Festival of the Cranes

Last week my friend Brock came from Wellton, AZ, and we did the Festival of the Cranes at Bosque del Apache near San Antonio, NM. It's about a forty-five minute drive from my house, so we had to leave at 4:30 one morning for a birding tour. It was worth it, and we got a bonus: the morning fly-out. Forget the fact that my fingers were burning with cold. I didn't get any good pictures that morning, but after breakfast in Socorro, we went up to Water Canyon near Magdalena. Some of the group was hiking, but we went looking for birds. No luck, but I got an inspirational photo.

I forgot to mention that we went birding the previous morning at Percha and Caballo State Parks. Here are some of the birds that I managed to capture with my camera.

A female phainopepla:

Male pyrrhuloxia:

This bird enjoyed posing. What kind is it? Am I supposed to know that too?

These are my blue cranes. The only reason they're blue is because it's dusk, and that's the way the picture turned out.

This is part of the fly-in on Friday evening. I have the rest on video. The sound is awesome.

One morning there was a great sunrise. I thought capturing it in the reflection of the bedroom window would be unusual.

About a week before the festival, I was in San Antonio to meet a friend for lunch. It was a cloudy day, but I decided to try some shots of the dead cottonwood trees. Here's one I altered. Bad girl!

 

The same day, these ducks decided to be cooperative.

This is a black-crested nocturnal heron getting ready to sleep for the day. I guess that's why he's so cooperative.

The birding experience and the festival were really great. I highly recommend it.