Bosque Del Apache, Day 3

Today was the final day, or rather morning, at Bosque Del Apache and the final morning of shooting for this trip.

In addition to Snow Geese the other significant bird, at least for me, is the Sandhill Crane. There were many thousands of Sandhill Cranes and were quite a contrast to the geese. While both species occupy the same space, the geese act as one body, generally flying-in and flying-out as a flock. The Sandhill Cranes are more individualistic. They travel in much smaller groups and take their time when changing locations. It may take a half hour for all the Sandhill Cranes to vacate a pond whereas the geese are all gone in a matter of seconds.

So today's images are devoted to Sandhill Cranes. I didn't get any real good images of the cranes (so I need to return someday) plus I'm tired, after driving 650 miles (800 tomorrow), and don't want to spend a bunch of time working the images.



What's really funny about this picture is that the cranes line up and go for a walk in the morning prior to flying off to the fields. They just march along single file and then randomly start squacking before taking flight.

I very much enjoy Bosque Del Apache and understand why people keep returning. It sounds like the numbers of birds is down alot from previous years, global warming, but the sights and sounds are still awesome.

Roger