Bill and I recently returned from a fantastic trip to New Mexico. We attended Alain and Natalie Briot’s Bosque del Apache and White Sands Workshop. As always, Alain and Natalie made sure we were at spectacular places for sunrise and sunset, and provided us with lots of things to think about during the print reviews and instructional sessions. I’ll be posting some of my photos from New Mexico in the coming weeks. This first set are a few bird photographs that I managed to take while I was in New Mexico. If nothing else, this trip proved I really need to practice with my long lens if I want to be able to take even a passable photo of a bird – especially if it’s moving.

It was very cold while we were in New Mexico. These first two photos are of the ducks at Rio Grande Botanical Garden in Albuquerque. They were slipping and sliding on the ice.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

These next two photographs are of some of the snow geese at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. The snow geese were a little more stable on the ice than the ducks had been in Albuquerque.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

And finally a Say’s Phoebe, also photographed at Bosque del Apache NWR. Thanks to my friends on Twitter who were able to identify this bird.

(c) 2009 Patty Hankins

I’ve got lots of landscape photos to edit from our trip. We spent time photographing in several locations including Bosque del Apache NWR, Valley of Fires, Three Rivers Petroglyph site and White Sands National Monument. I’ll be posting photos from all these locations in the coming weeks.