We got our Christmas rush out of the way early this year and made a trip to the USA to add to our nature photography library. First stop was Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, famous for its huge migratory flocks of snow geese and sandhill cranes. The experience of tens of thousands of geese taking flight as one is something that will live with me for a very long time. Bosque is quite spectacular. Here are a few of my favourite images. Visit my nature site to see more.

We also made a visit to White Sands National Monument. This is a spectacular range of sand dunes formed from crystals of white gypsum. Its quite unlike anything else on earth. As with many landscape subjects, good photography is limited to about an hour after sunrise and before sunset. And although you have to walk a way into the dunes to escape visitor footprints, you have to stay close enough to your car to be out of the park before dark.

I just noticed that one of my wildlife stock images has made its way onto the home page of the British Professional Photographers Associates. This image has already won a prize in the wildlife section of the SWPP/BPPA monthly print competition and goes forward to the annual competition in January.

The shot’s of an elephant crossing Lake Ndutu at dawn in the southern Serengeti in Tanzania. Here’s a better look at it: