A New Mexico sunset

There are so many great opportunities to see beautiful sunsets in New Mexico. While visiting the Bosque del Apache during the Festival of the Cranes (Nov 17-22, 2009) there were a couple of beautiful sunsets. Here is one worth sharing. You can click on each of the photos to enlarge them.

Note the sandhill crane flying in this photo. I think this one is my favorite of the three photos here.

And this one I was trying to get what is called a "sun dog" where there is a rainbow of sorts in the clouds.

Bird Photography Weekly # 22

These are northern pintails found at the Bosque del Apache in November.

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Skywatch Friday #27

We had a beautiful sunset one evening during the Festival of the Cranes at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Actually, New Mexico has many beautiful sunsets throughout the year. So to see this beautiful sunset while on the refuge was an added bonus to what we had already seen earlier in the evening.

Amazingly enough, I took these photos within a few minutes of each other. But the big difference, as you can see, is in the coloring. The first photo was taken with my Canon Rebel Xsi, and the second photo was taken with my Kodak point and shoot.

Take the time to go visit other posts for Skywatch # 27. You won't be disappointed.

In flight - Bird Photography Weekly # 20

There are so many beautiful sights and sightings in New Mexico. One of them is watching the snow geese in flight. This photo was taken this past November (2008) during the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. Snow geese in flight can show off their colors of black and white against a beautiful blue sky and mountains in the background.

This is my contribution to this week's Bird Photography Weekly # 20
Visit the link and see what others are posting.

Bosque del Apache - part 2

Bosque del Apache has to be one of the most easily accessible refuges around. They provide at least 2 auto tour loops and many walking trails. The auto trails provide the ability for one to carry more equipment for photos and for viewing. I'm a lazy sort and don't like carrying too much equipment around with me. But while driving around the loops I had the opportunity to put my spotting scope up on a car window mount. I used it mostly to see the sandhill cranes farther out in the field.

But my favorite activity is to walk the various trails. The ones I walk are very easy. They are all level, and some even have "boardwalks" provided so one can cross over some of the irrigation canals, etc. One of those trails provided not only natural beauty, but also a few of God's creatures. Below is a western grebe floating around the pond all by himself. I guess he wanted some solitude. Don't we all want that now and then?

A little farther down the trail my husband pointed out a few turtles. They blended in with the environment so well that I did not see them at first. I thought these turtles must be out sunning themselves in the beautiful sunny fall New Mexican day. Anybody know what species these turtles are? You can click on any image to enlarge it. The reflection in each of these photos looks like we could reverse them, don't they?

Also, the plant life in these ponds are typical with their grasses and such. This particular bunch of grass was submerged, whereas most of the grasses were above the water level. Anyway, I thought it was pretty and I wanted to not only remember this form of beauty, but also wanted to share it with my blogging friends.

Now these next two photos of these white birds had me confused. First of all, I thought they were egrets, but I knew they were not snowy or great egrets. And the only other egret I could think of was cattle egret, but I did not remember they would be found surrounded by water. I always thought cattle egrets would be found out in the fields, much farther from a water source this large. And I've never seen cattle egrets at Bosque del Apache before, much less anywhere else. Yes, these are lifers for me. The last photo I'm posting here is to show that white blob to the right of the other two cattle egrets is another cattle egret taking flight. It's obvious that I did not have my camera set to a faster speed to get the bird better focused. But then, mother nature does not wait for us to get our cameras ready for great shots.

Great Blue Heron - Bird Photography Weekly # 19

Found standing at one of the irrigation canals on one of the auto tour loops at Bosque Del Apache National Wildlife Refuge - during Festival of the Cranes, November 2008.

This first photo above shows his feathers very nicely.

And this photo seems to show a very handsome profile.
Be sure to go visit other bloggers' posts for Bird Photography Weekly.

Bernardo Waterfowl Management Area

After leaving the Festival of the Cranes my husband and I wanted to stop at another location while heading back to Albuquerque. I was given a tip to visit Bernardo Waterfowl Managment Area if I wanted to see more Sandhill Cranes and possibly get a closer look at them. Bernardo, New Mexico is about 25 miles north of Socorro on I-25. The waterfowl management area is managed by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. The staff here maintains the crops of corn and alfalfa as well as the irrigation operations. This place is a good spot for wintering ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes. Hunting is permitted, but I'm not sure when that applies, but bird watching is good during the fall and winter months.

We drove down a gravel road/pathway to the first pull-off spot where there was a deck to overlook the area. We could hear the cranes and geese but didn't see any in the fields around us. But I did capture the sight of a hawk. I think this was a Red-tailed - and an uncooperative one at that. He only showed his back, and then the next time I looked he was gone.

Below, I tried to get a panoramic type of photo of the sandhill cranes we saw as we drove on down the gravel road. There were cranes farther back, too. You might be able to see them if you click on the photo to see a larger image.

Here are some cranes in flight. In this photo you can see mountains in the distance. As you can see, this was a really pretty area.

