Dec 7
After spending the night in Carlsbad, New Mexico, I drove the half hour down to Carlsbad Caverns National Park. It has been 20 years or so since I last visited the caverns.
I arrived early on a weekday morning in late November. Before going down into the cavern, the ranger said, “There aren’t many people here yet. It’s going to seem like you have the place to yourself.” And he was right. It was great to experience the cave in solitude.
Click any image to enlarge.
After some dawn photography at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, I drove east to start the drive back to Texas. One stop I often make is at the Valley of Fires Recreation Area. This is part of the Malpais Lava Flow. It’s a nice place to get out and stretch during the long drive.
Click any image to enlarge.
The lava flow happened about 5000 years ago. In the photo below, you can a small cone on the horizon. This is Little Black Peak, the source of the lava flow. It’s about 7 miles north of the visitors center. There’s a 1 mile paved footpath through the lava flow that you can see in the photo below as well.
One common plant you see in all of these photos is Sotol (Dasylirion Wheeleri). They have a tall flowering stalk.
After walking the loop trail at Valley of Fires, I continued driving east. Going this direction takes me past Capitan (where I often stop to pay my respects at the grave of Smokey Bear). Nearby, there’s a road to the south that goes to Ruidoso. This time I stopped to see Fort Stanton, a historic site that started as a military outpost in the mid-19th century. In the 20th century it was used as a US Merchant Marine Tuberculosis Hospital, a Civilian Conservation Corps camp, a German POW internment camp, and a state hospital, among other things.
Up the road about a mile is the Fort Stanton Merchant Marine Military Cemetery and State Veterans Cemetery, with a large obelisk memorializing the Merchant Marine.
From there I kept on driving through Roswell and down to Carlsbad, where I stayed for the night.
One day during my time in New Mexico, I drove north to find the Ladd S. Gordon Waterfowl Complex. After exiting I-25, I took a wrong turn and missed the entrance to the Waterfowl Complex. But I saw a sign for Salinas Pueblo Missions and kept on driving east about 30 miles.
The Salinas Pueblo Missions were built as part of the Spanish influence of the 16th and 17th centuries. I visited these missions on my first trip to Bosque in 2005. There are three sets of ruins, along with a visitors center in the town of Mountainair. The area is part of the Salinas Valley, named for salt flats (Las Salinas) a few miles to the east of Mountainair. The salt was a valuable commodity for trade.
The first site I came to is is Abó.
Click any image to enlarge.
Another ten miles east is the town of Mountainair, where I visited the Visitors Center for the National Monument, and ate lunch at a small hotel nearby. Then I drove north to Quarai, another site of the National Monument.
On this trip, I did not visit the third site, Gran Quivira, which was about 25 miles south of Mountainair. But I did visit that site in 2005. Here are scans of a couple of photos I took on film on that visit.
On the way back from Salinas Pueblo Missions, I did find the correct road that took me to the Ladd S. Gordon Waterflow Complex. See my earlier post for photos from the refuge.
This reminds me that I never wrote about a trip I made to Pecos National Historical Park in 2021, so let me briefly write about it here.
Pecos National Historical Park is east of Santa Fe, New Mexico, along the historic Santa Fe Trail, a vital trade route between Missouri and New Mexico. The park encompasses historic pueblo ruins as well as a US Civil War battlefield. Pecos Pueblo was inhabited from the 14th to 19th centuries.
A few miles west of the pueblo is Glorieta Pass, the site of the westernmost battle of the US Civil War. It was fought mostly between Union infantry and cavalry from New Mexico and Colorado Territories and Confederate troops from Texas.
The battlefield itself is not particularly photogenic, though the mountainous area is beautiful. There’s a 2+ mile loop around the site with signage to help you imagine how the battle unfolded.
Bosque del Apache is a National Wildlife Refuge along the Middle Rio Grande Basin in central New Mexico. This area of the Rio Grande is a wintering ground for many birds, including tens of thousands of Snow and Ross’ Geese, and thousands of Sandhill Cranes.
I first visited the refuge in 2005 with a Nikon F100 film camera and shot six rolls of 36-exposure slide film. I went back each of the next four years with a digital camera, and shot thousands and thousands more photos at the refuge. I kind of got burned out visiting the place, and only went again in 2012, 2019, and this year, 2023. To see photos from some of these earlier trips, visit my posts tagged with Bosque del Apache NWR.
