[You may view a map of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge Tour Loop as a GIF image. Note that "North" on the map is to the left.]

I got up at 6:00 by alarm. J wanted to stay in the RV this morning. I grabbed some trail mix and made a mug of Nescafé Clásico instant coffee to go. I left at 6:27 in the Jeep.

I ate two Clif Bars for breakfast while driving.

I went to the Upper Crane Pool in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge because the cranes there were close to the side of the pool that's accessible. (The pool is indicated on the Tour Loop map as the pull-offs 3 miles north.) There wasn't any color to speak of on the clouds, so I tried something different. I photographed the cranes after they took off in the pre-dawn light with a slow shutter speed to create abstract images (below left). After the sun rose, I photographed the cranes in the pool with some decent reflections. Some Northern shovelers and a Northern pintail were fairly cooperative too. I left at 8:20 and ...

Went through the fee booth and onto the Auto Loop, specifically the Marsh Loop. I saw some buffleheads, but they weren't cooperative. I photographed a very cooperative greater roadrunner near the Eagle Scout Deck (deck 2 on the Tour Loop map). I was able to get some nice head shots as it sunned itself on a fence at roughly eye level (below right). :)


Then I drove around the Farm Loop. There wasn't as much activity as yesterday, but there was a cooperative female American kestrel on a decent perch. I photographed her there, then she flew down to the ground, captured an insect, and came back to a better perch to eat it (left). :) I returned to the cooperative greater roadrunner by the Eagle Scout Deck, then left the Tour Loop and ...

Went to the Visitor Center to get some fresh water in two Nalgene bottles. There was a group of Gambel's quail running around the parking lot when I left.
I returned to the RV around 10:30 and tilted the solar-electric panels. Then I downloaded the images I took this morning. While performing two downselect cycles in iView, a solid layer of darkish clouds moved in — not good for solar-electric power. I started to work up a blog entry.

Had lunch around 12:05. It started to rain around 12:40. I finished the blog entry, then started to make chili around 2:10. J said the water I brought back form the Visitor Center had a strong chlorine odor. :( I turned on the generator at 2:30 and we ran it for an hour to charge the house batteries. I did some computer work. The cloud layer had started to break up, and there were areas with some nice afternoon light. I bid on a set of two Bogen 3372 studio light stands on auction at eBay, then I turned off the stove so let the chili sit while we were away. We left around 4:05 in the Jeep.

We went to the Lower Crane Pool. The nice golden light didn't last long, but before it vanished I was able to get some nice images of the sandhill cranes flying in from the east against the dark clouds (below). There were some patches of color as the sun set, but they were too small to make good images. We left around 5:05.


On our way back, we stopped to check out the San Antonio Riverside Park right along the Rio Grande.

We returned to the RV around 5:30. I downloaded the images I took this afternoon while finishing dinner. I was still winning the set of two Bogen 3372 studio light stands with about 30 minutes to go on the auction. I did a quick downselect in iView.

We had dinner around 6:00 of my chili and some leftover J's Bean Salad.

J did the dishes, and I checked the eBay auction. I won the set of two Bogen 3372 studio light stands. :) I checked the seller's other items on auction, and he had posted another set of stands that end in about seven days. :) I'll wait for those instead of bidding on some of the el cheapo light stands that I had been considering. I started to downselect images from today in Capture One (C1). I turned on the generator around 7:25 and turned on the Olympian Wave 3 Catalytic Heater to reduce the workload of our furnace which uses a fair amount of 12VDC to run the blower fan.

Power Converter Crisis

After a while, the lights in the office started changing brightness — not a good sign. The Inteli-Power PD9160A power converter (converts 110VAC to 12VDC) wasn't putting out much power, and it was making an odd noise. I turned off the generator, then started to look into the problem. I went out to the battery compartment to examine a connector from the original RV wiring that had a large bend in the wire where it exited the crimp-on connector. I thought that it might have flexed too may times before I tied it up on November 12, 2009. The wire strands looked to be intact. I cleaned off all of the connectors at that junction with DeoxIT contact cleaner and then sprayed on some DeoxIT Shield contact protector before reconnecting everything. I turned on the generator again, and the power converter put out power for a while, then started to behave oddly, so I turned off the generator. I went online and downloaded a troubleshooting guide for our power converter, then turned on the generator so I could test the power converter. The power converter seemed to be operating correctly. The power converter had been making a louder-than usual noise for the last two weeks or so, so I think the cooling fan on the unit is broken because it's not operating now and the compartment where the power converter's located is rather warm. I temporarily installed an O2 Cool fan to cool down the compartment where the power converter is located. Then I turned the generator back on, and the power converter behaved itself — more or less. After a few minutes, it started putting out about half power, but that was better than nothing.

I finished the first downselect of images in Capture One (C1), then turned off the generator and went to bed.