Posts in Category: Bosque del Apache
12/5/2011: Cranes in Flight
One of the attractions of Bosque del Apache is the number of birds in flight on any given day. I have already chronicled the geese from this year’s visit in a post last week. Today we will take a look at the Sandhill Cranes. Sandhills are a truly prehistoric looking bird…especially in flight. Heavy bodied, with huge wings (spanning 8 feet), their flight is ponderous, and never more so than when they come in for landing. Still, there is a beauty and a grace common to any flying creature. They might be heavy, but they are still creatures of the air.
At Bosque they are often framed against the mountains or the cottonwoods, which adds to the effect.
And as the sun sets, the Cranes are moving to their night roosts in the ponds and provide spectacular silhouettes against the darkening sky.
Canon SX40HS at various settings between 700mm and 1260mm equivalents…in Programed auto, with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
11/27/2011: First Sun at Bosque del Apache, Happy Sunday
This is another shot from the delayed sunrise last Sunday at Bosque del Apache. Clouds closed the eastern horizon and it took the sun an hour or more to make its way up behind them before there was any direct sun on the ponds and fields. While the Geese were up and away at first light, many of the Cranes remained in the overnight ponds well past their normal departure for the feeding fields. The combination of subtle indirect light with a touch of dawn color made the morning unique.
Canon SX40HS. 1) 107mm equivalent, f4.5 @ 1/1000th @ ISO 200. 2) 246mm equivalent, f5 @ 1/250 @ ISO 200. 3) 717mm equivalent, f5.8 @ 1/200th @ ISO 125. Programed Auto with iContrast. –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity, light balance, and Sharpness.
And for the Sunday thought: Too often we think that clouds on the horizon spoil the dawn…and they certainly mute the sunrise and delay full light…but there is a beauty in that more subtle light, and you have much longer to appreciate it…to study the effect…to absorb the wonder of it. This is good, or can be if we we can see the delay for what it is and let go of our impatience. Taking it as a metaphor, of course, clouds on the horizon delaying our dawns are all too common in our lives…both our worldly lives and our spiritual lives (for those still making that distinction). When we commit to living with eyes wide open and full of wonder, we let go of our expectations of speedy dawns every day…we commit to giving the sun time to climb up behind the clouds, and we commit to enjoying every moment of the wait. In fact, we commit to not waiting at all. We commit to being in the moment and appreciating each one for what it is. That’s not waiting for anything. That is the life of the creator in us through spirit of his son, enabling us to be as we are intended to be. A long slow dawn, below the mountains, with majestic birds walking on reflected light…makes it easy to be wide eyed in wonder and belief…but that’s call for each day…no matter what shape the dawn takes.
Now if I could only remember that!
11/24/2011: Happy Thanksgiving. Travels with Family
I travel extensively with my job…attending Birding Festivals and events all over the US, and at least once a year in England…but I rarely get to take family along. This last trip, my wife Carol and youngest daughter Kelia(the only one still at home) met me in Albuquerque on my way to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, near Socorro New Mexico. And this day, Thanksgiving Day, our trip together is high on my list of things to be thankful for. I took a couple of vacation days early in the week, and we drove to Gallup to visit friends and do some hiking in the Red Rocks, and then I worked the festival while Carol and Kelia found Mexican cooking classes to attend and hikes to do…and shopped the craft fairs that spring up in Socorro on Festival of the Cranes weekend. And, of course, we had some very satisfying Mexican meals (Frank and Lupe’s El Sombrero in Socorro is not to be missed!) Each day we experienced a bit of the wonder of the Land of Enchantment together, and that was indeed an experience to be thankful for.
This is Carol and Kelia by a huge old Cottonwood at the Photo Blind on the Farm loop drive at Bosque. The pond on the far side of the blind was drained down, so we didn’t see the 1000s of Snow Geese that sometimes settle there, but it was an excellent photo op anyway.
And here they are on sunny day in Church Rock Canyon, Red Rocks State Park, near Rehoboth (where all my girls were born). This was Kelia’s first experience of the Red Rock country around Gallup, since we moved east when she was a month old.
And finally, on a hike up Water Canon in the Magdalena Mountains behind Socorro, Kelia couldn’t resist climbing up the downed and well bleached Cottonwood to perch in the window formed by the twisted trunk of is living descendent.
