Sandhill Cranes in Morning Flight. San Joaquin Valley, California. December 6, 2015. © Copyright 2015 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes passes overhead, San Joaquin Valley, California

Way back in college, as a music major oh so many years ago, I was lucky to be in a special program that fulfilled my science requirements in a non-traditional manner. Rather than enrolling in the usual undergraduate science courses, we spent part of a year in a series of small group seminars on a range of subject. (As a student with an interest in science, especially biology, I was a bit skeptical at first but thrilled in the  end.) One portion on ecology lasted weeks, and reading Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac was a main component. This was perhaps the first such book I read. (I later read pretty much all of Muir and quite a lot of other such writers.)

One thing I remember from that book — and I hope I have this right — was something about sandhill cranes. I had no idea what they were… until many years later when I began photographing the migratory birds of California’s Central Valley. Sometimes ungainly on the ground, they have a refined and elegant way of flying, often flat and level without a lot of goose-like flapping. They are hesitant to fly right over a person with a camera, preferring to take a detour, but this group came straight at me.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer and visual opportunist. His book, “California’s Fall Color: A Photographer’s Guide to Autumn in the Sierra” is available from Heyday Books and Amazon.
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