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Posts tagged ‘Trips’

Bosque del Apache 2023

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.

Sandhill Cranes at Sunset
Sandhill Cranes at sunset.

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.

Thousands of Snow Geese taking flight before sunrise
A blur of Snow Geese taking off before sunrise

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.

Sandhill Crane walking
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane standing on one leg as it walks through grass
Sandhill Crane
Sandhill Crane landing in field with two Sandhill Cranes eating
Sandhill Crane landing
Three Sandhill Cranes standing in grass
Sandhill Cranes
Sandhill Crane with wings spread
Sandhill Crane

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.

Silhouettes of several Sandhill Cranes landing against an amber sky
Sandhill Cranes landing

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.

Sunset with Sandhill Cranes in a pond
Sunset with Sandhill Cranes

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.)

Annular Eclipse

I got up early this morning and drove southwest of Austin to take photos of the October 14, 2023 Annular Eclipse. I first drove to Kerrville, because NASA was livestreaming from the Kerrville River Fest. There were some high clouds I was worried about, but it was clear to the north and there was a northerly wind. I waited, but they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. About 45 minutes before the eclipse was to begin, I decided to head west where it looked very clear. I probably would have been fine to stay in Kerrville, but I didn’t want to chance it.

I ended up at a convenience store at a highway intersection south of Junction and west of Kerrville. The red dot on this map shows my location, along with the path of the eclipse. A couple of dozen other eclipse watchers were in the same area.

Click to enlarge.

I set up two cameras… a Fuji X-H1 with a 100-400mm f/4.0-5.6 with a 1.4x teleconverter, and a Nikon D810 with a 70-200mm f/2.8 with a 1.7x teleconverter. Both had Nisi 100x100mm 16.6-stop solar filters. The longer focal length of the Fuji (840mm at 35mm equivalent) was the clear winner, even with half the megapixels of the D810. That’s what I expected, but I was treating this as a dry run for the full solar eclipse that’s coming to central Texas in April 2024, so I wanted to experiment. I’ll try to use a longer lens on the Nikon next year.

It was a long drive, but a fun excursion. Below are some of the photos from the Fuji.

Click to enlarge.

Addendum: More Thoughts on Gear

I used two solid tripods–a Manfrotto 3221W and an Induro CLT304L. For both tripods, I normally use a small center post because the legs of the tripod give plenty of height for terrestrial viewing without needing to raise the center post. But for the eclipse, I installed center posts that I could raise 6-8 inches so that I could view the back of the camera without having to stoop down. It’s a small thing, but if you’re standing around for a couple of hours taking photos, it’s a nice ergonomic comfort.

I learned this because I practiced with all my gear a few days before the eclipse. I wanted to make sure I knew how well the filters worked, how to focus, etc. If you’re planning to photograph a new situation, I encourage you to practice.

Because I practiced, I also decided that my main camera (in case, the Fuji) should be on a fluid video head instead of a regular ball head. I used a Manfrotto 701HDV head, which allows for smoother movements as I readjust where the sun is in my frame every few minutes. On my other tripod, I used my Really Right Stuff BH-40 ballhead–which was fine, but not as smooth for making small adjustments with the weight of a DSLR and mid-sized telephoto lens. I would have loved to have a motorized star tracker mount, but I don’t do enough astrophotography to warrant that.

I also set up both cameras for GPS. In the case of the Fuji, it’s as simple as pairing it with my phone over Bluetooth and using the Fujifilm Camera Remote app. For the Nikon, I use a Dawn Technology di-GPS Pro. This not only adds geolocation information to my image files, it also synchronizes the camera’s clocks to GPS time. Among other things, this makes it easier to sort photos from multiple cameras by time after I’ve downloaded them to my computer.

Joshua Tree National Park

I was in southern California recently, and had an afternoon to drive over to Joshua Tree National Park. I first visited there in 2007, when I was in Palm Springs for a NANPA photography summit.

I planned my trip to arrive for sunset light. There weren’t many clouds in the sky, but I still managed to get a little sunset color. I just had a great time quietly hanging out among the Joshua Trees and watching the sun set.

Afterwards, I drove down to the town of Joshua Tree and had dinner before driving back west towards the city. It was an incredibly short visit, but I loved every moment.

Hiking in the Dolomites, Part 1

From June 23 to July 5, I was in Europe, mostly hiking and photographing around the Dolomites, in the Alps of Northern Italy.

I met my friend and travel partner, Jennifer, in Munich.  She and I have been on several photography trips together—Utah, Alaska, Vermont, New Mexico, Hawaii.  Once we got to Italy, we would meet our friend and pro photographer, Kerrick James (http://kerrickjames.com/ and http://kjphotosafaris.com/) and a few others for the remainder of the trip.

