Posts in Category: New Mexico
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.
White-crowned Sparrow at Bosque
White-crowned Sparrow: Bosque del Apache NWR
Though the Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes are much more obvious, there may, in fact, be just as many White-crowned Sparrows at Bosque in November as there are Cranes. They do not flock together in the open. They spread through the trees and brush, but they are everywhere…singing their wispy little song, and chattering to each other. They are most visible around the Visitor Center feeding stations of course, but this specimen was out on the refuge, in the water channel over which I was shooting Geese and Cranes. He intruded on my attention so often that I had to stop what I was doing and photograph him! 🙂
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 125 @ f6.3. Processed and cropped slightly for scale in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Marsh Wren at Bosque
Marsh Wren playing hide and seek in the reeds.
We were looking at Cranes and Geese shortly after dawn near the Farm Deck at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge when this Marsh Wren popped up in the reeds beside us and lead us a merry chase trying to get a good look and any kind of photo at all. It stayed in this one small clump of dense reeds growing along the water channel, but it keep well out of sight, chattering all the time so we would know it was still there. Eventually it was joined by an equally as noisy, but less elusive, Sony Sparrow.
I did my best to turn it into a Bewick’s Wren…which I have not seen in close to 20 years…since I lived in western New Mexico, but, it remained, stubbornly, a Marsh Wren. Bewick’s Wren at Bosque would have made a better title. 🙂
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Surface Pro 3 tablet.
Away in the Dawn
Sandhill Cranes taking off at Bosque del Apache NWR
Watching Sandhill Cranes taking flight just after dawn at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge has to rate as one of the great photographic moments of my time on the planet. It always gets to me. There is a posture that the crane takes as it is deciding to leave. The bird on the left has it. They lean forward and point to the horizon, holding that pose sometimes for a minute or more, and then slowly at first, step along the line of their attention, then faster, then faster, and then a hop and a flap of those great wings and they are airborne. Most often the intent is transmitted to at least a few birds around and a whole group comes up and wings away in a line. This shot catches just such a moment, though the bird in the background is away, while the bird on the left is still thinking about it, and the bird on the right is just beginning to wonder about it. 🙂
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1/640th @ ISO 1000 @ f6.3. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
Curtain of Starlings
Starlings panic at Bosque del Apache NWR
While watching the Snow Geese rise in a full blown panic, I could not help but notice the “mini-panic” in the large flock of Starlings feeding in the foreground. It looked like a curtain of living birds. 🙂
Sony HX400V in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 200 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Windows tablet.
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.