Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge

An executive order of October 24, 1935 set the refuge aside on the Central Flyway, twenty miles south of Muleshoe, and it is the oldest national wildlife refuge in Texas. It covers 6,440 acres of shortgrass, yucca, cactus and mesquite over rolling sandhills, broken by caliche rimrock on the north and west that flowers in spring.

The center of it is three saline lakes, White, Goose and Paul's, each in upper and lower parts. These are playa salinas that once went dry most years; work by the WPA in the 1930s extended their wet periods, and spring-fed Paul's Lake, east of the highway, can hold water when the others are dust. Full, the lakes make about 600 acres of water. They are not often full.

When there is water, the cranes come. Sandhill cranes begin arriving around the end of September and stay about half a year, and their numbers peak from December to mid-February, often at 100,000 or more. A record 250,000 were counted in February 1981. They roost on the lakes and fly out to feed in the fields, so dawn and dusk are the times to watch. Pintails are the most common duck, and in midwinter a patient visitor can see eight or more kinds of raptors in a day, bald and golden eagles among them. Prairie dogs and burrowing owls share the grassland, and camping is allowed.