Posts in Category: Rio Grande
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.
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.
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.
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.
Warbling Vireo (I think)
Warbling Vireo. Santa Ana NWR, TX
Vireos are a tribe that somehow I just don’t encounter very often. We have what used to be the Solitary Vireo nesting here in Maine, now split into three species, of which ours is the Blue-headed, as well as the Red-eyed and Warbling…we can also get the Philadelphia in migration…but, honestly, I just don’t see them here on the seacoast of Southern Maine very often. So, when I encounter Vireos on my travels, I am never quite certain of the id. This bird is in the Rio Grande Valley of south Texas, at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge south of McAllen, right on the border, and is probably a migrating bird, just passing through on its way south for the winter. I am pretty sure it is a Warbling Vireo.
Sony HX400V at 990mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 80 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix 2 Windows tablet.
Turtle Queue
Texas Sliders: Estero Llano Grande SP World Birding Center
The British have a world for it. Queue. In line. Everyone mostly facing forward. Quiet. Patient. A visit to the boarding gates at any American airport will show that the concept is totally alien to us here in the USA (attempts by Southwest and United not withstanding). We do not queue, but turtles apparently do…at least in the ponds at Estero Llano Grande State Park World Birding Center. They seem, given the right log, to be pretty good at it. 🙂 I am not sure what the behavioral benefit is for the turtles, but as you see, it is an activity enjoyed by both young and old. Mostly Texas Sliders though. The Texas Softshells, though they used the same logs, did not participate in the queues. Go figure.
Sony HX400V at 1200mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/500th @ ISO 250 @ f6.3. Processed in Lightroom on my Lenovo Miix Windows tablet.