Once upon a time–the mid-1990’s to 2000’s–Bosque del Apache was an amazing hotspot for bird photography. The refuge was managed to have lots of food and marshes for the birds, and photographers had their choice of creative ways to spend sunrise, mid-day, and sunset. Many of the best wildlife photographers ran workshops there. Unfortunately, over the last dozen years or so, the refuge is intentionally being managed to reduce the number of birds that visit and encourage them to winter elsewhere. I suppose there must be reasonable science that justifies that, but it also means that the photographic opportunities are a shadow of what they used to be.
It’s not all doom and gloom. There are still good bird photos to be made. New Mexico sunrises and sunsets are still amazing. Many birds still winter here.
I visited the last week of November. The temperatures ranged from the upper 20’s (Fahrenheit) to mid 50’s. We had a consistently north wind and dry days. Some days were mostly cloudy. Some were mostly clear, with high clouds.
I woke up early on Sunday and drove about ten hours to the refuge. I managed to make it in time to drive around the refuge once. I was disappointed to see that it’s still not set up well for photography. Only a few areas are set up to attract birds, they are often set well back from the roads, and the grasses at the edge of the road are often six to ten feet high–obscuring the sightlines.
Anyway, I watched sunset from the last remaining crane pool that’s by the highway to watch Sandhill Cranes fly in for the night.
Click any of the images in this post to view them larger.
As is usual, I spend the first 24 hours or so figuring out what the birds are doing at different times of day. It all depends on where the water is, where the food is, where the wind is coming from, how cold it is, and other factors. The birds don’t always follow a fixed plan, but they are fairly consistent from day to day.
On Monday morning about an hour before dawn, I drove around the north half of the refuge again and–unsure of the best place to start–ended up near the Flight Deck area inside the refuge. There weren’t a ton of birds there, but there were dozens of photographers getting set up. I set up, too, and waited to see what would happen. Soon there was a flock of snow geese blasting off from the back (east side) of the refuge and they worked their way over to us and landed in the water near the Flight Deck. I made a mental note to try to find their overnight location so I could see them before they flew off. Each of the next two mornings, I set up on the east side–with almost no one else around. Well, it was me and several thousand birds.
As you can see from the photos above, it was warm enough (mid 20’s) that the snow geese took off before sunrise. If it is ten degrees or so colder, the geese often wait until after the sun is up to take off, giving more color from the sun and sky.
During the day on Monday, not much was happening with birds in Bosque, so I drove about 45 miles north to the Ladd S. Gordon Waterfowl Complex, another one of the refuges along the middle Rio Grande. It’s run by the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish. I am glad I visited–a thousand or more Sandhill Cranes were there. In a lot of ways, it reminded me of a small version of how Bosque used to be–corn close to the roads and clear views to where the birds are.
I’d end each afternoon back at the one crane pool along the highway to watch for geese and cranes to fly in. On Monday, the high clouds in the sky had me hoping for a beautiful sunset. But, it looked like it would consist of only a small patch of amber sky. I made the best of it–I’d wait for cranes to pass in front of the amber color to land.
But soon enough, the sky lit up red, the way New Mexico sunsets sometimes do. I grabbed my other camera with a wide-angle lens so I could capture it. It was a beautiful end to a good day.
Despite my disappointment that the refuge isn’t as good for photography as it once was, I’m still glad I visited for a few days. Below are a few more photos. (Click to enlarge.)
A couple of weeks ago, I spent a week in New Mexico. I flew by way of Dallas. Thanks to the pandemic, it was my first time on a plane in over a year. The flights were terrible—two were delayed, the flight from DFW to ABQ was diverted to El Paso for the night, and the final return leg to Austin was cancelled entirely. I don’t think that everything in the airline industry is ready for our return.
I’ve been to New Mexico many times in the past. In winter, I’m usually visiting the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, but I love summertime, too, for hiking, for opera, for shopping, for food. I still have several places in New Mexico I’ve wanted to visit and photograph. One of them is the Valles Caldera.
(Click on any image to enlarge.)
Bosque del Apache, a wildlife refuge in south central New Mexico, is one of the premiere locations for bird photography in the United States. It’s a wintering spot for thousands of sandhill cranes and snow geese (and dozens of other species of birds). Its 57,000 acres straddle I-25, the Rio Grande, and El Camino Real.
