I went out for a walk along the Rio Grande just before sundown. A Bald Eagle was flying home along the far bank of the river, almost out of reach of my 70-200 mm zoom lens at 200 mm. The Sandhill Cranes were flying in for the night looking like bombers in formation as they flew overhead. As I made my way back home through the bosque, a lone crow sat on top of a branch watching the last bit of pink before it faded into the gray dusk.
We had a thin cloud cover most of the day Friday that produced muted light that colored everything with a grayish tint. The cranes had already flown off by the time I got to the riverbank at sunrise, but they flew back to the river at sunset.
Lots and lots of Sandhill Crane are flying over our house every day. Many of them are staying in the area and hanging around in the orchards and along the river.
I took a walk yesterday afternoon and got cranes and a heron on the Rio Grande just before sunset.
Even though it was a little early, there were still a lot of cranes at Bernardo.
Yesterday Laurie and I with Susan and Lois took an excursion down south of Albuquerque to look for Sandhill Cranes for our birthdays. After photographing cranes we headed east behind the Manzanos where we visited two of the Salinas Pueblo Missions, Abó and Quarai, and then continued north, around the mountains, and back to Albuquerque. Along the way we photographed landscapes, saw several trains, and had an interesting, uniquely New Mexico, encounter with a local couple along the way.
Cranes hanging out in a cornfield and tree farm.
I walked up on a group of sandhill cranes at dusk. They let me get about 20 feet from them before they decided I was too close for comfort and flew off into the sunset.
Now that we are seeing more Sandhill Cranes, I’m noticing the similarities between the cranes and the wild Flamingos we saw along the Route de la Mer that runs to the Mediterranean Sea on the Rhône delta in May. After looking at the area on Google Maps, it looks like the areas the Flamingos are wading in and flying over are normally dry. It was an unusually wet spring for Provence this year.
Off Center & Not Even 