We don't have to worry about Charles Manson coming up for parole hearings any more: He's Dead, Jim!

Manson, age 83, has died. He was removed from prison for the second time this year for treatment for an unspecified illness. At that age, pneumonia is a likely suspect, but by no means a certainty.

So the head man for the Tate/LaBianca murders and several others has reached final justice.

I read Bugliosi's book, Helter Skelter, about the murders and the trial. Man, that psycho was pretty much the definition of a messianic criminal mastermind. I remember reading an article about a woman who received permission to interview him in prison, and the first thing that Manson said was "I could take that pencil from you and shove it through your eye and kill you before the guards could stop me." End of interview.

An end to a pretty valueless life who had no problem ending the lives of others and warping the lives of many.

I learned of it via an email from Rolling Stone, which included a link to an interview with him. I really don't feel compelled to read another interview or analysis on that nut. The RS link is just to the obit.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/20/508186963/charles-manson-cult-leader-of-brutal-1969-murders-dies

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/charles-manson-dead-at-83-w458873

Saturday I went to the Festival of the Cranes!

And it was a heck of a thing. First off, it's held at the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, about 8 miles south of San Antonio, NM, home of the eighth best green chili cheeseburger in the country (I swear, that's what it says on the sign). Call it about midway between Albuquerque and Las Cruces on I-25, about 2 hours taking two different state roads from Alamogordo. If you want to hotel nearby, you'll be in Socorro, home of the Very Large Array radio telescope installation.

And to be up front about it, I really don't know anything about bird watching. But after this weekend, and the experience that I borrowing that lens.....

ANYWAY, this is about a week long event that coincides with annual crane migrations. I previously attended in '15, apparently it's always the weekend before Thanksgiving. That year I stayed in Socorro, this year I did not. Once again I was solo and Russet was working. Fortunately she took the most hyper dog to work with her, so I didn't have to worry about destruction on a massive scale when I got home.

Canon was present with their repair guys, which was convenient because apparently the sensor in my 6D had developed some spots! We went to White Sands last week to shoot some pix for a photo Christmas card, and I had to do a little cleanup in the sky in addition to the sand. Canon also lets you borrow gear that you've only dreamed of! Because I'm a lazy slob, I didn't get there until around 1pm, I drop off my camera and the guy says it'll be 60-90 minutes. Fine by me: I'm not going to complain about waiting for free factory service! Then he turns around and says "Oh! He's working on yours right now! I guess he was caught up!" So sometimes there's an advantage to not being there early in the morning.

Sorry, Nikon does not send a factory team to this show. Olympus, Sigma, and another lens maker were there. Hunt's was the only camera store present, and they were doing pretty good business.

But the thing that made me exceptionally happy was: PANASONIC WAS THERE! I got to spend serious time talking to a Panasonic guy about my LX-7 taking two images but only using 25% of the pixels for producing the RAWs. He was as befuddled as I, gave me his card and said to email him and remind him and he'd discuss it with his techs in the office and they'd see if they could come up with an explanation.

There were other dealers: bird rescue, binocular and spotting scope sellers (what a surprise!), travel planners, etc.

After my camera was cleaned I borrowed a Canon 100-400 f4-5.6 IS USM II lens. One of those white puppies that's about 2' long. Image stabilized and suitable for hand-held use, which was good because I screwed up packing and did not have my monopod with me! The lens actually has three image stabilization modes: hand-held, panning, and tripod. I assume the panning is probably for sports. I left it on hand-held.

I didn't have time to dawdle as the Canon guys were shutting down at 4pm, and I didn't want to have to spend the day driving there and back to return the lens on Sunday! So I commenced shooting. I shot some indoor photos of two rescued birds, then headed out to the driving tour paths that surround the ponds where the birdies were.

I should point out that initially I was shooting with my Canon 6D, a 20 megapixel full-frame DSLR. That's what the falcon and owl shots were taken with. Then it occurred to me that I'm going to be shooting at such absurdly long distances, that I really need to mount my Rebel SL1: it has a smaller sensor, which effectively means it has a built-in 1.6x teleconverter! All of a sudden that 100-400 lens is a 160-640 zoom! It made a world of difference, I don't think I could have gotten the third bird shot without that extra 1.6x.

( Eleven pictures under the cut, some that you can click to view at 100% resolution! )

That's not all the images from my shoot, but I'm having a program problem that I don't have time to get in to tonight as we're leaving for Phoenix tomorrow and I have some packing to do tonight. I'll Talk some more in a few days.