2026 Monte Vista Crane Festival

Photographing the Sandhill Cranes in the San Luis Valley has been a dream of mine since Emilee got me into birding over 5 years ago. The Sandhill Crane is my ‘spark bird,’ after all. It was January of 2020, we were living in Farmington and Emilee took me down to Socorro and Bosque del Apache to see the spectacle of the cranes and geese wintering along the Rio Grande. Emilee had just been down there in November and was clueing me into the awesome birding in central New Mexico. The resonant bugling of the thousands of cranes and geese during the morning flyout moved me in a way that is ultimately indescribable. What I can describe is what I have been doing since: looking at and photographing birds with a passion!

One of my first photographs of Sandhill Cranes from our January 2020 trip to Bosque del Apache

When I learned that the Sandhill Cranes migrated through the San Luis Valley, I knew immediately I wanted to photograph the cranes flying against the backdrop of the Sangre de Cristo mountains on the East side of the valley. I had climbed, hiked and camped in the valley over the years, and for many sunsets had watched the peaks glow red in the Alpenglow and came to understood how the mountains got their evocative name: Sangre de Christo, the blood of Christ. The stars aligned for Emilee and me to get out there this spring for the Monte Vista Crane Festival. I had plugged the festival to our local bird club, and Emilee ended up taking me up on my advertisement of the festival by signing us up for painting and linocut art classes. A big snow storm delayed our trip one day, so I only had one evening to try for the picture I had envisioned years ago. With the dismal snowpack we have this winter, on balance I am grateful for the snow! After our afternoon plein air painting, we found our way to the best parking area to observe the cranes staging during golden hour, and we basked in the thunder of thousands of cranes dancing, bugling and flying about in front of us. These are a few of my favorite shots from that evening:

Sandhill Cranes dancing, bugling, and flying with the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo mountains in the background - a great representation of the whole experience

This ended up being my favorite image of the trip: Sandhill Cranes form a new peak on the skyline of the Blanca Massif

And finally, the picture I had in mind all along: Sandhill Cranes fly against the Sangre de Cristo mountains covered in snow