Santa Ynez Valley

Santa Ynez Valley
Our Backyard

Sunday, January 23, 2011

More from Bosque del Apache

We are back home and I'm trying to get caught up with processing my images.

The official bird counts lists over 50,000 ducks at the refuge.  The cold weather caused them to mass together.  We saw many sights like this one.



We always enjoy a good "goose explosion" when for some reason, the majority of a large group of geese all suddenly launch into flight.




One morning most of the ponds had ice on them. When we first came on this scene, the juvenile bald eagle on the right was sitting by himself at a pile of snow goose feathers. Then the eagle on the left came to investigate. When the third eagle (above) came flying in, the second eagle completely lost his footing on the ice and ended up with his feet in the air.



This little fellow flew across the road in front of our Jeep, but landed in a bush near the road and was very accommodating in letting us take pictures.  I'm pretty sure that this is a Sharp-Shinned Hawk and not a Coopers Hawk.



It seemed like there were a lot more Canada Geese in the Refuge during this visit.



Just one of the many Snow Geese.  This one was caught flying in the late afternoon sunlight.



This Great Blue Heron let us take his portrait.



We often see pheasants in the refuge, but they are wary and hard to get a good shot of.


2 comments:

  1. Oh my GOODNESS, what gorgeous photography. The eagle photo is priceless. Thank you so much for sharing. Hope to see more.

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  2. Great shots Art, maybe you should be taking photographs for natgeo :-)

    evan
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