Posts in Category: Bosque del Apache
The Fawn and The Crane: Bosque del Apache NWR
After we closed up the vendor tent at The Festival of the Cranes, I generally managed to get a bit of observation and photography done before the sun set. The light at Bosque del Apache is lovely at that time of day. On Sunday, in my final loop of the refuge on this visit, I drove up on three Mule Deer fawns (maybe two fawns and a yearling), feeding in the short grass at the edge of one of the “farm” fields at the north end of the tour loop. There was a group of Sandhill Cranes deeper in, among the green clover crop that had been planted for the Snow Geese, but a few had strayed out looking for bugs in the short grass with the deer.
I took lots of pics of the deer, but what I really wanted was at least one fawn and a crane in the same shot. Though the light was rapidly going, and I hade a few more spots I wanted to get to before full dark, I waited until the deer got far enough out in the field to frame the shot I was after. 🙂
Canon SX50HS. Program with auto iContrast and Shadow Fill. -1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1200mm equivalent field of view. f6.5 @ 1/800th @ ISO 800. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.
And a couple of bonus shots.
Early HDR: Bosque del Apache NWR
I woke up Sunday morning in Socorro to wet streets. It had evidently rained heavily during the night. The Rio Grande Valley and all of New Mexico certainly needs the rain. On the dive out to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, the landscape, still under massive clouds, looked fresh washed…all the colors sharpened and deepened. It was especially effective on the browns and oranges of late fall.
I could not resist stopping at one of the wildlife viewing areas along the road into the refuge and setting up my hyper-light weight travel tripod for some HDRs. I like the tones in this one, the sweep of the clouds, and the leading lines of the two roads. It is looking straight north up the Rio Grande Valley.
Canon SX50HS. HDR Mode. (The camera takes three shots at three different exposures and combines them in-camera for a single extended range image. Hence the need for tripod.) 24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/250th @ ISO 80. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness using my new “soft-hyper” preset.
Sunset on the Flight Deck: Bosque del Apache. Happy Sunday!
For me Bosque del Apache has always been a very special place. I love the water and the mountains, the concentration of wildlife, the feeling of community among staff, the Friends of Bosque group, and the large group of full and part time volunteers. I like the small college town feel of Sucorro, which overlays the essential Hispanic cowboy and farming culture.
I like the fact that, year after year, the spectacle of the geese and cranes at dawn and sunset continues to attract crowds of people…not so much birders…as regular folk who make the drive down from Albuquerque and Santa Fe, or who include the Bosque in their vacation plans, just to stand to the edge of the road, the edge of a pond, or on the Flight Deck as the sun rises or sets and watch and listen. It is often cold, and people are bundled up, with hats and scarves and gloves…cold even in heavy winter coats…but they are there, waiting for the cranes to come in or the geese to rise.
And when it happens there is an energy that sweeps the crowd…a kind of glee…an obvious and overflowing delight. I love to watch the people coming off the Flight Deck…the uniformity and yet the vast variety of grins! You see the grin in the eyes of even those most muffled in scarves.
And that is just the spectacle of the birds. If you are at Bosque for a week in November (or almost any month) you are just about guaranteed one spectacular dawn and one spectacular sunset: the kind that touch the very deepest places of awe in us. The sun rises and the sun sets everyday…but there are sunrises and sunsets that are simply something to see! And you hear it in the crowd. “Now that is really something!” That is about as close as we can get to describing what such a sunrise or sunset does to us. Something. Something universal and powerful. Something that makes us glad to be alive. Something that fills us with thanksgiving. Something very close to the root of awe in us.
I finished at the vendor’s tent (I am, after all, at Bosque to work) just in time on Friday to get out to the Flight Deck for the sunset fly in of the geese. The Deck itself was already packed shoulder to shoulder with people and I had no intention of attempting to worm my way to a spot on the rail. I parked further down and planned to shoot the incoming geese and cranes from the edge of the pond. But then the sky happened, and the sunset bloomed. I took several shots from the road, out over the cars, but it really needed the reflecting water of the pond, and the only way to get that was get out on the Flight Deck. I found a spot at the rail on the boardwalk leading out to the deck that worked…that gave me the expanse of water and sky I had seen in my mind’s eye.
