Monday, February 15, 2010 - Bosque Birdwatchers RV Park, San Antonio NM
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Illuminated, Sandhill Crane, Bosque National Wildlife Refuge, San Antonio NM, February 15, 2010
I got one!
Getting interesting shots of these magnificent cranes in flight leaving the roost in the early morning light has turned into quite a project. Many many thousands of shots later I'm beginning to see the light - how positioning myself to catch the cranes leaving the roost in just the right light from just the right angle and firing away - taking hundreds of shots - can yield a satisfying one once in a while. What fun! And what an honor and privilege it is that the cranes will let all of us out here on a frosty morning to get so so close to their roost and flight path.
Night camp
Site 16 - Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park, San Antonio NM
- This is a basic, small Mom & Pop RV Park with full hookups.
- Verizon cell phone and Broadband service are available here with a strong signal.
- Locate Bosque Bird Watcher's RV Park on my Night Camps map
- Click for Google street view
- Check the weather in San Antonio NM
The Heliograph in the Apache Wars
"The mountains and the sun...were made his allies, the eyes of his command, and the carriers of swift messages. By a system of heliograph signals, communications were sent with almost incredible swiftness; in one instance a message traveled seven hundred miles in four hours. The messages, flashed by mirrors from peak to peak of the mountains, disheartened the Indians as they crept stealthily or rode swiftly through the valleys, assuring them that all their arts and craft had not availed to conceal their trails, that troops were pursuing them and others awaiting them. The telescopes of the Signal Corps, who garrisoned the rudely built but impregnable works on the mountains, permitted no movement by day, no cloud of dust even in the valleys below to escape attention. Little wonder that the Indians thought that the powers of the unseen world were confederated against them."