Morning – Lens-Artists Photo Challenge

Morning is the challenge Ann-Christine of To See a World In a Grain of Sand has offered us this week; either what our mornings are looking like now or a special morning we won’t forget.

I’m not a morning person. I have often said that I am actually, truly, allergic to morning. Getting up early can be painful for me. In my home in Alaska, sunrise can be anywhere from 2AM to 10AM, depending on the season, so waking at the crack of dawn to watch the sun rise has never been one of my morning rituals.

I tend to get up and hit the computer first thing, business first, and focus on the fun later in the day.  And my current mornings, sorry, are frankly not worth writing about. But there have been times when getting up early has rewarded me with priceless treasures and magical experiences.

As I look over the last 6 months or so, I remember a lot of very special mornings. Watching the sun rise over the desert. Seeing the mists dance through the redwood forest. Photographing early morning light on a Pacific Coast lighthouse.

But the mornings that stand out most in my memory are the ones spent in Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Preserve this past winter.

The Bosque is a birder’s paradise. I play at being a birder sometimes. But if I was a real birder, I’d get up early in the morning! Well, for the Bosque I made an exception and did just that.

Watching the sun rise and the snow geese take off from the ponds on the Bosque is quite an experience. It’s a ritual, like watching the sunset in Key West. It takes dedication. Not only do you have to get up at the crack of dawn, it is freakin’ COLD out there!!

You need patience. Sometimes it seems like not much is happening, and it gets colder and colder because you are standing still. But wait for it.

There will likely be a few geese already in the ponds when you arrive. The cranes have spent the night there, roosting in the shallow water as protection against predators like the coyote.

Then you hear it. A cacophony of honking, braying geese. You might see them in the distance as they fly from one pond to another. Or you might be suddenly overwhelmed, as hundreds of birds appear from seemingly nowhere, surrounding you as they join their kin in the waters before you. The din is terrific. One flock after another arrives.

A flush of pink begins to fill the sky. Although the cranes and snow geese are the stars of the show, you may begin to notice other birds – ducks, Shovelers and Pintails, swimming around in the foreground, and perhaps a gaggle of Canadian Geese behind those cranes.

If you look closer at the vast flocks of Snow Geese, you begin to discern a few differences. That one is much smaller – it must be a Ross’ Goose. See the dark one over there? It’s a White-Fronted Goose. The sun rises behind you, lighting up the sky. But it hasn’t reached the ponds yet. They are still in deep shade.

With the additional light, the cranes begin to get restless.  They start walking, in groups. In shallow, frozen places, they slip and slide with a graceful gait. You might notice a group – peering, watching, intent, looking for a signal perhaps. They begin to take off randomly, two or three at a time. I found it hard to anticipate – which cranes will take flight next? But most of the birds are not ready to leave just yet.

They’re waiting for the sun. When the sunlight reaches the birds, they know it’s time to move to the fields for the day. On some mornings birds continue to leave in small groups, a crane here, a crane there, a dozen geese at a time.

But other mornings are magic. If you’re lucky, you may see one of those rare spectacles of nature that people travel thousands of miles to observe, that National Geographic moment.

The anticipation builds. The constant background chatter of thousands of squabbling geese crescendoes. Then every goose on the pond takes off at once, exploding into the air. This is a sight you will remember forever.