There were two workshops I attended on Thursday at the Festival of the Cranes. The morning workshop was given by Jeff Bouton on Digiscoping - the art of photography through a spotting scope. It was a 3-hour workshop where Jeff could do his one-hour presentation in the classroom and then have everyone move outdoors to try what they had learned in the classroom, such as coupling cameras with scopes via adapters. Many of us did not have all the equipment necessary, but it was fun "sharing" with each other. Jeff also had some extra equipment with him some of us could borrow. Now, if only the weather would have cooperated. ;o) We started out at the big pond near the entrance to Bosque del Apache NWR. There were thousands of snow geese there, and digiscoping would have been a dream. But the wind was blowing quite strongly, and even though the sun was shining, the wind chill factor was less than what all of us were dressed for. After about half an hour at the pond, and those who wanted to stick around had a chance to at least look through some scopes, it was a consensus to try another spot on the refuge, possibly where it may be a bit more protected from the wind. We then went to an area where there was tall grasses to help break the wind a bit, but there were no birds! The birds possibly wanted to get out of the wind, too. The few birds we saw (mostly ducks) were quite far away and seemed to be hunkered down out of the windy areas.
This photo below obviously is not a digiscoped picture, but instead an overall view of what we saw on the big pond. There were snow geese as far as the eye could see. Actually, this photo was taken on a different day, when it wasn't windy.
Our afternoon workshop was about cave swallows. The presenter was Steve West who has been studying and banding cave swallows since 1980 at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Click on the link to learn more about this interesting topic. There's even a photo of cave swallows if you've never seen one. The reason Steve West wanted to band the birds was to collect and record data regarding their migrating patterns. He was curious to know where these birds headed in winter. You can learn more about cave swallows by clicking here and here.
This photo below obviously is not a digiscoped picture, but instead an overall view of what we saw on the big pond. There were snow geese as far as the eye could see. Actually, this photo was taken on a different day, when it wasn't windy.
Our afternoon workshop was about cave swallows. The presenter was Steve West who has been studying and banding cave swallows since 1980 at Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Click on the link to learn more about this interesting topic. There's even a photo of cave swallows if you've never seen one. The reason Steve West wanted to band the birds was to collect and record data regarding their migrating patterns. He was curious to know where these birds headed in winter. You can learn more about cave swallows by clicking here and here.
