BOSQUE BIRDER
Bird-watching excursions are exercise and stress relief
Local dentist turns a walk in bosque into a photo op
CORRALES — Guy Clark, Nikon P900 camera clutched securely in his left hand, works his way through a stand of young willows along the Rio Grande in the Corrales Bosque Preserve. Canada geese squabble at each other on the river.
“Quite often I see a belted kingfisher out here,” Clark, a dentist and a Corrales resident, says. “I fairly often see red-tailed hawks in the trees along the clear ditch (Corrales Riverside Drain). And blue herons. It’s a great outlook. They can see fish easily.
“What has exploded down here is Steller’s jays. I had not seen them here before last year. I’ve seen up to 30 turkey vultures in that tree. I ran into an American white pelican down here in the grass. Less than a year ago. It seemed very untroubled by us. It just moved down by the water and paddled off.”
Clark, 77, got a picture of that pelican. He’s got pictures of kingfishers, red-tailed hawks and blue herons, too. He’s
From got pictures of vultures perched in trees, wings stretched out to dry in the morning sun before grabbing a thermal and spiraling into the sky.
Bagging birds with his camera is more than a hobby for Clark. It’s an important part of his life, a way to stay physically fit, mentally sharp and light of heart.
Osprey overhead
Clark may be best known as an antigambling activist. He is chairman of both Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico and the national Stop Predatory Gambling Foundation. Out here in the bosque, however, he can shed the stresses related to his profession and his crusade.
“I just love the outdoors,” he says. “It’s great for mental health. And I just wanted to stay fit. I was a runner for so long, but I couldn’t see myself running on a tread mill.”
Several mornings a week, Clark and his son Rob, 52, walk the bosque in Corrales. Usually they are accompanied by Clark’s dog Bella, a 2-year-old yellow lab, and Rob’s blue heelers, Dinga, 11, and Cody, 8. Most days they cover three to four miles, but they have gone five or six. And always, Clark has his camera.
On this morning, a pleasant, sunny weekday earlier this month, the Clarks and the dogs are hiking a favored stretch of bosque in the southern part of Corrales when Rob sees a big bird in a tree a long stretch down the river. Guy Clark uses his camera to zero in on the creature. At first he thinks it’s a bald eagle, but it turns out to be an osprey.
When that magnificent bird of prey flies overhead a little later, Clark clicks away with his Nikon.
“I’ve always liked the raptors,” he says. “Then these dinky birds started getting in the way and I realized some of them are quite beautiful.”
An office of birds
It’s difficult to imagine anyone being distracted into relaxing before a root canal or the extraction of a tooth. But the pictures of birds and other wildlife that cover the walls of the waiting and exam rooms at Clark’s West Side dental office do get his patients thinking about something other than their oral maladies.
“I get comments every day on the photos,” Clark said in his office recently. “‘Did you take these? Where?’” Yes, he took the photos. In the Corrales bosque.
There are photos of Swainson’s hawks in trees; a porcupine, also in a tree; American avocets on the river; a red-tailed hawk in flight; great horned owls in silhouette, their eyes colored orange by the camera’s flash; and several coyotes staring back at the photographer from a bank on the Rio Grande.
“That coyote picture is from several years ago,” he said. “There were about 30 or 40 geese out in front of them on the water. They were just licking their chops.”
The photo of that American white pelican is here. Bald eagles, a favorite of Clark’s, are the subjects of a number of photos.
Clark was born in Ogden, Utah, but moved to Sacramento, Calif., when he was about 6.
“Where we lived was real rural. Then. But not any more,” he said. “I have always loved birds. I have been watching them for 50 years.”
He relocated to Corrales 42 years ago and started running in the bosque in 1978. Over the years, he competed in three marathons.
“For decades I ran 20 miles a week along the irrigation ditches,” he said. He got interested in photographing birds about 15 years ago when he encountered two bald eagles while running in the bosque.
“I used to run at dusk so I could sing and talk to those eagles,” he said. “They were around six or seven years, and then they disappeared.” But by that time he had started carrying a small camera on his runs so he could take pictures of the eagles. Five years ago, a meniscus injury ended his running. Now that he walks the bosque, he carries the larger Nikon and takes lots of pictures.
A good day
The osprey, flying slow and strong, disappears in a tangle of trees, and Clark lowers the camera to his side.
“It’s been a year since I’ve seen an osprey down here,” he says.
A red-winged blackbird sings from its perch on the flimsy limb of a riverside willow, a blue heron keeps watch from the uppermost branches of a gnarly cottonwood and a red-shafted flicker takes a rest in another tree.
“It’s a good day for birds,” Clark says.
Twenty or so vultures circle overhead in a loosely knit funnel, prompting Clark to note that a group of vultures in flight is called a kettle but vultures feeding on the ground are called a wake. A companion mentions that a group of crows is called a murder.
“Yeah, but if you only see two or three crows it’s an attempted murder,” Clark jokes.
“Oh. Look. There’s a belted kingfisher.”