Festival of the Cranes
The Festival of the Cranes is held annually in mid-November to celebrate the return of the vast flocks of sandhill cranes to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge see under "Get out". There are exhibits and activities in town, as well as guided tours to the refuge and other sites, some of which are not routinely open to visitors. (http://www.friendsofthebo...).
Whooping cranes
Socorro, or more accurately the Bosque del Apache wildlife refuge south of town, used to be one of the few places in the world where it was possible to see the enormous, spectacular, and critically endangered whooping crane in the wild, but alas, no longer. For some time researchers experimented with placing whooping-crane eggs in nests of the more common sandhills, in the hopes that the hatchlings would mature and multiply, providing some insurance for the species against catastrophe to the primary wild whooper flock which winters in Texas. Unfortunately, while the eggs hatched just fine and the whoopers grew to maturity, they didn't breed, for reasons still not understood; the only whooping cranes in the flock were the ones put there by the researchers. The flock therefore never included more than about 15 or 20 whoopers. This was enough to cause massive traffic jams on the road loops at Bosque del Apache when one was visible from the roadside, but not enough to meet the goal of preserving the species; the experiment was eventually abandoned, and the last pure-bred whooping crane in the Bosque flock has now succumbed. The visitor center at the Bosque does include a preserved whooper in a diorama, which will give you a sense of just how spectacular these amazing birds are, but for a live one, you'll have to go to Texas, Canada, or a zoo.