Click here for Part I.
Starting my day at
Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge with a gorgeous sunrise was frankly an unexpected bonus. My main quarry on my Thursday visit was
snow geese.
Unfortunately, I saw no geese when I arrived. I'd read that they were starting to leave as their food ran out, and thought that maybe I was just too late. Then I spotted some white in the distance as I was heading west on Wildlife Drive.
Bingo.
Fortunately a small road got me close to the flock. Getting out of my car didn't spook them much, but they did start to move slowly but purposefully away from me. I had to try and find a better vantage point.
Fortunately, I was able to do just that. The sun and wind were both coming from the same direction, which gave me perfect light on the geese as they took off and landed in small groups.
Well, mostly small groups. On occasion a larger group would take wing.
And sometimes I'd get fortunate enough to single out a lone bird in flight.
The blast-offs, when they came, were big enough to yield the perfect amount of chaos.
These moments are honestly a lot of shooting and hoping. Mainly, I want my focus to be sharp.
As the flock past me, the sun continued to work in my favor as I got some silhouettes.
When the birds had moved on so did I, only to have them fly directly overhead on their way to another feeding ground.
The bright sun gave me the luxury of using both a fast shutter speed and narrow aperture, so I could freeze the flapping wings and have more depth of field.
This shot remind me of my grandfather's favorite riddle, at least allegedly. When geese fly in a "V" formation, do you know why one side is longer than the other? Because there are more geese on that side!
I still wasn't quite done with the snow geese, as a few hours later they'd landed on another section of field close to Wildlife Drive. So I got out of my car and shot some more.
The flock was split a bit, and while many were already on the ground many more were still coming in. That resulted in a neat dynamic with a lot of activity and energy in the sky and calm on the ground.
After several years of trying, I finally had the day with snow geese I'd been hoping for!
No comments:
Post a Comment