Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

If you’ve been following my blog posts, you know that I love to photograph birds!   When eight Tundra Swans decided to visit the Prescott Lakes, I was ready with my tripod and Nikon camera with the long lens (Tamron 200-500).   I had my binoculars, hiking shoes and Peter (my resident birder)!   Tundra Swans breed in the Arctic tundra and migrating south to warmer weather.   It is really unusual for them to be this far south. We went to Watson Lake and saw four of the swans near the far shore….too far for any picture.   Then we went to Willow Lake and saw none.   The next day we retraced our steps and found four at Watson Lake and four at Willow Lake.   The ones at Willow were near enough for photography.     I carefully walked toward the water close enough to ‘shoot’ but not to disturb them.    Took lots of pictures in different exposures and happily left.   When I got home and looked, I realized the feathers weren’t as defined as I wanted and were overexposed.  I needed to try again

Before I met Peter, my avid birder, I had never heard of the Sandhill Crane.   That changed as I began to learn about birds and become aware of my surroundings!    Sandhill Cranes fly south for the winter forming flocks of over 10,000 birds.   One terrific place to observe them is at Bosque del Apache in New Mexico.   There is an annual Sand Hill Crane Festival every November.   We took a birding trip and got up very early in the cold morning to get to the area where the cranes would take off and land.   Thousands of these birds migrate to this area each year to create quite a noisy spectacle.   The birds are skilled at soaring with their 5 -7 ft wingspan and they can ride the thermals for hours at a time.   These beautiful light grey birds with red foreheads land by the water and in fields making loud trumpeting calls.   They eat plants, grains, mice, snakes, insects, and worms.   They often dig in the farmer’s fields for tubers…..probably not politically correct behavior! All cranes