Week before last we spent a few days at Monte Vista, where we visited the National Wildlife Refuge. After checking in the hotel, we made our way to the Refuge. Near the entrance, this Magpie was calling out from the sage brush.
Later we headed to the ponds. On this visit, there were many groups of Ruddy Ducks swimming in the pond. This year, we were fortunate that they came reasonably close to us. This allowed me to get a decent image of a male Ruddy Duck that was pursuing a female by the cattails. The males are very distinctive with their blue bills and a nice big smile.
The following morning we visited the ponds just as the sun was rising. During the night, most of the ponds freeze over with the freezing temperatures. The Sandhill Cranes spend the night close to water to keep safe from predators. As the temperatures warm, the cranes leave the ponds to find feeding grounds during the day. It is always fun to watch the cranes take off during the morning. Sometimes we are lucky to capture some images of the birds in flight.
Cranes frequently adopt this pose before they take flight. Here I managed to capture four birds about the take off from the frozen pond.
I attempted to capture some birds in flight. In this image, I capture this pair as they flew out after sunrise over the cattails that line the edges of the ponds.
There were a few Canada Geese in the same pond. I noticed a group of several geese that were making their way to open water away from the cranes. It appears that geese need more length to take flight than the cranes. Soon the geese took off. I managed to capture an image of one of these geese.
During our first morning, the moon was slowly dipping down over the San Juan Mountains. I captured this moonset just before the moon dropped behind the mountains.
We had a really enjoyable time birding and photographing just before the weekend started.