Cranes, Pond, Autumn Morning. © Copyright 2020 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.
A small flock of sandhill cranes stands in a wetland pond in early morning autumn light.
I am a big fan of these flat landscapes of trees and grasses and ponds and birds, especially between the last month or so of autumn and the end of winter. All up and down California (and in many other places, too) migratory and native birds are everywhere, and while it might seem that there isn’t much happening here from the human perspective, the action is almost continuous in the lives of birds. The first thing I do when I arrive in such places before dawn is open the car window or door and listen — the sound may be that of a few far-off birds or it might be the raucous chorus of thousands of them nearby and overhead, but the striking sound of the cranes is almost always somewhere in the mix.
I began photographing before dawn on this morning as I usually do. I slowly worked my way along a levee, pausing to watch for and then photograph birds in the low light. The first big group I spotted was a large flock of snow geese, but they were not in a great spot for photography, so I kept moving. Soon I came upon a huge flock of hundreds of cranes in and around a pond. At first they were mostly standing still in the shallow water, but gradually they began to become restless and then, group by group, take to the air and fly away. I don’t recall now for sure, but judging by their attentive postures, there’s a good chance that this group left shortly after I made the photograph.
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, Amazon, and directly from G Dan Mitchell.
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