And today, 3 of my 5 girls are at home for the family Thanksgiving Feast. I wish they could have all be on that trip…that would have given me that much more to be thankful for…but I don’t know where I would put the thankfulness. I am full up. Besides, gotta leave room for turkey and cranberry sauce still to come!
All shots with the Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation. (And the Canon is another thing I am very thankful for…such a fun camera!)
11/23/2011: Elk Encounter at Bosque del Apache
So we were leaving Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge after my first actual day in the ZEISS booth at the Festival of the Cranes when we saw 7 or 8 cars in various states of disarray pulled off the side of the road just past where the rail lines cross Route 1. What’s that all about? At Bosque you never can be sure.
Elk!
Bosque’s small herd of Elk were making a rare public appearance back across the tracks against the brushy woods at the far side of the field, maybe 300 yards (at a wild guess) away from the road. What I saw first was a group of females and young well out into the field. The stopped cars already had them alert and moving back toward the brush, but I popped out of the car with my Canon SX40HS and ran it out to full zoom (840mm equivalent) to get a few shots. As you see above, the largest of the females (apparently the dominant female) is wearing a radio collar so refuge management can tell where the herd is feeding each day (not information they share with the public). I used the 1.5x and 2x digital tel-converters to get a few closer shots.
I was concentrating on the very visible females until my wife pointed out a bull, with a fairly large rack, standing well back in the brush watching the proceedings. For him I got out the spotting scope and my smaller Point and Shoot for some digiscoped images. The males are taken at about 3400mm equivalent through the eyepiece of the ZEISS spotting scope.
Finally another, even larger bull appeared from the right, bugling. What a treat! He, however, was too old and wise to show himself completely so all I have are a few obscured shots as he wound in and out of the brush. Good enough to show the massive rack…but not very satisfying otherwise.
After a few more shots, I hopped back into the car and we went off happily back to Socorro and supper at Frank and Lupe’s El Sombrero. And a very good day that was!
I know, Elk are commonplace to some of you, but for us, it was a very special encounter.
Canon SX40HS at 840mm, 1260mm and 1680mm. Canon SD100HS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope 65FL for 3400mm equivalent. Processed in Lightroom for Intensity, Sharpness, and Color Temperature (spotting scope shots).
11/20/2011: Bosque Sunset
You go to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for the Cranes and Snow Geese show, but the landscape and the light certainly add to the experience. Dawns are spectacular and so are sunsets. Add the birds and you have a truly unique experience. We stopped at one of the pans along the road back to San Antonio to watch the Cranes settle as the sun set. It was not the most spectacular of New Mexico sunsets but it was still special.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and -1/3EV exposure compensation. The wide shot used Night Landscape mode. Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
And for Sunday, I believe that any experience that awakens awe in a human being opens a connection to the Creator…however momentary and however unconscious…there is a second there where God is very close to breaking through the mundane shell. A percentage of people, of course, are never the same again. It wakes a hunger that must be satisfied and that can only be satisfied by a perminent connection to our Creator God. Bosque is a place where such moments happen every day. Go for the Crane and Snow Geese show, but don’t say I did not warn you.
4/13/2011: Sandhill take off, Wings on Wednesday
For Wings on Wednesday: If you are trying to capture a Sandhill Crane taking off, this is what you look for…the bird stretches in the direction of take off, and assumes what can only be called an intent posture. Then…
the head drops and you might be fooled into thinking the bird has thought better of it…but…
the next second, with run and a flapping of those huge wings, the bird is in the air. These three shots were taken with a small digital camera behind the eyepiece of a ZEISS DiaScope spotting scope, at the equivalent field of view of about 1800mm on a conventional full frame DSLR so tracking the bird was not easy. The final shot is at the limits of the auto focus of the camera through the scope.
Canon SD4000IS and ZEISS DiaScope 65FL. Kids and Pets mode for higher shutter speeds (1/1000th) which pushed the ISO up to 160. An effective aperture of about f5.0.
Processed for clarity and sharpness in Lightroom.
And here, from the same morning, is the video that shows a similar sequence. Also taken with the SD4000IS behind the eyepiece of the ZEISS DiaScope. You can see some heat shimmer in the air, even though this was just after dawn. The rapidly warming water gives off a lot of vapor in the dry upland desert air.