Canada Geese over the Rio Grande

On our walk this morning along the Rio Grande Bosque to see what we could find for Blip, Paladian called out "quick, over here, I can hear geese".

This was my favourite shot.

Wing beats

From where we are staying with our friends, it was a short 20 minutes walk to Albuquerque's most popular multi-use trail, the Paseo del Bosque Trail. It goes from the north to the south edges of the metropolitan area through the Rio Grande's cottonwood bosque (forest).

By multi-use I mean that it is primarily used by bicyclists, walkers, runners and in-line skaters.

It is 16 miles of paved and many section of unpaved side trails, uninterrupted by roadways. This photo of the geese was taken about 1/2 mile from the Interstate 40 which is the main East-West highway through the state of New Mexico.

Along this trail, geese and other wildlife can be seen enjoying the mud flats and wetland that has been in part city created, as well as the natural wetlands that historically occupied the floodplain of the Rio Grande River. Huge cottonwoods line the bank in many places on the eastern side. Unfortunately the river level is very low right now.

I used a slow shutter speed to capture these geese so that you can sense the panning movement, with the blurred background of the vegetation on the far side of the river.