Monthly Archives: December 2015
Sandhill Cranes. Autumn Light.
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
The Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is wonderful for many reasons. The numbers of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes, the possibility of many raptors and dabbling ducks, the song-birds still hanging in there, Mule Deer and Elk…the great variety of wildlife…but it is also wonderful for the light! Autumn in the high desert valley of the Rio Grande has to have some of the cleanest, most flattering light of anywhere, anytime. Especially morning and late afternoon. These three cranes over a field of grain, and in front of the foothills and autumn foliage, are ideally, and beautifully illuminated. Looking at it I am back there in the brisk morning air, hearing the calls of the cranes, feeling the sun warm by back. A wonderful place. A wonderful experience. Wonderful light!
Nikon P900 at 800mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 140 @ f5.6. Processed and cropped slightly to eliminate crane parts in Lightroom.
American Kestrel
American Kestrel, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
Early in the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, my friend and colleague Rich Moncrief, who was working the observation decks in the early morning, got some crackerjack pics of an American Kestrel in great light. I was sooo envious, as the Kestrel is among my favorite North American birds (and photo envy is one of my few remaining faults :). The Kestrel. the smallest of our North American falcons, might even be tied for first with the Green Kingfisher, the smallest of our Kingfishers. There were a lot of Kestrels on the refuge this year, and, of course, I kept an eye out for them. I had several photo ops, and took a lot of frames, but nothing to compare to Rich’s shots. On Friday morning, Sarah (my daughter) as with me for an early round of the tour loops, and she made it her mission to find Kestrels. This one was our second, near the end of our round. We had just photographed another down the road, but we stopped to hike back to the photo blind to see if there were ducks behind it. No. On our way back to the car, this Kestrel flew up into trees along the tail. The light could not have been better, and I pushed the Nikon P900 out into Perfect Image Zoom to fill the frame. Not a perfect shot but enough to cure my photo envy!
Nikon P900 at just under 4000mm equivalent field of view. Handheld at 1/800th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Great Blue Heron
Great Blue Heron, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
The Great Blue Heron is not my favorite bird…and not even my favorite bird at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge…but I have always thought that if you want to turn someone on to birding…there is no better way than to give them a good close up view of a GBH in the field! The combination of feather texture, subtle colors, and the not-subtle-at-all yellow eye, make the GBH a knock-out bird. And they are likely to stand still long enough so anyone can get a good look. This specimen was in one of the water channels between the tour loop and the fields and brought us to an abrupt stop. It waited patiently while we got out and took way too many images, and was still there when we drove on. The low morning angle of the light brings out all the detail.
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.
Leucistic Sandhill Crane
Leucistic Sandhill Crane, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
The Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge was founded to celebrate an experimental attempt to reintroduce the Wooping Crane to the Rio Grande Valley flyway. The Wooping Crane was in severe danger…down to a less than a hundred breeding pairs nationwide. And there were none using the historic Rio Grande Flyway. Cranes always lay several eggs, and generally raise only one chick, so eggs were harvested from Wooper nests and placed in the nests of Sandhill Cranes still using the Rio Grande. They hatched, and they grew to maturity…unfortunately they all “thought” that they were Sandhill Cranes and attempted to mate with other Sandhill Cranes. One hybrid was actually hatched and grew to adulthood…but that was the end of the experiment. Thankfully, other experiments to increase the numbers of Wooping Cranes were more successful, and, while still not out of danger, things are looking good for the Wooper.
The Wooping Crane is a big white crane, compared to the predominantly grey Sandhills…so you can imagine the excitement when a white crane showed up among the greys this year at the Bosque. Of course, closer examination showed it to be just another Sandhill, not quite an albino since it retained some grey, and the distinctive red cap of the Sandhill…a leucistic Sandhill Crane. It added a little spice to observing the flocks of Sandhills this year, since there was always a chance of spotting the leucistic crane. I saw it there times around the refuge…never in the same spot twice. It was not very cooperative, photographically speaking…and what you have here is a collage of my three best shots. I only realized that the flight shot was the leucistic crane on reviewing my images when I got home. 🙂
All images Nikon P900. Processed in Lightroom and assembled in Coolage.
Snow Geese on the Mountain
Snow Geese, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
This year’s trip to the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge was among my most productive trips, photographically. I came back with close to 900 keepers. This is a shot I try for every year. Snow Geese in full flight against the backdrop of the mountains that rim the valley. Clearly it is a “right place at the right time” kind of shot. This year I found a field of Geese in the process of relocating a half mile down the refuge, so small groups of Geese would take off, rise up in front of the mountain, and then a bit higher to clear the hedge line of tall trees between fields. I could get them with mountains like this, clearing the trees, and against blue sky. It was ideal, and I spent a half hour or more there trying different shots. In this shot the strength of the geese comes through. These are not delicate birds. And the rugged mountains behind highlight that strength. What appear as flecks in the upper right corner are, I think, distant Ravens out further over the foothills.
Nikon P900 at 950mm equivalent field of view. Shutter preferred. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1 Processed in Lightroom.
Three cranes standing. Happy Sunday!
