I am just finishing up with my group at Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge in NM before heading home in the morning. I have been away for about a month as I flew straight to Bosque from Nairobi without a chance to stop home. I miss my family and can’t wait to get home.

I was joined in Bosque by my two co-leaders. Donna Bourdon and Dave Klein. Both did a fantastic job assisting me with the group of 10. I enjoyed working with everyone in this group and I look forward to sharing some of their images soon. I’ll also be sharing some of Donna and Dave’s images too.

Conditions at Bosque have changed a bit. There has been a drought —even though they had gotten several inches of rain earlier in the season. Both of the crane pools were completely dried up. On November 9th there were zero geese at the refuge, I was in Africa beginning to worry that there would not be geese or cranes for my workshop clients. But on November 10th, I got word that the birds were beginning to fly in. Thankyou to the folks that kept me updated on the conditions.

With the good news regarding the arrival of the birds I was starting to feel optimistic. I learned early on that water at the refuge would be an issue due to drought. And there was no corn. As Donna, Dave and I did our early morning scout of the refuge we saw that the popular crane pools were no longer going to be a part of our workshop. They looked like they had been deserted for centuries as the grass was overgrown and there was not a bird in sight for miles. As we entered the refuge we saw and heard geese at the flight deck area. Whew…we all sighed a bit of relief. And so it went on to be that the geese and cranes roosted in the waters around the flight deck. This actually ended up being a good thing as we knew just where the birds were and they were much closer than they had been in previous years.

We only had one blast-off during our time in Bosque. The morning fly out was the dreaded dribs and drabs as Arthur Morris used to say. In other words the birds left quietly in small groups at a time without the entire flock lifting off in a frenzy as we would have liked. That said, we had some beautiful backlit opportunities and single crane and geese landing and flying at very close range.

Every year is different at Bosque del Apache and I am always amazed at the variety of images my clients are able to capture.

Below are a few of my images that I was able to process so far… I shot with my Sony A1 and Sony 200-600mm lens almost exclusively.