Photo of the Day 172

Cranes, Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, 1995

Photograph by Joel Sartore

Silhouetted against the sun, sandhill cranes glide over the wetlands of Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge in New Mexico. Every winter groups of sandhills migrate from Grays Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Idaho to the warmer climes of Bosque del Apache. Naturalists are concerned that diminishing wetlands are leading the water birds to overpopulate this refuge.

(Photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Dead or Alive: The Endangered Species Act," March 1995, National Geographic magazine)