Wednesday, December 26, 2012 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM

Sandhill Crane, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, December 26, 2012

Number 1460

This is number 1,460 of the 1,523 pictures I shot this morning, by far the most I've yet to shoot at one go. Some days the stars align and we get lucky enough to recognize the alignment. This morning dawned as one of those days. Here I stood at waters edge, toes in the pond, camera before me on tripod pointed at a vast sea of Snow Geese and Sandhill Cranes in front of me, and a substantial sea of photographers beside and behind me, with a cacophony of bird calls and camera shutters breaking the dawn's quiet.

I'm pointing and shooting rather aimlessly at nothing very special when what do I see? A few American Coots in the foreground silhouetted against the calm waters in the early light. Then a sandpiper (a Long-billed Dowitcher I think) working its way through the shallows coming closer and closer to us. This is interesting. These are skittish birds but for some reason these little fellows paid us no mind and came almost up to our feet. It didn't take me long to get the camera free of the tripod and as near the ground as I could squat and start firing away. Firing and firing and firing right before the knees of the crowd focussed on the sea of geese and cranes farther out. What a hoot. With any luck I'll have a few decent pictures to put up here the next few days.

In about an hour the crowd dispersed and I wandered over to the rig parked behind me and fixed a nice breakfast while the pictures downloaded. After breakfast I walked out to the now deserted pond's edge for a last look around before heading out. Standing in the bushes right in front of me were two Sandhill Cranes which slowly wandered off when the saw me - but not before I got a few nice close shots. That's one of them above.

What a great morning!

Nightcamp

Site 10 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM

This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
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Crayfish Chimney

Late one afternoon I sat upon my camera case beside the path where it wound through the darkest part of the woods, down near the pond, and watched a crayfish building his "chimney," the land entrance to his underwater tunnel. He had just started to work above the ground when I first arrived. He came up through the moist black earth, carrying a ball of it between his two enormous fighting claws. Using the claws as hands, he spread the soil around the hole to form the base of the chimney. He then backed down the hole and after several minutes came up with another armful.

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