Posts in Category: New Mexico
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.
Snow Geese Rising in a Cloudy Dawn
On every trip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, you need to plan to be at the Refuge, or at least at the ponds along the road in, before dawn. The Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes rising for the day is one of the classic sights of the Bosque. It is seldom, during November and December, that a dawn does not find the pond dikes lined with photographers, many of them with their huge 600mm lenses and cameras on tripods. The spectical is the same, no matter how you attempt to catch it. This dawn, I happened on a friend, who was part of a photo-workshop, which, itself, was part of the Festival of the Cranes. They had been assigned to try to capture the blurred motion of the Geese as they came up off the water, so I decided to try as well. Actually, in the low light of an overcast dawn, blurred motion was making virtue of necessity…this shot is at ISO 1600, and that was still not fast enough to freeze the beating wings. I like the effect.
Processing for HDR in Snapseed brought a richness to the background colors that would not have been otherwise possible, and almost turns the image to tapestry. Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ f6.5.
Sandhill Calling in Flight
One of the iconic sounds of Bosque del Apache and the Rio Grande Valley in November is the sound of Sandhill Cranes calling in flight. You can hear them for miles, often well before you can see them. In fact, it is so distinctive that when I have heard it out of context, I have always immediately recognized it. In Florida, in Texas, and in the few other places where I have encountered Cranes unexpectedly, that call pulls my head up and I scan the sky’s with some confidence of finding Sandhills.
This shot is from our November trip to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. It was taken on our snowy Sunday morning. The light was less than ideal, keeping ISOs high and shutter speeds lower than optimum, but, at the same time there was a good deal of reflected light from the snow to aid in the detail of the underside of wings. Interesting light for birds in flight.
Canon SX50HS at 1200mm equivalent field of view and Sports Mode. ISO 320. This is my second attempt at processing this shot. In Snapseed, I used the HDR Scene filter to pick up detail in the bird, and then some Shadow, Contrast, and Saturation in Tune Image, as well as Sharpen and a bit of Structure in Detail. I cropped out some sky, keeping the bird at the rule of thirds point, leaving the frame. I then applied a bit of Center Focus, centered on the bird. The result, I think, catches the wildness of the bird and the call.
Three Cranes
The final day at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for the Festival of the Cranes we had snow in the morning…not just on the ground but still falling. It was challenging light for flight shots…just not enough of it…but it was also a very gentle, very uniform, light, with a lot reflected back from the snow covered ground. It made for interesting flight shots. Cranes fly in formation, and this is just three of them from a larger flight, isolated with the 1200mm reach of the Canon SX50HS’ zoom. While adjusting the composition, I cropped out the head of the bird coming along behind. I really like the flow of lines here, and elegance of the wings as they cup the air.
Because of the difficult light, the images I got are far from technically perfect, and require some massaging in software to bring out the potential. Here I tried several different processing apps, each with their own unique tool set. This is processed in Photo Mate R2, an app for Android which uses many of the same processing metaphors as the original Lightroom. Like Lightroom, it is primarily a raw processor, but it works with my jpgs just fine. It has by far the most comprehensive set of editing tools of any program currently available for Android, and being modeled on Lightroom, also the most traditional set (if anyone can call Lightroom’s tools traditional). For quick, intuitive editing, nothing on Android beats Snapseed, but occasionally, you just need more control…Photo Mate R2 provides it. (And, of course, if you shoot raw…I am not aware of any other program for Android that will do what Photo Mate R2 will.)
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. 1200mm equivalent field of view. ISO 320 @ 1/1250th @ f6.5. Processing as above.
And Snow Geese layered on the air…
Despite the cloudy, and even snowy, weather, I did get some good flight shots from Bosque del Apache this year…including two different panic sequences. This one happened on our very first round of the tour loop, the first afternoon we spent there. We drove up on the corn fields at the North end of the loop just in time to see the geese rise and swirl in the air for a good 10 minutes. They were far out in the fields, but with the reach of the Canon SX50HS, I could still fill the frame with geese.
