Snow Geese Blast-Off

These are Snow Geese en masse at Bosque Del Apache NWR in New Mexico. Most of them have just taken off and are swirling around--behavior they repeat many times a day. When I present this image digitally or in a gallery, I call it my homage to Jackson Pollock (1912-1956), the American artist who dripped paint on his canvases.

Bosque Del Apache is a wonderful National Wildlife Refuge about 75 miles south of Albuquerque in central New Mexico. The Rio Grande river runs through it and provides it with water to support the wildlife. It's best in winter, with at least 3o,000 geese, 12,000 sandhill cranes and several dozen bald eagles the featured birds, among many other species. (I've marked its location on the map, although the refuge is not specifically identified.)

(Backdated 2012-12-17, inspired by another Pollock-like image to be posted that day. It was a ten-day trip--I'll try to put up more images from it in the next day or so.)