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| Yellow-headed blackbird takes flight |
On this drive, the national wildlife refuge at Monte Vista broke
up the trip with its chorus of birds and absence of people. It was one spot int he San Luis Valley where Nancy and I intended to stop (same Nancy as in the past, but new context - strictly friend and travel buddy).
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| Blanca Peak rainstorm |
Not that there were many people anyway. The valley is 120
miles long by 70 miles wide, its towns small, its farms and ranches large. The
valley immediately casts a different feel than Colorado’s Front Range.
No sooner had we left La Veta Pass in Fort Garland did the little funnel clouds of dust begin to rise in the distance. The wind continues to whip them up briefly.
The Great Sand Dunes loomed in the San Luis Valley’s northeast corner, 500 feet high at their tallest, but regal nonetheless in the shadow of the Sangre de Cristo peaks above them. A series of dusty towns leads into Alamosa, the valley’s largest city. Named for the cottonwoods on the Rio Grande’s banks, Alamosa had a bustling downtown and many older, well-kept houses nearby. Adams State University
The Rio Grande sticks with Highway 160 through a series of small towns across the northern part of the valley – Monte Vista, Del Norte, South Fork. This is the nation’s highest agricultural region, supported by mountain snowmelt swelling the Rio Grande and a large aquifer underneath the valley.
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| So many tiny ducklings |
We rolled through this quiet farmland, surrounded by the soaring
mountains that form the valley.
A storm we grazed when passing through Alamosa moved onto lash Blanca Peak, the highly prominent 14’er on the valley’s eastern edge. Western rain showers still amazed me; the water spouts down from gray clouds in ways we can only dream further east.
In later winter, the ponds and canals run thick with
sandhill cranes, then again for a shorter visit in October. Monte Vista even
hosts a March festival.
On this day the Monte Vista refuge hosted some stiff winds among its ponds and canals, the reeds holding their own against each stiff gust. This touch of local wildlife offered a good respite from the highway. We spent less than an hour on the gravel loop, but places this flush with wildlife take on a spiritual feel. In summer, the refuge waterways don’t lack for other species. Yellow-headed blackbirds were everywhere, as were the more common red-winged blackbirds. Many species of duck, geese, teals and other waterfowl drift in the ponds, trailed by their rapidly growing offspring.
The two-mile drive presented no raptors or birds of prey,
but dozens of species most of us rarely encounter. Birdsong ripped across the quite
farmland, dozens of species talking at once. Sure, the occasional mountain
bluebird, robin or red-winged blackbird flitted through the forests of reeds,
but this rich habitat had more unexpected species.
Nobody else circled the loop while we visited. That
surprised me for a second before it didn’t.
Wildlife refuges were not the
flashiest stops. They demand a little patience and a lot of quiet for the wildlife to adjust to humans in their habitat.
Monte Vista had the advantage of birds I had never seen before. Anytime the birds break from what we’re used to – my neighborhood murder of crows, robins, mourning doves and more – a little patch of land becomes exotic. A few canals and a patch of reed-filled ponds can present an ecosystem so foreign from what we often encounter. I will always enjoy those little places.
The wildlife refuge provided a little, memorable loop. Yellow-headed blackbirds help every time they took to the air and showed off colors only visible with their wings extended. Every drive needs its excursions, and Monte Vista provided a rush of birds among the reeds. Something tells me it will again.
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