I first came here in 2005—with a 35mm film camera, a few rolls of film, and with an 80-200mm f/2.8 as my longest lens. I came back with a digital camera and better lenses every year for awhile. After a few years, I got burned out and stopped coming. It was getting more crowded, and I felt like the refuge was being managed in a way that made the photography harder.
I’d been wanting to come back; I’d heard reports that the refuge was in better shape for photography. I had a window of time right before Thanksgiving where I could drive to Socorro, spend a couple of days photographing, and then drive back. It’s a long drive, but driving let me bring more gear than I would been comfortable flying with.
Here’s my gear list:
Read moreWhat an amazing experience! Yesterday, my friend Nicole and I were fortunate to spend a day in New Mexico with the great nature photographer David Muench and his wife Ruth.
We were recording an oral history of David for the North American Nature Photography Association.
Here’s a photo of the four of us. More to come…
I got up half an hour earlier today to try to get a decent spot to set up my tripod and camera just south of the “flight deck” area at Bosque. It was still crowded with dozens of photographers, just like the day before. I’m not complaining, mind you; just remarking. I think it’s wonderful that (1) some great pro photographers are making money holding workshops, (2) Bosque is making money through the entrance fees, and (3) people are excited enough about bird photography and the refuge to visit and spend time there.
The sunrise colors weren’t that spectacular today; I’ve seen much better. So, I decided to try for something different. There were a bunch (tens of thousands) of snow geese in the water, and I knew that sooner or later they’d all blast off. I envisioned a shot similar to one I’d done before with a relatively slow shutter speed, to blur the birds taking off. I switched to a shorter (80-200) lens, and waited. And waited. Finally, the birds went, and I started clicking the shutter.
Here’s one of the photos, using a shutter speed of 1/3 second. I really like how the birds in the foreground are relatively still while the birds in back are taking off. By the end of the sequence of photos (not shown here), there are no birds left in view.
I spent almost the whole day at Bosque today. I continue to sort out where I should be at different times of the day. Sometimes I feel like there’s one “best answer” for where to be at any point in time. But of course, there are a lot of “best answers”.
A lot of people are visiting Bosque right now, and I see a lot of photographers crowding together for the same view. I was apparently late getting into place before dawn this morning, and had to squeeze in among a few dozen other photographers at one spot to see what there was to see. After a few minutes, I recognized that there were better photos to be made elsewhere, and I moved on to have a great morning at the crane pools. Almost no clouds today, and morning temperatures in the high teens.
At the end of the day, I was reminded once again that there are a lot of options for photos here. There weren’t many clouds, but I was hoping for a little bit of color in the sky at sunset. I was waiting at one of the crane pools when I heard a voice behind me say, “Brian, you’re facing the wrong way”. I turned around to see Artie Morris and the rising full moon.
The cranes were flying in, and it was just a matter of time before one flew in front of the moon. I said to myself, “okay, Artie, you’ve convinced me”, and I turned my camera around and decided to go for that shot instead.
Artie is a great teacher; you can learn a lot by just hanging out with him.
For the first time in four years, I made it back to Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. I arrived this afternoon, and had a couple of hours of sunlight to try to come up with a plan. Each year at the Bosque is a bit different—the refuge managers change things up every year. I drove around the entire refuge to see where the crops are growing, which fields are flooded and which are dry, and see where the birds are hanging out. There are a lot of potentially good spots for sunset, but on any given day, only a couple are likely to pay off.
I knew that sunset was likely to be pretty spectacular; there were several high clouds in the western sky. I chose one of the areas on the east side of the refuge where it looked like I’d have a clear view of sunset, with several hundred sandhill cranes in the foreground.
I was a little nervous as people left just before sunset—did they know something I didn’t? I stuck with the decision to stay at my location and see what was going to happen. As the sun went down, there were some nice pale oranges in the sky, but I had a feeling that the colors were going to get better. I waited. A couple more people left. I waited. And then a hint of color in the clouds, and a bit more, and finally…
It was worth the wait.
This evening at a restaurant in Socorro, I ran into Arthur Morris, one of the world’s best bird photographers. It was good to see him, meet his workshop co-leader Denise Ippolito, and see his workshop participants. You can read more about Artie in this blog post I wrote in 2008.
That’s it for now; I’m hoping for a great sunrise in the morning.
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