Sandhill Cranes in Flight, Dawn. Central Valley, California. January 28, 2017. © Copyright 2017 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
Two sandhill cranes fly in dawn light
I think that the sandhill cranes may have become my favorite birds in the California Central Valley wetlands. (OK, ask me again later — I may change my mind if I’ve just had a white pelican flyover or discovered a surprise group of tundra swans or photographed a bald eagle, or… ;-) On my first visit to the wetlands, the result of a set of coincidences that I’ve described before, I was completely ignorant about what I was seeing. There were lots of birds, but heck if I knew what they were. Then I became entranced by the Ross’s and snow geese, with the white bodies and black-tipped wings in huge flocks. I photographed this pair in lucky conditions — on a morning that was foggy nearby it cleared enough right here to let the sunrise light strike these birds as they flew above my position.
I saw the cranes, but they seemed on those first visits to be less interesting birds. Their color is less striking. (Though the brilliant red of their heads is attention-getting.) While they flock together, their numbers are typically smaller than those of the geese. But the pump had already been primed for potential interest in the cranes, all the way back in college when I read (but didn’t really fully understand) Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac. The main thing I recalled about that book, for some reason, was the sandhill cranes. (And if this isn’t an example of how a college experience that seemed to mean little at the time planted a seed that sprouted later, I don’t know what is.) In recent years, the more time I spent in the wetlands the more the cranes became central to the experience. In fact, their cries are my primary auditory association with these places, both when heard from birds flying invisibly in the early morning tule fog and the mass returns of these noble birds after sunset.
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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