Bosque del Apache - 3

The longer I spent shooting photos at Bosque del Apache, the fewer shots I took. Once I got over the initial excitement (nearly 900 "keepers" from the first morning) I settled down to a few hundred. This makes it much easier to sort and process. In this batch from morning two, I had fewer out-of-focus and empty shots and a much higher fraction of keepers. This is mostly because I went out a little later when I had more light. Since I can't afford the really fast telephoto lenses and am stuck at f/8, I need more light than the folks with the really big f/2.8 lenses.

The image above is one of the earlier ones in the morning. You can see that the water around the cranes legs is frozen.



Today I stalked the flying crane. No shots of Snow Geese this time, only the Sandhill Crane. Sometimes the birds is high enough that it simply appears with the distant mountains in the background.

Other times it is low to the ground and the color of the light is very yellow-orange.

I aimed for groups of birds flying together so although I've got some images of ones and twos, I've really tried for larger groups. Below is one such success.

I find that when the wings are being lifted up makes the best photos. Notice in the image below that you can still see a few drops of water from the take-off.

My big success was catching this large group of birds seemingly all on top of one another.

As they flew along they spread out some.

There were other groups close to the ground. You can see that were calling as they flew...their mouths are open.

This one is not perfectly focused but I do like the composition and lighting.

In mid-stroke the cranes appear to be gliding along. Notice the upturned feathers on the end of each wing. I wonder if this serves the same purpose as the upturned ends of airplane wings - the reduction of losses due to turbulence?

Another image filled with those rich fall colors and bird flying along.

Below, I've caught two birds near the opposite ends of their wing strokes.

I caught this bird low over the water so there is a nice background behind him.

I have no shots of birds landing since morning is time for taking-off. I haven't looked yet, but perhaps in the evening of the second day, I'll find a few respectable shots of cranes parachuting in for a landing.