Photographer in Colorado

On the morning of our second full day, we headed to the south end of the wildlife refuge. Here flocks of Sandhill Cranes had settled reasonably close to the parking area. We decided to explore some of the other birds that were in this area. Close to the parking lot, was a group of House Sparrows that periodically flocked to the feeding area. Soon they returned to the bushes close to the parking lot.

These sparrows periodically flew out to feed and returned to the bushes or to the fencing.

In one of the trees above the parking lot, a Red-Tailed Hawk was perched. There was an occupied nest in an nearby tree that it was guarding.

There was another area where we had seen Red-Tailed Hawks and Great-Horned Owls earlier. As we made our way there, we encountered a flock of female Red-Winged Blackbirds perched in the bushes at the roadside. Typically, the female birds meeting males at the breeding grounds. These Blackbirds often create nests among the cat tails and marshes. We had seen the male Red-Winged Blackbirds near the marshes. The males have a very distinctive call as they a waiting to meet a mate.

In image below, I was intrigued by the how the female had splayed her legs out to perch on the sage brush.

Later in the afternoon, I was capturing some incoming Sandhill Cranes in the same parking lot as in the morning. I don’t often get an image of a bird approaching me head on! This one even had some chunks missing from its wing feathers.

Later, I was tracking a single Sandhill Crane that was vocally announcing its arrival at the feed grounds.

This crane approached from the mountains to the west and looped around in front of me, chattering in flight.

I made several images as this bird continued in a wide loop, chattering in flight, before settling down towards the other birds in the flock.

That concludes images from our trip to Monte Vista.

Of course, we came to Monte Vista to see the Sandhill Cranes. Monte Vista hosts a Sandhill Crane Festival every year in early March. We chose to visit, avoiding the crowds that visit the festival later in the week. On the day that we arrived, and on the next full day, it was very windy and gusty. Unfortunately, the cranes had hunkered down, often a long way from roads.

However, on our second full day, the weather was great, with no wind. The cranes were more dispersed and often feeding in grasslands closer to roads and designated parking areas. During the late afternoon, several groups of Sandhill Cranes left dispersed areas to join larger flocks that were located in feeding areas. I made this image of a family group as they left our viewing location.

During the course of the next hour, several groups gradually followed.

In this image, I captured a single crane as it was leaving to join the flock.

This pair of Sandhill cranes were flying low over the grassland as they took flight to join the larger flock.

And here is another group leaving.

Often the cranes fly in a close formation. However, in this image, I managed to capture a long line of cranes in flight; a panorama. I included the distant snow-covered mountains as a background.

After working with the geese, we continued along the the road beside the same ice covered lake, where we observed birds in the marshes. As we walked along the road, a Marsh Wren called out from the cat tails.

This tiny bird was really close. This allowed me to make a large image of this little wren in the frame.

I had the opportunity of making several images as the wren flew and perched to several cat tails that were located along the edge of the frozen lake.

Another bird that we find at the marshes is the American Coot. In this image, the coot is walking on the ice close to the cat tails at the the edge of the march.

These coots are really distinctive. They have these huge green legs and feet that make it easy to walk through reeds, grasses and cat tails that forms the marsh.

It is fun to watch the coots in the lakes during this time of the year. The coots typically pair up and are looking for mates. They can be seen chasing one another around the lake. This behavior is really prevalent when these birds are on open water. Later in the day, the ice often melts as the sun rises, warming the mountain air. I have made several images of the coots exhibiting this behavior later in the day during previous years.

One of the lakes in the Wildlife Refuge, usually freezes over during the cold nights of early March. In previous years, we have always found Sandhill Cranes and Canada Geese in this lake, where they spend the night safe from predators. This year, we found the geese but no cranes. Perhaps the cranes found a better location following the gusty winds on the previous day. I decided to attempt captures of Canada Geese in flight during the early morning. In the image below, a pair of geese had just taken off. I like the way the geese are reflected from the ice as the fly above the ice.

