Monthly Archives: November 2015
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.
Figures in the foreground
Carol and Anna, with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the background.
A front was coming through Santa Fe yesterday. We got out in the morning to walk along the lower Santa Fe river along the bike path while the sun was still shining…though it was completely overcast by the time we got back to the car. This is my wife Carol and my daughter Anna, who is in grad-school in Santa Fe. We are on a bridge over the Santa Fe river channel. You can just see the snow caps on the Sangre de Cristos far back under the mountain effect clouds. They are expecting 2-4 inches of snow out of the storm today, so this landscape will look considerably different by tomorrow. 🙂
Sony HX90V in-camera HDR at 24mm equivalent. I really enjoy the subtle HDR effect of the Sony, which makes landscape portraits like this very pleasing. Nominal exposure 1/1600th @ ISO 80 @ f3.5.
Yellow Crowned Night Heron. Happy Sunday!
Yellow-crowned Night Heron, Estero Llano Grande SP and World Birding Center, Weslaco TX
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light.” Jesus
The Yellow-crowned Night Heron is one grumpy looking bird. In fact all Night Herons, perhaps because of their large heads and the way they suck their necks down between their shoulders, have the same look of gloom…if not outright doom. “It is not easy,” they seem to say, “being a Night Heron.” The fact that they invariably have a little tuft of feathers caught at the tip of their beaks from preening does not help any. They are, of course, much more active, as the name implies, at night, when they hunt. I will admit I have never seen one at night. They might be a very different bird. When I see them they are resting…off duty, so to speak…and their general funk might be just my interpretation of their half-asleep state. I might look a little grumpy myself if some intruding human got close enough to my perch to wake me in the middle of the night…err…this is a difficult metaphor to keep straight but you see what I mean. Of course, the generous eye gets beyond first impressions to sees the beauty in the bird, and something of it’s nobility. In this wide-eyed specimen the eye alone is enough to redeem the bird. The eye compels us to take in the elegance of the gray and black (carefully preened) plumage, the golden crown, and the strength of the beak. Yes, like all God’s creatures, the Yellow-crowned Night Heron has its own beauty. The generous eye is always rewarded by the light that fills all creation.
Happy Sunday!
Variegated Meadowhawk
We are Albuquerque New Mexico on a somewhat lieserly trip to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache NWR this morning, but this is from our last festival in South Texas.
The Veriegated Meadowhawk is one of the showier dragonflies. This specimen, from the National Butterfly Center​ in Mission, Texas is a particularly bright one.
Nikon P610 at 2300mm equivalent field of view (using some digital Perfect Image Zoom) from about 7 feet. 1/250 @ ISO 220 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Little Green
Green Kingfisher, Estero Llano Grande SP and World Birding Center, Weslaco TX
I always hope for a Green Kingfisher when I go to Estero Llano Grande State Park and World Birding Center in Weslaco Texas. In fact, on this, my second visit to the site in two days, Green Kingfisher was very much on my mind. You might say it was the bird I was requesting of the day. The tiny Green Kingfisher is one of my favorite birds. It has color…and it has attitude. In fact it seems to have more attitude than would reasonably fit in such a small body (it is not much bigger than a sparrow). This might be an very immature male, or it might be a female with some interesting staining on the plumage. It is a bird that is never completely still for long. These four shots were taken over just a few moments…as you see…all on the same perch. The light was not great, and there was still a touch of mist in the air from the retreating morning fog, and the bird was a bit far away…but still, I would never pass up a Green Kingfisher! Especially after requesting one.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view…cropped slightly for scale. 1/160th @ ISO 400 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Wind in the Willows
Eastern Fox Squirrel and Cotton Rat, National Butterfly Center, Mission TX
Okay, so really this has nothing to do with wind or willows. This image makes me think of the book, The Wind in Willows, with its stories of humanized animal friends…Ratty, Mole, Toad, Badger, etc…mainly because it looks like Squirrly and Cotton here are enjoying a companionable meal together, under the feeders at the National Butterfly Center. You know, like nattering away between seeds about what is happening in the gardens, and how the kids did this summer, and the prospects for high temperatures today, etc. Yes, I know how anthropomorphic that is, but I can’t help it. The Wind in the Willows, despite its talking animals, is one of my favorite books. In fact, after taking this pic, I downloaded a copy for my Kindle!
Nikon P610 at 900mm equivalent field of view. 1/60th @ ISO 640 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom. Cropped for composition.
Malachite Green
Green Malachite, National Butterfly Center, Mission TX
For some reason, many of the butterflies at the National Butterfly Garden this year when I visited a week ago were relatively worn specimens. I don’t remember that from previous visits, but I only get there once a year, always in November. The National Butterfly Center gardens are open gardens, not enclosed in any way, so the butterflies you see there are not captive breed…they are wild butterflies and have to make a living in the wild. It shows, by November. The Green Malachite is one of my favorite butterflies. I have only seen it 4 or 5 times, always at the National Butterfly Center, so you can believe that when someone called out from the trail along the top of the berm that one was showing, I hustled right up there. The light was terrible…an overcast day and the butterfly was deep under cover among the plants on the far side of the ditch on the other side of the berm.
These shots were at 2000mm equivalent field of view with the Nikon P900. Hand-held at 1/30th @ ISO 1100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Back-side view.