Thousands of sandhill cranes winter at Bosque del Apache from November through February. They spend the nights in long lined formations standing safely away from shore in the middle of three large shallow ponds on the refuge. Every morning as the sun rises over the distant mountains, they walk towards the warmth in small groups until they break into a run, lift off, and then head out to the planted fields to spend the day feeding. They’ll migrate from field to field over the course of the day, enjoying a mix of grains. Then as dusk approaches they all begin to head back to their select ponds to spend the evening. I captured these four in the late afternoon. I was standing high on the edge of the field and caught them shortly after take off while they were still relatively close to the ground, which accounts for the eye level view.
Sometimes I learn the hard way. I was positioned on a hillside, shooting elk in this meadow, when I decided to have a quick look around the bend of the hill. Well, one bend led to another until I found myself about 50 meters away from where I’d left my camera set up – when I spotted what I thought might be a wolf moving through the tall grass. I raced back, berating myself along the way, and sure enough by the time I returned, what would have been a full frame shot had become much wider and getting more so by the second. It turned out to be a coyote. He was pouncing in and out of view, as he worked his way quickly across the clearing. A few camera clicks later he disappeared into the tree line. I learned a valuable but what should have been an obvious lesson that morning; Always take the camera.
For the first week or so, cygnets only surface feed. They peck the grasses and anything that looks good floating. And when the adults dip, they hurriedly hover around to grab whatever gets dredged up from below. Like all of us, they learn from example and before long are dipping and diving for themselves. I’ve shot thousands of frames of ducks growing through this stage – the mother tilts straight down with her bum pointing up in the air and the chicks surround her in anticipation - but this was the first family of trumpeter swans I’d observed. So I immediately recognized the behavior but rather than a bum in the air there was the beautiful arch portal of the neck framing the cygnets in waiting. Nice.