Sandhill Cranes. Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus
Snow chased us down from Santa Fe through Albuquerque to Socorro, and we woke on our first morning at the Festival of the Cranes to overcast skies and a fresh white cover on the mountains rimming the valley of the Rio Grande. I was there for the flyout, and watched the Cranes take off in the half-light from the ponds along Route 1 on the way into Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, and then worked my way around to the backside of the north loop, to Coyote Deck. There was a cluster of cranes feeding along the dyke just north of the deck. The light on the refuge was subtle, and there was still a touch of frost on the fields. These three cranes were coming up the north slope of the dyke to cross to the main group in the field to the south. Something in their attitude, framed against the weeds beyond the dyke in the soft light, arrested my attention and pulled the camera around. And now, looking at the image, I am arrested again…by a beauty I can’t quite wrap in reason…a beauty that goes beyond the elements of composition, texture, detail…or the living vibrancy of the cranes…to become something more. The image is not perfect. The center crane was moving its head just a bit too fast for the shutter…perhaps just swallowing or raising its crest…or about to call…and is blurred, but somehow even that works.
Beauty, light, comes out from the generous eye to embrace the world, and the world responds with beauty. The light within and the light without are the same light…the light of creation…the light of love. Jesus, child of God, is the light of the world, and as we come into the season when we celebrate that light, we only need to open our eyes wide to both give and receive…beauty, light, love. In us and around us, children of God by faith, light…love…beauty. Like three cranes standing in a frosty field.
Happy Sunday!
Early Cranes in Flight
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
Early light on an overcast day at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge during the Festival of the Cranes lead to show shutter speeds and blurred wings. And I was panning with the cranes in flight, which blurred the background. The cranes were close. This is only a 400mm shot…so I was panning pretty fast. The composition, technically, is all wrong. I should have the cranes leading into the frame not out of it. And yet this is one of my favorite flight shots from the trip. The close view, the blurred wings and background, along with unconventional composition, all create an impression of the speed at which the cranes were moving. They provide an energy to the shot that might be missing in more “technically” perfect views. I like it!
Nikon P900 at 400mm equivalent field of view. 1/50th @ ISO 800 @ f5. Processed in Lightroom.
Snow Geese Calling
Snow Geese, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
The two sounds that bring Bosque del Apache most vividly to mind are the rattle of the Sandhill Cranes and the constant calling of the Snow Geese. On the ground or in the air…the aggregated sound of so many creatures fills the ear and leaves little room for anything else. (Well, maybe with the exception of the whir and click of hundreds of camera shutters as you stand among the photographers. 🙂 This shot catches a goose calling in the air.
It used to be that shots like this were next to impossible without an investment of several thousands of dollars and considerable practice time. In fact a dozen or more photo gurus make quite a bit of money each Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge (or in the weeks surrounding the Festival) teaching people to capture at least an occasional image like this one, and several of the big-name camera and lens companies, and one camera retailer have gear on display, for loan, and for sale at the Festival. I hear the gurus instructing their students on how to manually set up their expensive automated cameras (over-riding the automation), for the light and motion at different times of day and in different situations…landing birds, soaring birds, gliding birds, rising birds…with background…against the sky…etc. I teach there too, but I shoot with a Point & Shoot camera with as much automation as possible…and that is what I teach. This shot is in Shutter preferred, since catching the action is the goal, but it is in auto everything else, including focus. It is amazing how well the most recent Point and Shoot superzooms do with birds in flight. It seems to get easier with each generation. (And, of course, with practice…but there is no where better than the Bosque to practice birds in flight!) The investment in gear is less than $600…putting it within the reach of a whole new group of potential photographers. And is it a lot of fun!
Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f7.1. Processed in Lightroom and one half bird edited out on the right in iPixio.
Thin Ice
ice on Back Creek Pond, Kennebunk ME
Though I have hundreds of images left, we will take a break from the birds and critters of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge this morning to visit one of my favorite local Maine ponds. The pond is ice-covered, but just…and the ice still has a lot of character: bubbles, ripples, strange patterns where it froze around things, etc. It looks almost as though the ice formed instantaneously…the whole surface freezing in one second…catching whatever was going on…freezing motion. In this case…the stress lines formed by a bit of floating debris.
In-camera HDR. Sony HX90V at 148mm equivalent field of view. Nominal exposure: 1/250th @ ISO 2000 @ f5.6. Processed in Lightroom.
Sandhill Cranes Display Call
Sandhill Cranes, Bosque del Apache NWR, Socorro NM
Cranes display courting behavior year round…and mated pairs show what appears to be ritual affection in any season. This is the “display call”. The male leads and the female answers. If you have not heard it, it is one of the more prehistoric sounding calls of any bird…slightly harsh on the ear, but charged with life…echoing back and forth between male and female voice. (The male is slightly deeper and louder…the female lighter, and not so raspy.) When 15 pairs in a flock of 200 cranes get going at the same time, it is a memorable experience. 🙂
Early morning sun picks out every detail here. Nikon P900 at 2000mm equivalent field of view. 1/640th @ ISO 100 @ f6.5. Processed in Lightroom.