sandhill cranes calling

[Ron Conlon]

I acquired this series early in October of 2013. A local preserve has a pair of sandhill cranes, but I rarely see them until the fall, when they forage closer to the paths. This time they did a bit of their dance and call routine in the late afternoon. The dance preceeded these frames but the light was harsher, the background less becoming and the birds were too close to make pleasing compositions. This series of calls followed.
T2i 400mm f5.6 1/1000 iso 200

[Gabriela Plesea]

Hello Ron!

Thank you so much for your contribution, what a lovely sequence of those dancing cranes!

I agree with you, often of the best events occur when the lighting conditions or circumstances are not quite favourable, yet it is so important to document behaviour and show the more unusual side of things! Some time ago a fork-tailed drongo caught a bronze mannikin right in front of our eyes, in our garden - she flew up to a tree and started devouring it, holding it in its claws. I was surprised to witness this behaviour and wanted to grab the camera and take a few frames, unfortunately by the time I brought out the equipment the drongo moved up into the tree and I needed the binoculars to see what was going on:)

I like the way you composed those images despite the close proximity of your subjects, and you have captured their elegant movements so well - thank you again Ron, I enjoyed viewing and shall look out for more of your Sandhill Crane images in the Avian forum:w3 Hope you pop in again here with more Story Sequences too:cheers:

Kind regards,

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Like pieces of Art! Lovely work Ron.

[Andreas Liedmann]

Hi Ron , nice sequence of the majestic cranes with their bonding behavior .
I like images 2 & 3 the most because of their symmetry ,

TFS Andreas