But first, we spent the day in Munich.  We stayed at the Hotel Torbraü, near Isartor, and not far from the Marienplatz.  Despite advertising itself as the oldest hotel in the heart of Munich (since the year 1490), it was quite nice and convenient.

_DSF0045Hotel Torbraü

_DSF0044Marienplatz

After lunch, we met my friend, Rahman, and toured parts of the city that I’d never been to before.  We finished with a walk around part of the Englischer Garten, before returning to the hotel to get an early dinner and some much needed sleep.

The next morning, we departed by train for Innsbruck.  I’d been to Vienna, Graz, and Salzburg before, but never Innsbruck, and this was a convenient halfway point between Munich and our starting point in Italy.

_DSF0078Central Innsbruck

_DSF0070Griffon at Rudolfsbrunnen.  The statue behind, from 1863, commemorates the 500th anniversary of Tyrol joining Austria.

We had a difficult night’s sleep at the hotel, the Gasthof Weisses Rössl.  It was a warm day in Innsbruck, and the hotel was not air-conditioned.  Further, the windows did a better job of keeping the warm air in, and the cooler air outside out.

_DSF0081Hotel of the White Horse.

Still, the rooms were nicely and interestingly done on the inside.  Here’s a photo of one of the walls.  To the left of the television is a wall with a plexiglas front, with the gap filled with salt.  To the right, a similar panel, with the gap filled with peppercorns.

_DSF0096The Salt and Pepper Walls

Next stop, Italy.  Stay tuned.

Gettysburg

Today, I visited the Gettysburg National Military Park and Gettysburg National Cemetery, the site of a bloody American Civil War battle in July of 1863.  As with most of the Civil War battlefields, the park is filled with hundreds of monuments memorializing the dead and wounded soldiers.

Here’s an infrared photograph of the State of North Carolina Monument, sculpted by Gutzon Borglum (who also sculpted the heads on Mt. Rushmore and the carving on Stone Mountain).

20110924_0017

Fallingwater

I’ve spent the past week in Pittsburgh, at a conference and visiting some professors at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.  Today, I escaped the city—Pittsburgh’s a great city, by the way—and did a little sightseeing in southwestern Pennsylvania.

I visited the Flight 93 National Memorial and the Johnstown Flood Museum.  But most of my time was spent at Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater. There’s a hint of fall color just beginning to appear—this part of the country is beautiful.

20110923_0037

A year or so ago, I visited Taliesin West.  Both it and Fallingwater have an enormous sense of fitting exactly into their surrounding environments.  Taliesin West sitting perfectly in the desert of Arizona, and Fallingwater belonging no other place than along the stream called Bear Run in Pennsylvania.

Hells Canyon of the Snake River

I am in Boise, Idaho, for a conference, and had a spare afternoon.  I drove up Hells Canyon, on the Oregon/Idaho border, and did some hiking just below Hells Canyon Dam.

Here’s an infrared photo, taken with my infrared Nikon D200, converted to infrared by Life Pixel. It’s interesting how the infrared highlights the different textures of the water.

20110811_infrared_0012

I took this photo just upriver of the Hells Canyon dam, looking downriver along the Hells Canyon Reservoir…

map

I’ll be back.  I’d like to take one of the boat tours that heads deeper into the canyon.

August in Colorado

I was in Denver again this past week for work, and visiting friends.

And seeing a Rockies baseball game.

And seeing the Goo Goo Dolls concert at the Red Rocks Amphitheater.  (Wow, that’s an awesome place!)

I also had a chance to do a little hiking.  I borrowed a friend’s copy of the book Hiking Colorado’s Front Range, and selected a hike around Mount Galbraith, near Golden.

Here’s the GPS track from my hike. I used the new Garmin GPSMAP 62s, which I really like.

Mt Galbraith Topo Map

And an infrared photo, looking off to the southwest…

20100828_0005 Thanks again to all my friends from Colorado, and my friends from Austin who were up there with me.

A Weekend in Denver

After leaving New Mexico, I went up to Colorado and enjoyed catching up with several friends. My first night, I captured this great sunset with the Denver skyline from my hotel room balcony.

Denver_Sunset

My friend Micaela took me snowshoeing for the first time.  We went up to Bear Lake, in Rocky Mountain National Park, and we had a wonderful time with a couple of feet of fresh powder in some places.

Snowshoeing in RMNP Despite her best efforts with snowballs, she did not cause me to trip over my own snowshoes and fall down.

Lent in Santa Fe

Santa Fe, New Mexico, is one of my favorite cities.  Great for photography, great for shopping, great for opera, great for relaxing.

After visiting Kasha-Katuwe Tent Rocks National Monument, I drove up to Santa Fe for an afternoon.  It was the Christian season of Lent, and the St. Francis Cathedral had a figure of Christ on the cross in purple fabric.  In the foreground is a statue by Estella Loretto.

St. Francis Cathedral