Posts in Category: New Mexico
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.
12/16/2011: Church Rock Revisited
I already shared one set of images from the hike my wife Carol and my daughter Kelia and I did in the red rocks near Gallup New Mexico, but it is worth a revisit. And besides, I still have a lot of images from that hike. In this shot you can see the drop off to the canyon floor from the the next ledge of hard stone above it. This shelf is being slowly worn back toward Church Rock itself. Above the ledge the character of the canyon changes…it becomes narrow and more resembles the famous slot canyons of Arizona.
And the way the water carves the rock is always interesting. This is a pot-hole, dug in solid stone by a swirl of water over centuries.
And as always, the red of the rock contrasts dramatically with the the high blue New Mexico sky…especially with a few wispy clouds to set it all off.
Church Rock in Red Rocks State Park is a fascinating place for a hike.
Canon SX40HS in Program with iContrast and –1/3 EV exposure compensation. 1) and 2) 24mm equivalent field of view, 3) 28mm, 4) 60mm.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.
12/15/2011: Water Canyon, New Mexico
If you are a birder in New Mexico, or even a birder visiting New Mexico, you have probably heard of Water Canyon in the Magdalena Mountains above Socorro. Water Canyon has the look and feel of the mountain island canyons of south west New Mexico and south east Arizona, and indeed, it is the northern outpost for many bird species typical of the more southern canyons. November is not the time to visit, but then, November is when I am there every year. This year I had company. My daughter Kelia and my wife Carol met me in Albuquerque and I took a couple of vacation days before the Festival of the Cranes. Kelia and I visited Water Canyon early in the week, and she and Carol went back for a hike there on Sunday. And it really does look like the south east Arizona. You could be in the Chiricahuas instead of the Magdalenas, and I am sure that in spring and early summer the birds must be rewarding. In November it is all about the scenery.
This view, taken near where the canyon proper spills out onto the upland plain catches a bit of the atmosphere (and I like the windmill).
Then we have a view looking up canyon form the rise just before the parking area for the campground and trails.
And cottonwoods adding some fall color.
And finally Buck Peak which dominated the view along the upper reaches of the canyon.
Canon SX40HS, program mode with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
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.
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.
12/4/2011: Happy Sunday! Sun Fire | Burning Bush
Hiking the Marsh Trail at Bosque del Apache, I looked up at the top of the loose conglomerate bluff at just the right spot and just the right moment to see this. It was late afternoon and the sun was getting low enough so the bluff cast a shadow across most of the trail, though the marsh itself was still in sun, and the light spilling over the bluff caught in the fine seed filaments of this plant (I am not sure what it was but I suspect, from the fine fibers, that it was Cliff Rose) and lit them up like the glowing wires of incandescent bulbs. I am sure it was a purely a diffraction effect…the seed fibers were fine enough to bend and focus light…they were not, of course, heated to incandescence themselves…but it certainly looked like I imagine Moses’s burning bush might have. I wonder what wonders I missed by not stopping to listen?
But then that question, apt as it is in logic of writing down my impressions, is not true to the experience. I actually experienced a wonder that goes well beyond questions of what I might have missed. I was, in fact, caught up in the act of wonder, and, simultaneously, busy trying to figure out how to record it so that I might, eventually, share it.
For me, that is what it means to be a photographer…and those are the moments I treasure…when I am caught up in wonder and fully engaged in making an image of it. I tend to favor cameras that do most of the work in those critical moments…auto exposure…auto focus…set-and-forget cameras that allow me to concentrate on framing what I am seeing effectively. I can think about that, about the framing and the composition, without losing the wonder. If I have to actually think about f-stops and shutter speeds and ISO values then I am in danger of getting separated from the wonder. And what fun would that be?
No, I need to be able to point and shoot…simple as that…so that when I see a burning bush I can share it with you without losing it myself.
And besides, what God is saying in most burning bushes is pretty simple. “I am here. I am with you. Trust and enjoy.” (We humans generally translate that into “Do not be afraid”, or sometimes “Trust and obey” but, believe me, it is “trust and enjoy” in the original language…the one you can only hear with the ears of the spirit.)
No, the burning bush on the top of the bluff spoke pretty clearly to me…and I hope I caught just a bit of the message for you.
Canon SX40HS (ultimate point and shoot) at 180mm equivalent field of view, f6.3 @ 1/1250th @ ISO 200. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.
Processed in Lightroom for Intensity and Sharpness.