Posts in Category: Bosque del Apache
In Sync. Snow Geese
Snow Geese. Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
It always takes me a couple of days at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to get my flight shot hand in. Practice! And there is no better place to practice flight shots. The Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese are always in the air, and relatively close. One of the amazing things about the Geese is how closely they fly…and how synchronized their wings are.
Nikon P610 at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly in Lightroom.
Snow Geese!
Snow Geese panic, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
Hundreds in the air at once. A Harrier put them up. It is an experience you never forget.
Nikon P900. Processed in Lightroom.
Cranes in Winter!
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
Well not quite winter…but definitely snow on the mountains this morning at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes. I stood on the Coyote deck for a half hour waiting for, and trying for, this shot. There was one spot of sun on the snowy mountains, and occasionally Sandhill Cranes moving up the refuge would pass in front of the spot. Photo in the making. 🙂
Nikon P900 at just under 1000mm equivalent field of view. 1/400th @ ISO 400 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
Festival of the Cranes (posting schedule)
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM.
Friends and followers. I am at the Festival of the Cranes, at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for the next 6 days. One of the things about Bosque is that you want, as many days as possible, to be on the refuge at dawn. This is especially important when, like me, you are actually “working” the festival, and have most of your daylight hours already committed to “inside” activities. So, for the next week or so, my posting schedule for Pic for Today is going to be skewed. Most days my post will not arrive until late in the day…perhaps even evening. So we will kick it off with this special edition afternoon post.
Sandhill Cranes are not the Cranes the Festival was named for…back in the 80s the Sandhill flock at Bosque del Apache included several “fostered” Wooping Cranes. They all eventually died out, including the only offspring…a single hybrid Sandhill/Wooper. However, the festival remains…now as a continuing celebration of Bosque’s winter population of Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese. Â It is, according to some authorities, the oldest birding festival in the US. It is a big deal in Socorro…filling every available hotel room most years…and fostering a range of local spin-offs including a craft fair, an art fair, and lots of community dinners offered by churches and civic organizations.
The Sandhills are majestic, prehistoric looking and sounding birds, beautiful feeding or in flight. This shot is with the Nikon P900 at about 950mm equivalent field of view. Sports Mode to catch the action.
So, watch for the Pic for Today posts later in the day for the next while. I promise it will be worth the wait.
Crane at first light
Sandhill Cranes calling at first light. Bosque del Apache NWR
I attempted this post this morning from the airport on my way to the Everglades. It did not work. So…better late than never.
I love the light on these Sandhill Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR in the first sun of the day.
Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom.
A Density of Snow Geese
Close up of Snow Geese in mild panic.
When the Snow Geese (and the Ross’ Geese mixed in) rise in panic at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, thousands of birds at a time, you are presented with an almost overwhelming spectacle…so overwhelming that it is hard to decide what to shoot. Do you go for the wide shot showing the shear multitude of birds? Do you zoom in for a shot of the density? As they come overhead, again, how to frame that energy? Of course, you attempt to do it all, every panic, but no matter how nimble your zooming, you do not ever really manage to catch more than a few thin slices of the event. And that is when you don’t remember you could be shooting video! 🙂
This is the panic as it passes close over at 1200mm equivalent field of view. These birds are not as densely packed as they sometimes are, but still it is a frameful. Sony HX400V. Sports Mode. 1/800th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Mule Deer at Bosque
A small group of Mule Deer at Bosque del Apache NWR
The herd of Mule Deer at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge seems to be doing well. They are not as tame as the White-tailed Deer at Lighthouse State Park in Cape May New Jersey, which will calmly graze withing feet of your, but they don’t spook when you stop on the road to take photos. I regret not getting out of the car for this and the rest of the photos I took of this group, since there is some heat distortion from heated air escaping from the open car window. Still it is rare to see the buck. 🙂
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 160 @ f6.3. Processed, and cropped slightly in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Crane on Mountain
Sandhill Crane off Willow Deck
The vast majority of my images from Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge and the Festival of the Cranes were taken between 30 minutes before dawn and 90 minutes after. The early morning light at Bosque is, of course, spectacular, and I love it…but my timing is more a matter of circumstance than anything else. Bosque has always been a working trip for me. Come 8:30ish, and I have to be on duty at the ZEISS booth in the Expo Tent, and, most days, preparing for a workshop I am leading. This adds incentive on those mornings when I really do not feel like dragging myself past the breakfast at the hotel, eating granola bars in the car, and arriving somewhere on the Refuge before dawn. Not that I have ever regretted it. 🙂
Some of the best light is just at first light off Willow and Coyote Decks on the back side of Farm Loop. Early in the week these fields were dry and empty, but on Thursday they began to flood the fields to bring the birds in close for the weekend…something they do every year for the Festival of the Cranes…and by Saturday and Sunday the stretch of road between the decks was one of the best places on the Refuge to photograph Cranes and dabbling ducks…there was even a small raft of Snow Geese there both mornings. Because of the dramatic backdrop of the mountains to the west, and the angle of the light, it is also a great place to practice flight photography.
