Whitewater draw

Click the pics before they migrate.

A mix of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese. They seem to get along quite well together.

I don't really like driving east on I-10 early in the morning, but sometimes I'm willing to put up with the Sun blinding me so that I can be someplace that I'm really looking forward to spending some time. And that's how I always feel when heading for any place with a whole passel of Sandhill cranes, especially when I can boondock next to their lake.

Needless to say I made it to Whitewater Draw safely after about an hour and a half of driving. I prefer to get to the boondocking area at Whitewater Draw before lunch because there's only room for a few RVs and the RVs tend to start showing up after lunch.

It will be pretty chilly when I walk down to the lake a little before sunrise tomorrow. Nighttime temperatures will be in the high 20s low 30s, so it takes a lot to get me out of my warm bed at that time, and at those temperatures. But the thought of watching the Sandhill cranes leaving the lake by the thousands at the crack of dawn, backlit by the rising Sun to feed in nearby fields, is enough to make me forget about the cold.

And it's really the fact that I can boondock a couple of hundred yards from the lake where the Sandhill cranes live during the winter that makes this place so special to me. Of course, Bosque Del Apache is special, but the closest location to camp is three or four miles away, so it's less convenient than being able to walk to the Cranes at sunrise and sunset as I do at Whitewater Draw.

I found an article on the Internet by an RVer saying there is a boondocking area a mile from where I'm at now, which would be very useful to me since I can only stay where I'm at now for three days. It may not be true because boondocking spots tend to disappear regularly, but I'll check it out while I'm here.

Theboondork

This is the rather small boondocking area at Whitewater draw.

One of the flight decks at Whitewater Draw that is used by photographers and birdwatchers.

It's rather extraordinary to see an Australian red legged mud sucker in Arizona... But here's the proof. Closely related to the Arctic Penguin these birds love the cold weather which is probably why they walked to Arizona to take advantage of the cold weather we've been having. And yes just like their relative the Penguin, there a flightless bird that walks everywhere it goes except when it's in Japan and then it takes the bullet train.

A duck.

A pair of Sandhill cranes coming in for a landing.