Preserving, protecting, and restoring the Rio Grande bosque since 1994
Bosque Conservation Day
Every year, the Save Our Bosque Task Force hosts Bosque Conservation Day, a fun outdoor learning experience for area 5th grade students. Many of our partners come together every year to help run a station, help with cooking and serving lunch, or to help organize the event. Stations include birds of prey (where students get to see live birds of prey up-close and learn about raptor conservation), fire safety and wildfire prevention (where students get to use a real fire hose), and stations that educate students about archaeology, insects, birds, endangered species, water conservation, and much more!
Bosque Conservation Day is only possible because of the generous financial support we receive from our partners and community members, and of course the volunteers who make sure the students have a fun and educational day learning about the bosque !
At the SOBTF station, students were encouraged to write a short poem about one of three endangered species that can be found in the Rio Grande bosque - the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, the Southwestern Willow-Flycatcher, and the Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo. Below are their poems!
Southwestern Willow-Flycatcher
I have a crest and I nest in May and June.
I nest in June and I have a great tune. I nest in the trees and I’m above all the bees.
I sound like “fitz-bew”, I’m endangered because there’s only a few.
I’m tiny and small and my tail’s very long.
I don’t know what to say so I like to fly away. I’m 5 inches tall but I’m totally small.
I’m 5 inches and I say “fitz-bew”, I need help with my habitat too.
His beak is orange and black, he lacks good habitat. I attack flies so beware and take extra care.
I nest in May and June and I stare at the moon and I come out at noon.
I go to Mexico when it is cold, I don’t like mold but I like gold.
I have a mohawk and I like to talk.
Western Yellow-billed Cuckoo
I eat insects and travel long treks.
My feathers feel like pillows and I like to sleep in willows. My eyes are a ring of fire and I’m not much of a fighter.
I sound like a predator and I like to eat caterpillars.
I live in dense groves, like cottonwoods and willows.
I live in trees, I have no teeth, I have a yellow belly, I have a huge tail, I love to eat bees, I like the heat but not the cold!
My beak is as long as a needle and I like to eat beetles.
My belly is white but I do not fight!
I have a yellow bill with a fun tail, I catch caterpillars with ease, by any chance can I have some please?
Rio Grande Silvery Minnow
We travel in schools because we are really cool and we rule.
The silvery minnow glimmers, the silvery minnow shimmers. It swims at the bottom and we haven’t got’em.
I like to swim in schools and like to swim in shallow pools. I like to eat plants and when the river slants.
The river comes and now it is time to lay eggs. I am a fish and I don’t have no legs. I need water so save some for me.
When the river is dry the minnows will cry. We need the water high or the minnows will die.
When the water is not healthy the minnows are not wealthy.
We shimmer and shine when the water is fine.
Rio Grande silvery minnow, I like to sleep on my sandy wet pillow.
We like to fit in small cracks, we travel around in big packs.
I’m 2 ½ inches, my eggs are smaller than pinches, and I float around in ditches.