Hagerman NWR: December 2017

My outing to Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge last December was one of my most rewarding days of picture-taking all year, yielding a beautiful sunrise and the best shots I'd ever gotten of snow geese. It was a no-brainer to head back up there this year while the geese were still around.

I made sure to get up there in time for sunrise again, but wanted to try a different location where I could get more reflection off the water.  So I drove partway out the road to Q Pad, stopping at the first pair of wells to see what I could get.

I bracket all my landscape shots, especially in high-contrast situations like sunrise, then merge the exposures in Lightroom.  But for this shot I preferred the darkest of the three original images to the "normal" exposure version or the blend.  Rich colors, and it better captures the twilight feel.

The sun and few clouds were doing their job in the sky.  I hopped around a bit trying to find a suitable foreground composition to complement the rest of the scene.

I enjoy the time pressure of shooting sunrise and sunset.  You can't necessarily see the conditions changing moment by moment, but you know you've got a limited window to capture the right combination of color and light.

Then the sun breaches the horizon, and you get your last few snaps of the shutter before the magic goes back into hiding until the next morning.

Even with sunrise technically over, I knew I was better off continuing to focus on landscape shots until the sun got higher in the sky.  I love my D5200, but I can't get great wildlife shots in low light with it.  So I relocated along Wildlife Drive and kept at it.

These trees caught me, and I chose a vantage point where various lines all seem to converge at a point on the middle right.  I like the effect.

Eventually I joined a group from the Friends of Hagerman and we headed out in search of geese.  The first batch we spotted were obscured by some brush, but I like the effect of these birds who seem to be heading for cover.

I was able to move into position for a less obscured view, but was still fairly far off.  And the birds weren't doing anything all that interesting.

We headed back towards the Visitor Center and found a large group on the water fairly close to shore.  That's where we set up shop for a while as geese took flight in small groups, which provided a nice opportunity to try and isolate birds in the air.

My attention kept coming back to the birds on the water, hoping to capture a moment when some of them decided to take off.  I was eventually rewarded.

And so it proceeded for a while, a fairly leisurely time of intermittent activity.

There never was a large-scale "blast-off."  I don't think more than 30 ever left at once.

We re-located one last time to the fields adjacent to the Visitor Center where a small flock had gathered.  A small group of cyclists rode through, startling the flock to all depart.  So I got a bit of a blast-off after all.

It was early enough that I thought about making one more jaunt down Wildlife Drive and back.  I drove past this fellow perched right off the road, and I turned my car around to go back and shoot him.  He didn't stick around long -- I find raptors generally touchy about having their portraits taken -- and once he flew off I decided I'd had a satisfying morning, too.

Bluebonnets near Ennis, shore birds at High Island, and snow geese at Hagerman have become my three annual Texas photo traditions!