[You may view a brochure with map of the Ladd S. Gordon Waterfowl Complex as a PDF file.]

We got up at 6:00 by alarm, and it was 17°F (-8°C) outside. I had some trail mix and made a mug of Nescafé Clásico instant coffee to go. The sky was perfectly clear when we left in the Jeep at 6:28 — not too good for photography.

I had two Clif Bars for breakfast while driving. The Nescafé Clásico instant coffee was better this morning than the first time I had it, maybe because I added more coffee this morning.

We reached the Auto Tour Loop through the Bernardo Wildlife Area of the Ladd S. Gordon Wildlife Complex at 6:38, just as a State of New Mexico Department of Game & Fish officer was opening the gate. (The gates open half an hour before sunrise, and he was right on time.) We went to the pond where they have some blinds set up on both the east and west sides. Larrame Hammer, the Department of Game & Fish officer, pulled in as we were getting our camera gear ready. He was quite friendly, and told us that he lived in the Bernardo Wildlife Area as a child because his father had been a Department of Game & Fish officer too.

We went to the blinds on the west side of the pond to try to get sandhill cranes in the pond with the rising steam backlit. I didn't like the position of the birds and the water had too many sticks, so I left and went to the blinds on the east side to try to get the sandhills illuminated by the warm light. The birds weren't in a good position there either, so I went back to the road and set up for flight shots. It was so cold that the sandhill cranes were flying with their feet tucked up under their bodies (below left). That made them look almost like a Canada goose in flight without their long legs sticking out straight behind them.


After J finished shooting at the pond, where she got some nice backlit images like I had envisioned, we set up to photograph from the Jeep and drove around the Auto Tour Loop. We stopped at one field with 50 or so sandhill cranes on the ground. The settings for photographing birds on the ground are much better here at the Bernardo Wildlife Area than at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. The fields at Bernardo are at the same level as the roads, and there aren't as many irrigation ditches lined with impenetrable vegetation to block the view. After photographing the cranes on the ground, some more started to fly in, and I was able to capture one as it was turning onto final approach (above right).

The highlight of the morning occured as we were leaving the Auto Tour Loop. We came upon a very cooperative female kestrel atop a nasty-looking road sign. We pulled right up to her and were able to get full-frame vertical portraits of her — of course on a not-so-nice perch. Then she flew to the top of a nearby tree, and we pulled over to photograph her there. We couldn't get quite as close because there was an irrigation ditch between us and the tree, but the setting was much nicer (left). She didn't mind us being there nor when we moved to two slightly different spots to change perspectives and twig positions. We left at 9:48.

We returned to the RV around 10:00, and the outside air temperature was a balmy 33°F (0.5°C). :) I downloaded the images I took and started to work on a blog entry. Then I downselected images from this morning in iView.

I had lunch around 11:40 because I was dying — I only had two Clif Bars this morning instead of my usual three. I finished the blog entry, then purchased a PT-04TM wireless flash trigger transmitter and three receivers through a buy-it-now on eBay. This, combined with the one transmitter and one receiver I had already purchased, will allow us to each have a transmitter on our cameras and the four hot-shoe flashes to each have their own receiver. I had been planning to let the Canon flashes communicate with each other through their built-in, light-based, wireless capability, but decided to get the additional radio receivers so that there won't be any problems if one slave flash can't see the master flash.

I did some computer work, and we decided not to go back to the Bernardo Wildlife Area this afternoon because the sky was still clear. I prepared my spaghetti sauce and started it simmering, then went back to doing computer work. I started to downselect the images from today in Capture One (C1).

We had dinner around 6:05 of spaghetti with my special sauce and a salad.

After dinner, I had some Aalborg Akvavit while I finished downselecting the images from today in Capture One (C1). We turned on the generator at 8:00 to run it for an hour to help charge up the house batteries. With the full day of sun, we had gained about enough electric power to replenish what we had used in the last 24 hours. However, we had been down quite a bit to start with, and running the generator in the dark gives us more bang for the buck — we can charge the house batteries and run 110VAC devices directly from the generator. I started to process three images for the blog. The generator started to make an odd noise around 8:35, so we turned it off. :( I finished processing the images for the blog, then started to work up a blog entry.