A little more about this shot-
This was photographed at a location called the South Crane Pond area that
is a part of the Bosque del Apache NWR. The typical routine at Bosque is
the morning (usually 10-25 minutes before sunrise) flyout of Snow Geese
from one of their traditional roosting spots around the Flight Deck area.
On this morning, I decided to focus my efforts on "birds in landscape" at
sunrise as morning light first hit the Chupadera Mountains west of the
refuge. Shortly before sunrise, a large flock of Snow Geese descended upon
the pool I was photographing. I was already set up for doing
birds-in-landscape shots, as I had my 80-400mm lens on the tripod with most
of my frames at the short end of this range. I was also shooting with a
large depth of field with the f-stop at f/13. So, I was already set up,
basically, for what was about to come my way. Without any warning
whatsoever (and this is usually the case), the large pile of geese shot up
in a thunderous wave. It's interesting how Snow Geese lift off. They all
don't lift off at once... they lift off in a wave... usually starting at
one end. At the time, I was focusing on trying to get some close Sandhill
Cranes in my landscape scene, but once I heard the initial "thunder" and
loud calling, I knew what was happening, so I swing the camera around on
the gimbal mount and went to work. I caught the liftoff fairly early,
capturing 7-frames per second. Since I was at f/13, every element of the
scene was pretty much in focus. I feel pretty lucky to have been at the
right place at the right time for this shot and capturing one of nature's
most amazing spectacles -- at very close range flying in my direction!
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