The Canon SX50HS has a hand-held night scene mode which I am experimenting with for sunrises and sunsets, and I used it here. It takes three very rapid shots and combines them in-camera. There is just enough exposure blending to extend the range of the image…to capture a realistic foreground as well as the drama of the sky. Just my normal processing in Lightroom produces among the most natural sunrise and sunset shots I have yet managed. Of course I had to try it here.
I took a lot of shots and worked hard to keep the Flight Deck itself out of the images, but actually, it this one where I intentionally included the end of the deck and the people on it as part of the composition that really captures the experience best for me.
And for the Sunday thought: for me awe is an essential element of faith…I don’t believe I could believe in, or put my faith in, a Creator who was not awesome in every way…who did not inspire a feeling of root awe in me in every encounter…in every aspect of the Creator’s person, presence and works…and in relationship to me. Wonder is required, and wonder is my most basic emotion. Followed closely by thankfulness. “I have seen the face of God and yet I live!” The most wonderful thing about the awe of God is that we can experience it, more that than, we can participate in it, in its full awesome glory and yet live to tell about it. The most wonderful thing is that we are made to tell about it…that telling about it is, at least in part, what we are created to do.
Wonder and thanksgiving are the compounded elements of love…and ultimately it is love I feel in a sunset like this one…and it is the Creator’s love I am inspired to tell about. I have been overwhelmed by beauty and splendor, and yet I live! That is love in its most essential form. Or that’s what I think.
Bosque Sunrise
On every trip to Bosque del Apache for the Festival of the Cranes it is mandatory to get out at least one dawn to see the geese rise…and to experience the Bosque dawn itself. That means leaving your hotel in Socorro before 6am. But it is almost always worth it. You have to decide whether to stop at the ponds on the way into the refuge beside the road, where the geese rest for the night, and try to catch them when they rise. They are closer there than anywhere else on the refuge. Or, if you want the sunrise across the water, you continue on the the main tour loop and drive out to the Flight Deck Pond. It seems as though there will masses of people there already no matter which you choose or how early you get there…but there is always room for one more, if you are willing to park and walk.
These are shots from the Flight Deck Pond. As it turned out, most of the geese were else where this particular dawn…but the dawn itself was typical of one of the November cloudless days on the Bosque.
And the geese did rise. I wanted to catch them against the dawn sky, but most of the flocks came up further north. Still.
And of course once the geese are gone, you still have the Sandhill Cranes wading in the reflection of the sunrise in the water.
All shots Canon SX50HS. 1) and 3) are Sports Mode. 2) is Hand-held Night Shot Mode (the camera takes three very rapid exposures and combines them…I am finding that it comes as close to capturing the real visual range of a sunrise or sunset as I have yet been able to do.) 4) is just a long tel-shot with –1/3 EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness. 2) cropped as needed for composition.
12/19/2011: New Mexico Varigated Meadowhawks
I have been having a lot of fun with dragonflies over the past 6 months or so, and I am slowly amassing a collection of images. You can see what I have so far at my dragonflies gallery on WideEyedInWonder. This is female Varigated Meadowhawk from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. This was by far the most common dragonfly at Bosque during our November visit. Despite the name, they were hunting the edges of the ponds and over the dyke roads. We even found them, like the male that follows, deep in the upland scrub desert, 100s of yards from the nearest water.
It was interesting to see that Varigated Meadowhawk in New Mexico in November is a good deal duller in color than VMs from California (third photo) in October.
Maybe the NM VMs were just a month older and more worn (you can see the bits of missing wing in the female)…and maybe it is regional variation.
