Cranes and Geese across the sunset clouds

Photographers and birders and the general public gather each day as the sun sets during the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge overlooking the areas where the Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes are likely to settle for the night. They are generally shallow ponds or flooded fields where the water helps to alert the birds to approaching predators in the dark. The cranes and geese might share the same pond or field, or you might get concentrations of either cranes or geese. In any case one the great sights of Bosque is the birds coming or going against the brilliant sunset sky after the sun actually sets. This shot is a mix of cranes and geese silhouetted against a band of cloud just above the horizon about 20 minuets after sunset. It is an in-camera HDR from the new Sony RX10iv with a nominal exposure of 1/500th @ ISO 100 @ f4. I was surprised that the Sony could handle HDR at the long end of the zoom…assembling three 600mm equivalent shots into this one image. Processed in Photoshop Express.

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