Here is another "in-flight" photo. Isn't it amazing how flat (in a lateral sense) these birds seem to be while gliding in flight? These are such fascinating birds. They make weird gutteral sounds, both in the field and while flying. I find these birds to look so graceful while in flight, yet while they are feeding in the fields they do not appear to be so graceful - at least not like they do in flight.

The lighting here was not beneficial for taking a photo, but then it gives one an eerie feeling, or maybe it's a typical autumn look. Notice the mountains in the distance are quite hazy, yet the pond the snow geese are occupying has quite a glare on it. The birds in flight are a couple of sandhill cranes. And as far as I could tell, all the waterfowl on the pond were snow geese. Anyway, I like this photo - it seems to portray a pastoral feeling to me.

Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico, part 2

There was an abundance of bluebirds on the refuge - I think they were Western bluebirds. Here are a few photos of some. The second photo is a Loggerhead Shrike. There were a couple of them we saw there on the refuge in the same area as the bluebirds.

And here is another view of the southern Rocky Mountains in south central Colorado, the Sangre de Cristo range. That is Lake McAlister in the foreground.

A pair of bald eagles hanging around Crane Lake on the refuge. There was an abundance of waterfowl around these birds, namely Sandhill cranes, snow geese, and plenty of ducks, mostly mallards. The eagles had their choice of fare.

And here are the snow geese in flight over Crane Lake.

Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge, New Mexico

After our Mountain Birding Tour it was time to leave Socorro, New Mexico and head north. We drove to Albuquerque planning to eat lunch at one of our favorite restaurants before heading farther north (and east) to Las Vegas, New Mexico. When we arrived at the location of one of our favorite restaurants we found that Pereas wasn't there. Instead, it had a new name, Seferinos - located on Central and Alvarado. While waiting to be seated we found that the restaurant is run by the same family - known for some of the best true New Mexican fare. My husband had one of his favorite dishes, Carne Adovado, and I had a beef taco plate. We also ordered a couple of sopapillas. After lunch we headed north to Las Vegas, NM, about 60 miles east of Santa Fe. Once we arrived in Las Vegas we felt we should locate a motel before heading over to the refuge. As we exited from I-25 we saw what looked like a brand new, just opened Holiday Inn Express. We found out that it had just recently opened - they had only been opened for two weeks. I can't imagine a motel/hotel having a grand opening in a small (out of the way) town in early November (unless they are anticipating a lot of holiday traffic). We managed to get a suite for the night for only $85. It sure was luxurious. It had a flat panel TV and a king-size bed, with a fridge, microwave and a bar sink. We then headed over to the Wildlife Refuge to see if we could see any cranes flying in for the night. By now it was getting close to sundown. We did see some cranes flying in as well as snow geese. Most ducks and Canada geese had already arrived earlier. Below is what I attempted to capture of a virga in the clouds. And the second photo is the sunset we saw while driving through the refuge. That is Lake McAlister in the sunset photo, which is the largest lake on the refuge.

We headed back out to the refuge around 10 a.m (Mon, Nov 19). Below is a flock of Canada geese we saw while driving around.
We also saw many ravens throughout the refuge, in the fields and perched in trees.
And then we saw sandhill cranes in several fields. Here are a few photos of what we saw.
Notice ravens perched in the trees in the distance.

Here we found a red-tailed hawk surveying his territory.

This is a view of the Sangre de Cristo range, part of the Rocky Mountains, in south central Colorado from the refuge.

Stay tuned for part 2 of Las Vegas National Wildlife Refuge. The next post I will provide more photos of other birds we saw.

Raptors on the Refuge

This year it seemed we saw many more raptors than we did previous years. There were Red-tailed hawks and Northern Harriers just about everywhere. Of course, if you would have seen all the waterfowl you would certainly understand why so many winged predators were present.

These two photos are of the same bird, but they were the best shots I could get of the Aplomado falcon, found on the Farm Loop of the Bosque del Apache NWR. This bird has not been seen in this area for many years. It is now being re-introduced by being raised on the Armendaris Ranch, owned by Ted Turner and managed by Tom Waddell. These birds may have been "raised" on the ranch south of the Refuge, but two of these falcons were recently seen on the Refuge which would mean they had been released into the wild. The two falcons found on the Refuge were noted as one adult female and one juvenile (possibly male). And I'm thinking this may be a juvenile male, but I'm not positive.

A great explanation of this program and much better photos of the Aplomado falcon can be found on another blog called Wildbirds Broadcasting. Click on the link and read more about these fascinating birds.

And here is a red-tailed hawk also found on the Farm Loop of the Bosque.


All of these photos were taken on Friday, November 17th, while we were touring the Refuge.

Cranes, cranes, cranes of the Sandhill kind

All of the following photos were taken on the same day - Saturday, Nov 17th, at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. As you can probably tell from the pictures, skies were clear and the weather was beautiful.

Below are Sandhill cranes flying in for the evening.

More cranes flying in.

And our sunset for the evening.