Ducks of Bosque del Apache

The largest number of wintertime visitors to the refuge appears to be the ducks.  When we visited this past January, they estimated that there were over 50,000 ducks at the refuge.  The refuge gets several species of ducks, which we are still learning to identify.

Northern Pintail in a frequently observed orientation

Northern Pintail

Ring-necked Ducks

Northern Shovelers were often seen feeding in tight clusters.

Mallards were fairly common.

I caught this Mallard as he was ducking his head under the surface to bathe.

American Wigeon

Lots of ducks (mostly Mallards) and Snow Geese were feeding in this grain field.  Something would startle them and they would all "explode" into flight.

Bosque del Apache's Sandhill Cranes

This post will just be a collection of images of a few of  the Sandhill Cranes that spend the winter in and around the refuge.

Scenic Bosque del Apache

I'm just putting up a bunch of images that I hope will convey a sense of what the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is like and why we love visiting.

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.

Bosque del Apache - January 2011

We are back at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge to start 2011.

We like the Bufflehead Ducks.

The colorful American Kestrel rarely sit still long enough for a picture.

This juvenile Bald Eagle was seen carrying its lunch.

"Am I not impressive?"

Gambel's Quail on lookout duty.

"Dang! I was seen."

Kestrel with attitude!

"Where's that darn roadrunner?"

The light was really too low for photography, but at least we saw some elk.

We always love the late afternoon light at Bosque del Apache.

A Trip to the Beach

Since the weather forecast looked good, we decided to take a drive over to Jalama Beach for a walk along the beach and a Jalama Burger for lunch.  The weather turned out to be fabulous, with clear skies, pleasant temperatures and almost no breeze.  I took along my new Canon 100-400mm zoom lens to start getting some practice shooting with it.

As we were pulling out of our driveway, I spotted this Red-Shouldered Hawk sitting on a sign just down the street.

As we started down towards the beach, I shot some images of birds in Jalama Creek, including these Least Sandpipers.

Along the beach I took these shots of stones in the wet sand.