I like the multiple layers of geese here. If you have seen this happen you know that the geese rise in mass, but soon sort themselves into something like a circular holding pattern…so you have geese passing any point in the sky in at least two different directions…one group in front and one behind. It can get more complex than that as individual geese jockey for leadership of the flock…and groups break away from the main body to follow…but the swirling motion predominates until they all serial down to settle once more in the fields.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. About 1150mm equivalent field of view. ISO 800 @ 1/800th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Partners in Flight
Okay, the title is somewhat esoteric, but most birders my age will recognize it as one of the great cross-agency, private/public, conservation organizations and efforts of the 90s. A check on the Web shows that it is, in fact, very much still active, and still fighting the good fight, though it has dropped off at least this birder’s radar…and I suspect most others. And, of course, as a title, it is apt for this image 🙂 even without the reference.
Sandhill Cranes coming in in close formation at Bosque del Apache NWR. The light during this whole trip was a challenge, and I was happy to get what I could, especially in flight shots, but technical issues aside (noise limits the detail in the image), I am very pleased with the form and elegance of this shot.
Canon SX50HS in Sports Mode. ISO 1000 @ 1/320th @ f6.5. 1200mm equivalent field of view. Processed in Photo Mate R2 (which is essentially Lightroom for Android) on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
Any landing… Happy Sunday!
They say “any landing you can walk away from is a good landing.” I have flown enough over the past 10 years to appreciate the sentiment. Watching Sandhill Cranes and Snow Geese land can only reinforce the truth of the statement. Snow Geese, and Cranes especially, seem always on the brink of disaster as they land. Of course it complicates matters that they will land in the middle of feeding flock…never at the edge…and never with anything like a clear runway. They always set down in just enough space to stand up in. It is just the way they are made, I assume, since there are certainly easier ways to get on the ground. 🙂
This is a Sports Mode shot from the Canon SX50HS on a morning with snow on the ground and still in the air. ISO 640 @ 1/1250th @ f6.5. Processed in Snapseed and Photo Editor on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014.
And for the Sunday Thought: there must, actually, be saints, who, like the Cranes and Geese, always look on the brink of disastor. Landing among their fellows, coming in from celestial flights and realms of glory, they always seem, to the casual eye, to be frantically backpaddling wings, and concentrating on getting their feet down safely. It runs counter to the image of the Saint…the person at peace in perfect knowledge of the divine…but I suspect that we miss seeing a good number of Saints because they have not mastered anything that looks to us like a graceful landing. And that would be sad, since of course, any landing you can walk away from is a good landing…whether we are speaking of airliners, Cranes and Geese, or saints.
Not Turkeys for Thanksgiving!
I don’t have any good Turkey shots for Thanksgiving, so these two Sandhill Cranes from Bosque del Apache NWR, will have to stand in…they are acting kind of turkeyish! They might not gobble, but they certainly honk, and not like a goose either. Much more turkeyish! Much. Trust me.
Of course they don’t fan their tail-feathers…so that’s a point against them…but they do strut…and that is a point in their favor, turkey-wise. I also suspect, by their behavior, that they are bit more intelligent than your average turkey. Certainly they have avoided, as a race, becoming a feast-day bird, and appearing plastic wrapped and hormone fat in grocery meat-cases in great numbers once a year. That speaks to a certain intelligence…or maybe they just don’t taste good 🙂
So you are probably thinking this is all much ado about pretty much nothing…and you would be right! One thing they do share with turkeys…and that is that I am always thankful to see them. They are a magnificent bird, if somewhat comical, and in that they are very turkey-like too. So, for Thanksgiving, I give thanks for Sandhill Cranes…and for turkeys!
And for every blessing of a blessed year!
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.
Snow and Snow Geese
Can you tell where the snow in this Bosque del Apache NWR panorama leaves off, and the Snow Geese begin? Most of what you see in the corn field is geese! I would estimate something over 10,000 in this field alone. View the image as large as your monitor allows. 🙂
Samsung Smart Camera WB800F. Sweep Panorama mode. Processed in Snapseed on the Samsung Galaxy Note 10.1 2014 using the new HDR Scene filter.