12 am from santa fe will report this afternoom

driving past the sandia mountains

We've had a report of 2 Mississippi Kites at the Flight Deck.

More Sandhill Cranes are arriving. Snow and cold and fog up north should bring in more cranes a little later this evening.

The Festival is setting up a silent auction here at the Festival with lots of great donated items, the sale of which will support the Emerson Learn Bus Scholarship Endowment Fund. The permanent fund was started in Emerson's memory by the Friends of the Bosque in coordination with the family of G. Emerson Learn III. It provides stipends for New Mexico schools to visit the Refuge.

Encouraging education about the value and beauty of the natural world - birds and wildlife and the habitat which they rely on for survival- is a key goal of the Friends.

Long Lenses Photography- pre Festival workshop with the fun and helpful and talented Jerry Goffe- we will interview him in a few days...

YouTube video

We will have much better videos during the Festival, but we know you will you enjoy the sounds of the cranes and geese and portions of the sunset scene.

Sandhill Cranes, Light Geese - Sunset at the Bosque del Apache NWR

See it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H90YoIXAdw

Festival Coordinatior Robyn Harrison (left) and Friends of the Bosque Executive Director Leigh Ann Vradenburg dressed in the fun t-shirts for this years' Festival, featuring the Festival Art and sandhill crane tracks down one arm.

(If you buy anything in the Bosque Nature Store - or the online Bosque Nature Store, the money supports the Friends' great projects in support of our spectacular Refuge.)

OK- first off- the bird count-

There are more birds than reported officially since the count was a while back (the Friends' web site has the official report which is a combination of Nov 5 and Nov 10; and F&W "didn't get a good count.")

Light Geese 19,850

Sandhill Cranes 2,491 (more as of today, Nov 15)

Canada Geese 325

Ducks over 23,000

With good internet access at the Refuge, we'll have a blog you will love (we hope!!)

It won't start the first day because the main blogger is traveling down to the Bosque on Wednesday and getting set up, so the first report will be that afternoon and might be an interview with John Vradenburg about snow geese and his workshop.

This will be the beginning of interviews from the presenters and speakers and updates on the whole Festival from a variety of people..

We'll include photos from the Festival- of people, birds, art and more.

(and some surprises!)