Posts in Category: wildlife
Snow Storm!!!
Snow Geese (and Ross’ Geese). Bosque del Apache NWR
This is this year’s mandatory Snow Geese panic shot from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes. Appropriately it was our last afternoon tour of the loop around the refuge. In the morning I had filmed the best panic I have seen at Bosque ever…but I did not get any stills, so I was really hoping for this shot in the afternoon. (video at Snow Storm.)
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1/250th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
Cranes against the Sunset. Happy Sunday!
Sandhill Cranes. Bosque del Apache NWR
Yesterday promised to provide one of those amazing Bosque del Apache sunsets…there were just enough clouds along the horizon to light up as the sun sank behind the mountains. We set up at the ponds along Route 1 to watch the Sandhill Cranes fly in for the night, and to wait for the sky. Bosque performed as expected. This is a classic Bosque del Apache shot, with the Cranes framed against the flaming sky. There were probably 100 other photographers lined up along the dyke by the ponds trying for this, or a very similar, shot. And that was just yesterday. Hundreds of thousands of images of Sandhill Cranes against the sunset have been taken at Bosque over the years. I have taken quite a few myself 🙂 Still, that does not keep me from trying again every chance I get. There is a beauty and a wonder that persists…that is just as intense the 100th time you experience it as was the first. A beauty and a wonder so rich and rewarding that you are compelled to try to capture and share it every time. Or at least I am. Moments like these put us in touch with both who we really are, and, as I see it, with the loving creator of all that is (including us). They are bridge moments…open window moments…moments of profound connection with all that is and to the meaning…the message being written…the life being lived. Beauty, wonder, and meaning written large and bold in Cranes against the sunset at Bosque del Apache. Happy Sunday!
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. Processed in Lightroom.
Ducks Away…
Mostly Pintails and Mallards. Bosque del Apache NWR
The sun was fully on the newly flooded fields by Willow Deck at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge by the time we got there yesterday. We had been slowed down by a great gyre of Snow Geese settling on the ponds along Route 1 and, what with the Cranes rising as the sun hit the water, we were that late getting to Willow Deck. And that was okay. They had pumped considerably more water into the fields there overnight and there were hundreds of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes and thousands of puddle ducks…mostly Pintail and Mallard. I was thinking it would be really nice if the puddle ducks rose in that lovely light, and I walked down the road toward a cluster of them close in. I had my camera already up and was scanning the clot of ducks when, in fact, right on schedule, they rose 🙂 Glory!
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode at 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 160 @ 1/640th @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
Song Sparrow Foraging.
Song Sparrow foraging at Bosque del Apache NWR
Sometimes you are just gifted with birds. My friend and I stopped to photograph Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes in a field of alfalfa at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge yesterday morning, and as we worked, it became apparent that there were two small birds foraging in the reedy brush beside us, about 12 feet way. Eventually both birds worked their way more less into sight. Though the Bewick’s Wren never did show well, this Song Sparrow came out and gave us amazing looks and amazing photo ops. 🙂 Just a gift.
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view. (1200mm optical plus 2x Clear Image Zoom). Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
Close Formation: Snow Geese
Snow Geese. Bosque del Apache NWR
One of the great things about being a photographer is that looking for things to put a frame around makes you pay attention to the details of action, form, texture, lighting that otherwise too often just become a blur of experience. Of course, as you get good at photography (or at least better at photography) you also begin to be able to share some of what you observe about action, form, texture, and light…to share little framed snippets of the life as you experience it. Like these two Snow Geese, coming in for a landing in close formation at Bosque del Apache NWR in Socorro NM. Such grace.
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/1600th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Window tablet.
Pretty Little Mule Deer
Mule Deer: Bosque del Apache NWR
When you manage the landscape for birds, of course manage the landscape for all kinds of wildlife. At Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge they manage for the Snow Geese and Cranes, but the refuge is also home to a sizable herd of elk, coyote, mountain lion, and lots and lots of Mule Deer. The Mule Deer is the counterpart to our Eastern White-tailed Deer, and is in all ways similar except one. Mule Deer are relativity easy to see in their habitat. White-tailed Deer, in most places, are very elusive. This young deer was a cross a dyke from the tour road, and even given that it feels safe on the refuge where hunting is at least predictable, it was still remarkably unconcerned with our presence in our cars just a stones-throw away. 🙂
Sony HX400V. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
Purple Finch!
Purple Finch
Just a quick post this am as I am on my way to New Mexico and the Festival of the Cranes. This is from the back yard on Saturday.
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom.
Egret Action
Two Great Egrets and a Snowy
There were large numbers of Egrets and Herons on either side of the canal (resaca) at the municipal park next to the Edinburg Scenic Wetlands World Birding Center in Edinburg Texas when we visited on a rainy day last week. As Egrets will do, the males on one side of the resaca were “facing off” with the males on the other side. I have seen it in all sized bodies of water, and at all kinds of distances. It is most dramatic of course in smaller pools where the Egrets go beak to beak. The closest of the Great Egrets here shows the typical posture.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 500 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Great-tailed Grackle
Great-tailed Grackle
The sound of South Texas, for any bird watcher, has to be the Great-tailed and Common Grackle flocks that congregate on the wires in the towns along the Rio Grande every evening. It is so exotic, at least to ears tuned to more eastern and northern bird sounds. I will admit that I don’t find grackles in great numbers all that attractive. However, in small groups, deeper into true Grackle habitat as you see them here at Estro Llano Grande World Birding Center south of Weslaco Texas, they are…well, at least entertaining if not attractive. 🙂 This is a typical display posture for the Great-tailed Grackle.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 1000 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Texas Has Great Junk Birds!
Green Jay
On every trip to the Rio Grande Valley, I am reminded again just how great the junk birds are in Texas. A junk bird is, among birders, a bird so common as not to warrant a second glance. It is generally also a somewhat obnoxious bird…extra noisy, aggressive toward other species, and messy in its habits. House Sparrow and Starling qualify on all counts, plus they are introduced species which compete for habitat with our native species. Most jays make the list, just because…well, just because they are jays. The Green Jay, in south Texas, is such a common bird around yards and feeders, and so jay like in behavior, that it has to be considered a Valley junk bird…but it is so striking…so amazing looking…that people come from all over the country (and the world) to see it…and seek it out whenever they come back. It is a junk bird that comes close to redeeming the whole category…maybe even to nullifying it. 🙂
This specimen was at the appropriately named “Green Jay photo blind” at Bensten State Park World Birding Center in Mission TX. Sony HX400V @ about 985mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 2500 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.