They tumble out of the sky like maple leaves, side-slipping right and left to lose altitude, feet spraddled toward shouts of welcome below.

Aldo Leopold could easily have been describing the more than 40,000 geese that punctuate the quiet beauty of the 8,200-acre Washita National Wildlife Refuge each winter. Within the refuge, the slow-moving Washita River winds through prairie and farmlands to merge with Foss Reservoir, providing a home and resting area for geese and other waterfowl. Gently rolling hills, ravines, and bottomlands laced with creeks shelter wildlife as common as white-tailed deer and as exotic as the Texas horned lizard, a State endangered species.