One of my favorite locations in New Mexico — the Bosque Del Apache — is situated along the eastern side of the Rio Grande 160 miles south of Albuquerque. It reminds me so much of where I lived for 12 years on the eastern shore of Maryland — 10 miles up the Miles River from the Chesapeake Bay — before moving to Santa Fe.
The eastern shore is very flat and surrounded by the Chesapeake Bay to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, with numerous rivers, and lots of wetlands and marshes; the Bosque del Apache too is very flat and is surrounded by the Rio Grande and its canals creating its wetlands.
While the eastern shore’s elevation averages only 4 to 6 feet, the Bosque del Apache’s elevation averages about 4,500′. Nevertheless, the high desert bosque still looks so much like the eastern shore, except that to the east and west are mountain ranges rising 2,000 to 3,000′ above the desert.
Both are important migratory flyways: the eastern shore is part of North America’s eastern migration flyway stopover for thousands of ducks, geese, and swans, while New Mexico’s Bosque del Apache is an established stopover serving the ducks and geese and sandhill cranes of North America’s western migratory flyway.
At the end of 2013, I spent more than a week — morning and night — photographing at the Bosque to provide me the opportunity to treat it for the following 8 blog posts as:
