Cotton Harvest and Cibola Wildlife Refuge

For most of us that thought cotton was only for parts of the deep south like Alabama etc., we are sorely mistaken, it is a huge crop here in Arizona and California and early December seems to be harvest time.
Here is a field all ripe for the harvest.

A little close up, they look just like the cotton balls you buy in the store.

This is not one of the harvesters but a sprayer that can go amongst the cotton, the harvesters have great big wired cages so that the cotton balls do not escape when being ripped off their plants.


Then they are set into huge bales along the side of the road before a truck comes to pick them up.

Just down the road we come across a beautiful green crop, I am not sure what, looks like some sort of chard.

Our destination this morning was the Cobola Wildlife Refuge, we were not sure what we would find but were pleasantly surprised at all the birds.

Here are some Sandhill Cranes and our own Canada geese.

Amongst the Canada geese we found one lone snow goose, he was hard to get a picture of.

And then whoosh, just when things are still a thousand little birds take flight, wow.

We went for a nature walk and saw nothing for wildlife but I am finding out why I am having so much trouble with my alergies, the trees are loaded with a fluff, the ground looks like snow, or as close as we are going to see anyway. Between the fluff and the cotton harvest my head feels like it could blow up.

We decided to take one more loop around the 4 mile loop in the refuge and glad we did as we found this little burrowing owl that let us take his picture, except for his twirling head he did not move.

A close up of the cranes.

Had a good day, then went for lasagna dinner and a dance at the club house, just a great way to finish it off.