With plenty of quiet time in our last day, I looked through photos from earlier in the week, and often couldn't tell which camera had taken some of them. I was most pleased with 64 MB still shots taken with the GPRO for their depth and wide view.

On Friday I was having a rough trip home and missed the shot of the pink sunrise on the peaks at La Veta pass, but I caught the zigzag pattern on the Spanish Peaks. I learned they were named by Zebulon Pike in 1806 when all of this land belonged to Spain as a part of Mexico.

Not much of a sunrise, and crazy windy. But with cranes in the air and God rays, I loved it. The colors were still my favorite sky blue pinks. Remember how I managed quite well, juggling two tripods and three cameras. It was our best day of the trip.

We reminded ourselves of the prescribed burn Alamosa NWR saw a year ago, and how it came back. Now there was no water, and a new government we expected to be very harsh with spending on refuges. We could do nothing but wait and hope to see new life here in April or May.

I'd put a lot of planning into having everything ready for the GPro to be busy right away, but had forgotten I would have to rely on batteries. They drained really fast without the AC adapter, and got to zero right as we parked at the refuge. I still enjoyed the old standby RX10.

Time-lapse trail camera set to 20 second intervals. I was testing it for the next day on the refuge and I got a cold and couldn't go. So I had plenty of time and needed a project.

On Wednesday it was 17 degrees and windy, and I was sneezing, so we had a rest day. I looked at Tuesday's mix of 12,147 photos and videos at 20 sec. intervals. I especially liked seeing the weather patterns. Clouds suddenly created a dark scene and then were gone in under a minute.

Thanks for the challenge, Robin. I picked blue for my monochrome and B for blue jay.

It was fun to play with the images I got from my feeder cam, and I had quite a few. But I wanted to keep running out before sunrise to feed the birds and bunnies and reset the camera. I just got pickier about what I wanted, and actually spent less time even when there were more videos.

It was bound to come out, and thank you Sonja for this challenge, that let me give myself permission to release the flood of feelings. :giggle4:

You checked at the bank to see out if our monthly checks had cleared. It was such an unsettled time. Trump came out against NATO and our allies of the past 70 years, and when Canada met his tariffs in kind, a lot of people that voted for him were very unhappy. He talked about WW3.

Thanks for the challenge! I was going to fade out those birds more, but chickened on it. Very much the story here. :giggle4:

The mahonia needed pruning and what a difference as soon as you took it out. More light & more selfies. You passed the camera dozens of times a day and never noticed. I tried to get us a selfie and as soon as I could I added one with my other favorite photos to create a composited page.

The swarm of cranes lasted a long time, many thousands of birds in the air at the same time, and I had seen blackbirds thick like this. These huge birds behaved the same way, and they seemed disorganized, but we think their flight was highly impacted by the 50+ mph wind gusts.

On Tuesday there the most visitors we'd ever seen, and by far the most cranes. I was excited to be at MVNWR an hour before sunrise, even in wind and frigid temperatures, to set up my tripod and GPro for the first time. My unique idea turned out to be perfect for capturing the scenes.

Thursday, the last day of our March trip, again had to be a rest day. We looked through photos from early in the week. Not only was the sky filled with thousands of cranes, but they were also thick in the fields. We hoped at least some might stay into April so we'd see them again.

Thank you. Our US National Parks just have had so many visitors they couldn't keep up. And now with funding cuts, it's even worse. It's a shame, because they're all beautiful. :)

On Monday of our week in Alamosa, there were about a half dozen other visitors but it was already crowded. It was a much nicer morning than we expected, although the sun came up behind clouds. At least the sky was pink and there were thousands of sandhill cranes.

A look back 10 years. We'd never go back. I remember huckleberry ice cream and a long fire drill in the cold dark wee hours. I remember there was never that space where it's just you and the universe. I remember too many people. But I'm glad we got to see these iconic views on a gorgeous morning.

I woke up because of night hallucinations after an anesthetic from the dentist. I thought a woman opened my window to give me flowers. The next night I heard fighting, and in the darkness I saw it was raccoons. It was hard to go back to sleep, as right after that were the bunny screams.