Custom and Set Departure Wildlife Tours Around the World
New Mexico: Photo Workshop
Tour Overview:
Every winter, thousands of waterbirds descend on Bosque del Apache NWR for the season, creating a world renowned wildlife spectacle. While this collection of birds includes ducks and shorebirds, which will provide plentiful photo opportunities on their own, it is the “blizzards” of Snow Geese, and sprawling stands of hundreds of stately Sandhill Cranes that bring most people here, and especially the bird photography community that has long considered this a hallowed destination. On this tour, there will be a wonderful variety of ways to photograph these birds, individually for a portrait shot, or collectively, on the ground with a sun setting or rising behind them, but of course, also within majestic flights, when the sheer variety of opportunities can seem overwhelming. The Tropical Birding guide will help you home in on the shots presented in this workshop, where classes accompany the field sessions to ensure you not only leave with cards full of images, but cards full of images enhanced by what you have put into practice following the combination of classroom and field sessions. Another joy to this tour is that we will be based out of one hotel throughout, meaning you only have to unpack once, and we will spend all of the field sessions within the extensive Bosque del Apache NWR, which always presents masses of photographic prospects, with its impressive desert sunsets and bird-packed wetlands.
Upcoming Departures:
Other Tour Details:
This itinerary is currently only available as a custom tour. Please contact us if you are interested.
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Length: 7 Days
Starting City: Albuquerque
Ending City: Albuquerque
Pace: Relaxed
Physical Difficulty: Easy
Focus: Photography
Group size: 6 + 1 leader
Detailed Itinerary
Day 1: Arrival in Albuquerque
After arrival in New Mexico’s largest city, you will be transferred to a local hotel for the night. An early afternoon arrival is recommended, so that you have some downtime before meeting with the rest of the group for dinner, and the first presentation of the tour. Your Tropical Birding guide will take this time to introduce you to the photography of the area, and how best to approach some of the sessions in the coming days. This will be supported by later presentations during the remainder of the tour. Night in Albuquerque.
Presentation (at hotel in Albuquerque): “Introduction to Bird Photography at Bosque del Apache”.
Day 2: Bosque del Apache NWR
The refuge is only 90 minutes away, and so we will have time for an opening session within the refuge during this morning. We will use the time in the morning to scope out multiple sites around the refuge, and confirm which are the most productive at the time, as these can vary based on recent local conditions, such as weather and corresponding water levels. There will always be multiple, excellent sites for bird photography within this large refuge, although these are not permanently fixed every year. Therefore, we will check multiple locations during the morning, to find the ones that are best suited for the group’s needs; this will include finding best spots for morning take-offs at sunrise and evening, sunset fly-ins, as these are often the critical locations for the most impressive shots. Our morning explorations will be put to use duri