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.