In the following image, I captured a single goose taking off. Again, I like the reflection of the goose in the ice and also the two legs, hanging down, almost touching the ice!

Over the next hour or so, groups of Canada Geese left the frozen lake to head towards feeding areas in the wildlife refuge.

Sometimes I am lucky in capturing a goose that spread its wings. In this image, the rising sun lit up one side of the goose as the wings were spread out.

When several geese take of in a group, it is difficult to have all members of the group in focus. I had locked focus tracking on one goose as the whole group took flight so that I had one bird in focus while the others were out of focus.

In this final image, a group of six geese were all lined up adjacent to one another. This allowed me the have all of the birds in the group to be in sharp focus. I also like the background where we can see some of the snow on the mountains. Definitely an image from the mountains of Colorado!

Early this month we spent a few days at Monte Vista, to view the Sandhill Cranes and other birds that migrate to the summer breeding grounds further north. We took the opportunity to visit before the start of the annual Sandhill Crane Festival.

When we arrived at Monte Vista in the late afternoon, it was very windy. Gusty wind continued for our first full day in Monte Vista. Early that morning, we found one lake where some Cinnamon Teal ducks sheltered from the windy conditions, protected by cat tails.

The following image should the colorful male ducks with their cinnamon plumage and those red eyes!

On our second full day at Monte Vista, the weather was quiet and with no wind. This time we found several more Cinnamon Teal ducks in the same lake.

A mating pair were swimming along the edge of the cat tails.

In the following image, the female Cinnamon Teal decided to exercise her wings!

During the course of the morning, we found a male Buffelhead Duck that made several visits to various parts of the lake — probably looking for other Buffelheads! I managed to capture an image of the male duck as it was in flight.

Over the last month, we have had a few snow storms and some really cold weather. When the snow melts during the day, the water flows down the street and freezes as ice during the night. The melt and refreeze cycle happens several times until all the snow and ice has melted and evaporated.

This offers great opportunities to capture street ice. The ice patterns offered many different photographs to be captured. In the image below, the ice has melted and refrozen to look like a slow flowing river estuary.

Our street still had many autumn leaves that were trapped under the ice.

As the ice re-freezes, many air bubbles are trapped in the ice, or form in water below the ice. This monochrome image contains a string of bubbles, I have named “Bubble Necklace”.

Sometimes the bubbles form long string of little bubbles. This creates forms that look like the nebula, similar to those captured by the Hubble telescope.

Very often, the ice has yellow-brown patches. For some of these images, I have converted the color to monochrome.

In this final image, the curved lines formed in the ice looks like surf breaking offshore. The pale beige-yellow is reminiscent of sand below the water!

I made half a dozen photo sessions to capture the ice. There is another snow storm and freezing weather forecast latter this week. Maybe there will be more opportunities to capture some more street ice images?

After posting images from our recent visit to Bosque del Apache, I omitted some interesting images. In the following image, I was photographing one Red-Tailed Hawk. The hawk took flight just before the following hawk flew in. Perhaps there was a dispute over territory? The hawk below looks like a dark morph variant, that has significantly darker coloring compared to most birds in that species.

In the previous post, I mentioned the Coyote that moved in when we were birding. Well. Here is the Coyote. Apparently it was one of three Coyotes that other folks had seen a little earlier!

Here is one of the Sandhill Cranes coming in to land, that I was photographing while the Coyote was in the area.

While photographing shore birds, a Northern Harrier flew in to do some hunting. These birds are really nimble and perform impressive aerobatic maneuvers while hunting. This Harrier turned back as it started to dive.

Here is another image as the Harrier continued diving. Both images have been heavily cropped to show more detail, because the Harrier was a long distance away.

At the end of our last day at Bosque del Apache, the setting sun was streaming through the bushes and trees.

Here are two images from the end of the day.

Enjoy.