Crane Flight, originally uploaded by ifringe.

It was just after sunrise in the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge on a cold November morning. As they do every morning in the winter, the birds arise from the ponds where they spent the night and head off to the refuge fields to forage for the day. Once night [...]]]>

Crane Flight, originally uploaded by ifringe.

It was just after sunrise in the Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge on a cold November morning. As they do every morning in the winter, the birds arise from the ponds where they spent the night and head off to the refuge fields to forage for the day. Once night falls, they return from the fields and once again take up residence in the ponds for the night. The cycle begins anew the next day.

I was lucky enough to catch one of these flights out during the Festival of the Cranes. As it happened this particular morning the light was being downright odd and the sky for just a brief moment was filled with yellows; within moments the rising sun took care of the yellow and filled the sky with blue. However, during this magical moment I managed to get a couple of decent shots. The first was the previous Dawn Flight; the second is this one.

Normally I do absolutely minimal post processing on a picture. This one is a minor exception, however. Aside from the obvious crop, I also raised the contrast slightly (not a lot–just slightly). The sun was just above the top of this picture, meaning I was essentially shooting into the sun, which is an untenable position to be in when trying to bring out the foreground detail. The solution, as I saw it, was simply to remove the foreground detail, leaving this largely silhouetted shots of the Sandhill Cranes leaving for the day.