Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
On a cold and blustery evening before Christmas, my daughter, four friends, a border collie, and I headed to Paul’s Lake, part of the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge south of Muleshoe.
We were in search of sandhill cranes.
Jude Smith, project leader for the High Plains National Wildlife Refuge (which includes Muleshoe), had alerted us that the numbers might be low on this visit — an unseasonably warm winter seems to have temporarily “short stopped” them in Oklahoma and Kansas, he said.
He was right, but even without a dramatic fly-in by the thousands of cranes that typically winter over here, and even with a biting wind, and even with a 9-year-old who thought we might die while we waited and waited … and waited, it was a magical place.
Smith hopes the next cold front or two will push on south the tens of thousands of cranes who are regular “snowbirds” in the refuge complex, which also includes Buffalo Lake NWR in Texas, and Grulla NWR southeast of Portales.
“We typically hold around 80,000 to 100,000 lesser sandhill cranes on the refuge or in the area this time of year,” Smith said. “Also we estimate that 5 to 15 percent of the mid-continental crane population uses the southern High Plains of New Mexico and Texas annually.”
For Smith, a Clovis native whose passion for wildlife began when he was a child, overseeing this complex of refuges is a dream job. He spent six years as the complex biologist before becoming manager of the Muleshoe refuge in 2009. In 2013, the refuges in west Texas and eastern New Mexico were “complexed” and he was appointed project leader.
“I worked my way up from the very bottom to a project leader and still spend about 80 percent of my time looking for animals,” Smith said. “I can honestly say right now that I have seen more sunrises than most folks ever get to see.”
And not only sunrises, but a dazzling array of wildlife. While many of us associate cranes with these refuges, the chatty winter visitors are only one of a plethora of species that use the playa lakes and native grasslands tucked around the caprock escarpments.
Part of Smith’s job is keeping tabs on the wildlife that roams the refuge — a place he says he frequently has to remind people is “not a zoo.”
One morning this month on a deer survey, Smith counted 27 mule deer, but also noted, “one bobcat, three coyotes, one lesser prairie chicken, 2,000 sandhill cranes, 100 blue quail, 50 bobwhites, 100 blue-winged teal, 20 mallards, 16 shovelers, three canvasback ducks, 10 redhead ducks, 20 bufflehead ducks, two golden eagles, three ferruginous hawks, two red tailed hawks, a lot of prairie dogs, two prairie falcons, white crowned sparrows, Sprague’s Pipits, one roadrunner, two great-horned owls, a ladderback woodpecker, and meadowlarks.”
All that and the biggest and most beautiful sunrises and sunsets you can encounter on the High Plains, in a place that is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and free.
For more information, the refuge has a website that includes crane counts updated every two weeks. You can find it at:
When in doubt, take a 9-year-old and a border collie. You can’t go wrong.
Betty Williamson got mighty cold but it was worth it. You may reach her at: [email protected]