Another shot of a NM male.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. 1) 2) and 4 at 1680mm equivalent (840 optical plus 2x digital tel converter). 1) and 2) f5.8 @ 1/800th @ ISO 160. 4) same with ISO 125. 3) f5.8 @ 1/320th @ ISO 200.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/17/2011: Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Bosque del Apache
One morning at Bosque del Apache, having got to the refuge early but without a car, I shouldered my tripod, my spotting scope and the tiny Point & Shoot I use behind the eyepiece, along with my binoculars and my ever-present super-zoom Canon and walked out along the center, two-way, road on the tour loop. Even though I was on foot they insisted on giving me a receipt at the toll house to prove I was official when I flashed my Duck Stamp (Migratory Bird Conservation Stamp in actuality…every birder should buy one! and not just because it gives you free entry to all National Wildlife Refuges). I found Cranes along the road and got some good shots in the early light (which perhaps you will see one of these days)…but the best bird of the day came when I was (very) foot weary and almost back to the Visitor Center.
I had just turned out of the refuge road onto NM Route 1 and was walking along the wide verge between the pavement and the brush when a hawk came up off the ground 50 feet in front of me and went by me at waist level. It was small, so I was thinking Kestrel, and I was also thinking “too bad I was not looking more carefully…it is surely gone now.” But I turned anyway, and scanned the brush along the edge of the pond.
What do you know? There it was, perched on the back side of the brush about 60 feet from me again.
Figuring it would not sit there long, I sat the spotting scope down and pulled out my Canon SX40HS. All in all the super-zoom is a lot faster getting on the bird and getting off those quick shots. And I have come to trust the 1.5x and 2x digital tel-converter settings on the Canon to give me decent hand held results out to 1680mm equivalent. So, I worked by way into the brush just there to see if I could get a clear line of sight to the backside where the hawk sat. It was a Sharp-shinned…a small male…not much bigger then my first guess Kestrel would have been. And, indeed, there was a marginally clear shot.
It was tricky focus but the auto focus on the Canon was up to it. I keep the Canon set to continuous, which, with a fast Class 10 SDHC card, gives me something near 4 frames per second. I shot a burst at full optical zoom (840mm) then clicked in the 1.5x digital converter and took another burst (I have the converters set on my short-cut button). Between those two bursts the Sharpy turned its head just enough more toward me so that the sun, coming in from the side, caught the eye and lit the orange iris like an LED. One more click of shortcut button and I got off a burst at 2x, or 1680mm equivalent. The top shot is one from that burst, the second shot is from the 1.5x burst.
Sometimes you just get blessed beyond any deserving.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 125.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/12/2011: November Light on the Bosque
As I may have mentioned, if there is a place where the light is more beautiful than New Mexico in November, then I have not seen it yet (a distinct possibility…but that does not diminish my affection for New Mexico Novembers). A crisp, clear high desert morning with a few clouds to reflect off the water at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and the mountains etched on the horizon…the contrasting warmth of the cottonwoods in autumn plumage, and the grasses and reeds browning toward winter…and all flooded with that unique light: there is nothing quite like it.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent field of view, f4 @ 1/800th @ ISO 100. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
2/9/2011: Bosque del Apache Scenic
One of the things I love about Bosque in November is the light. It is great on the birds and it is great on the mountains and the fields that line the Rio Grande. I always come back with 1000s of bird shots…and at least a few scenics. This was taken early one morning from the backside of the driving loop looking to the west. The Rio Grande is behind me.
Canon SX40HS at 24mm equivalent. Program with iContradt and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/7/2011: More Sandhills, Bosque del Apache NWR
While we are on the subject of Sandhill Cranes…
There were only about 5000 Cranes down yet while we were at Bosque in November. Only is completely relative. Even 100 Cranes in a corn field is impressive. While shooting these I was switching back and forth between my point and shoot behind the ZEISS DiaScope and my Canon SX40HS, using the superzoom for flight shots and the digiscoping rig for portraits. These are all digiscoped shots.
Canon SD100HS behind the Vario eyepiece on a ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for focal lengths ranging from 1200mm to 4000mm equivalents.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/6/2011: Cranes in Early Sun, Bisque del Apache NWR
I posted a sequence from this same morning a few days ago, taken as the sun was rising behind a bank of cloud on the horizon. Eventually the sun got up above the clouds and spread across the empondment and the birds. It was, as is often the case in New Mexico in November, a clear crisp light with a good deal of warmth to it. It made the Sandholl Cranes look particularly alive.
Canon SX40HS. 1260mm,1680mm, and 72mm equivalents. Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.