I have a sequence of shots of this Crane as it crossed my line of sight and then banked away toward the ponds on the Route 1. In this shot it is just beginning its turn.
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. ISO 160 @ 1/400th @ f6.3. Processed and cropped for scale in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Sandhill Crane in Early Light
A Sandhill Crane poses in the dawn light at Bosque del Apache NWR
This shot was taken a few moments after the sunrise shots from yesterday’s post, as the rising sun reached the water where the Cranes had spent the night. You can tell by the posture that this bird is not yet even thinking of getting up and way to the feeding fields. I love the quality of the dawn light.
Sony HX400V at 2400mm equivalent field of view. (1200mm optical plus 2x Clear Image Zoom). Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 800 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on a Windows tablet.
Bosque Sunrise Sunday
Sunrise at Bosque del Apache NWR
Just a week ago, last Sunday morning, I was standing along the edge of the ponds on Route 1 headed into Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, before dawn, waiting on the sun and the birds. The congregation had gathered. The parking lots were full, and all up and down the dyke between the road and the ponds the faithful, photographers and birders, stood hushed and expectant. As it was the weekend of the Festival of the Cranes, there were more visitors than usual…just folks who had traveled down from Albuquerque early…many of them making a once a year pilgrimage to Bosque for the dawn and the birds…kind of like the way the congregation swells around Christmas and Easter in any church. (You can always tell a visitor…they have no binoculars and they are attempting to photograph the Geese and Cranes in the half-light with phones, God bless them 🙂 We stand on the dyke, and the Cranes stand as darker shadows in the shallow ponds between us the mesa and the mountains behind. They too are waiting on the sun. Behind us, across the road and the rail-road track, well away at the other side of the valley of the Rio Grande, the sun itself is climbing up to crest the eastern mesas, seeking the open air between the land and a shelf of clouds along the horizon, filling the sky with gold. As a photographer, I am attempting to take it all in…the whole experience…and I spin there on the alter, between the sunrise itself and the waiting birds. All up and down the dyke I see other worshipers like me caught in the same liturgical dance, some just rotating in place and some, the long lens folk, dancing around the fixed point of their tripods. The birders, more refined in their habits, largely ignore the rising sun and concentrate on the birds, punctuating the dance with stillness. There is a hush among the gathered, but it contrasts with the continual chatter and mutter…the rising chorus of caw and quack and honk…of the cranes and the few geese and ducks among them as they quicken with the coming day.The visitors among us, like visitors to any congregation, are not quite sure what to do. Many watch us as much as they do the sunrise and the birds, seeking clues to what brings out the faithful in the dawn. Some put us to shame in their devotion…this being a once a year event…they are visibly transported. They could not lift their binoculars or cameras if they had them for the wonder. This dawn there is no real climax to the celebration. The sun slides golden above the mesa. Light strikes across the water to illuminate the Cranes as they begin to think of flying out for the day. Far off against the gilded sky large flocks of Geese arise and wing. In moments it is day. The Bosque dawn has come and gone. Slowly, with a lot of chatter now, the congregation begins to disperse and head back to parking lots and cars, stamping feet, thinking of coffee and hot chocolate, and the reminder of their Sunday on the refuge. They will drive the tour loop a few times. Stop at the Flight Deck, the Decks on the far side, and perhaps catch the Snow Geese flocks on the ag fields in full panic, when an Eagle puts them all up in the air at the same time. It will be a good day, fulfilling the promise of the Bosque dawn. And next year, we will all be back, God willing, even the visitors among us. Happy Sunday!
🙂
Sony HX400V. Processed in Lightroom and Phototastic on a Windows tablet.