Tag Archives: cranes

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Three Lesser Sandhill Cranes

March 13, 2016 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Three lesser sandhill cranes fly against blue sky above the San Joaquin Valley

These beautiful sandhill cranes are found up and down California’s Central Valley and beyond. Many things characterize the winter “bird-scape” in the state, but high on my list is the sound of these birds, whether directly overhead or somewhere off in the fog, invisible but often present in large numbers. They are not as numerous as the geese, but at times their numbers can become quite astounding, especially when they find a good place to feed. I think that they can be a bit awkward looking on the ground, but in flight they are transformed. Their flying pattern features slower wing motion, periods of gliding, a flat trajectory, and often wingtip-to-tail relationships with other cranes.

They aren’t always easy to photograph, though if you come (quietly!) upon a group on the ground and they don’t fly away you can often get good photographs, and you may even see the “dancing cranes” behavior. Photographing them in flight can be just a bit tricky. They seem uneasy about flying directly over humans, and birds that appear headed for your position will often divert at the last moment. Fortunately, they can be very attractive viewed from the side — perhaps more so that a straight-on view or photographed from underneath. These three were part of a larger group that was flying at low elevation between two areas of pasture-land.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Cranes, Dusk Sky

December 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Sandhill cranes return in dusk light above the San Joaquin Valley

It sometimes seems odd to me that as the day comes to an end out here where I photograph birds, things seem to both slow down and speed up. The slowing down is the natural consequence of the daylight coming to an end, with my own awareness that a long day of photography that began well before dawn is soon to conclude, and the quieting of some of the natural occupants of this environment. The speeding up comes from certain events that take place suddenly and evolve quickly, along with the potential for several of them to occur simultaneously.

Very late in the afternoon I made a quick circuit of the area where I was photographing, trying to make a few final full daylight photographs and identifying locations where certain dusk events might be more likely — a landing by cranes, a sudden departure of geese. I identified a spot out along the levee loop where a decent sized flock of snow geese (and perhaps some Ross’s geese?) had settled in close to the perimeter road, and less than a half hour before actual sunset I was back there and ready to photograph. For some time things were very quite nearby. The geese mostly sat still in the shallow water near reeds, and I had time to compose photographs that were essentially landscapes with birds. As I was working on one of these I saw, far off in the distance beyond a roadway, that a huge flock of geese had lifted off and was wheeling in circles. Ah, well, I wasn’t going to get to photograph that flock close-up on this evening! Before long I sensed a restlessness in the smaller flock near me and, sure enough, groups soon began to lift off suddenly and head south and west — first smaller groups, and soon almost the entire remaining flock. When this happens I transition immediately from the slow and leisurely “landscape with birds” photography to working quickly and making instant decisions about what to photograph and how to photograph it. As I tracked these birds into the distance I began to notice lines of cranes heading back to one of their favorite spots perhaps a quarter-mile away. Using a long lens I tracked them as they crossed the cloud-textured sunset sky.

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others as indicated. Any use requires advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Cranes and Geese, Winter Fog

February 27, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

A foggy San Joaquin Valley winter landscape filled with geese and cranes

This photograph comes for exactly two weeks ago, when we took a detour through a favorite migratory bird area on our way to Yosemite for the opening reception of a show. Driving into the San Joaquin from the west it looked like most of the fog was gone — and I wanted fog! — but we took a chance and headed out into this area, which seems to be one of the most consistently foggy around. And luck was with us — we drove into the tule fog just before out goal. And when we arrived we found stupendous conditions of fog and birds.

A very large bunch of birds had settled in on a recently cleared field this is very close to the access road. Among there were a few egrets, more white-fronted geese, yet more sandhill cranes (as many as I’ve seen here at one time), and then thousands and thousands of Ross’s geese. Within minutes the fog began to thin and areas of light began to move among the birds. The birds were in constant motion, with one or another group taking of at every moment. At times something would cause them to go on alert (note the heads held straight up) and then, quite often, to suddenly take to the air in wild, flapping clouds of birds.

Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Central California, Photographs: Flight, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Black and White, Cranes and Geese

February 25, 2015 G Dan Mitchell Leave a comment

Masses of sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese take to the air in foggy winter skies about the San Joaquin Valley

A few years ago I may a photograph in the Skagit Valley of Washington that I described as a “snow goose maelstrom” — a scene utterly packed with those geese in flight. The scene we arrived to on this winter morning in the San Joaquin Valley was also such a maelstrom, except there were even more kinds of birds. While the description of this photograph refers to “sandhill cranes and Ross’s geese,” there are other birds here, too. In fact, it isn’t hard to spot a couple of white-fronted geese, and I know there were egrets lurking in this mass of birds, too. Who knows… it is even possible that a few snow geese might have shown up.

We arrived to a favorite kind of atmospheric condition. There was very dense tule fog — so dense that you can see the more distant airborne birds in the photo almost disappear behind its veil. But the fog was shallow and beginning to thin, and the sun was making it glow with intense brightness. I describe this effect as the fog glowing so brightly that it can almost be hard to look directly into it. I chose to go with a relatively high key interpretation of this scene to evoke that feeling. At the moment that I made the photograph, something had disturbed the flock and the various kinds of birds on the ground were beginning to lift into the sky to join those that were already airborne.

G Dan Mitchell Photography

Tag Archives: cranes

Three Lesser Sandhill Cranes

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Cranes, Dusk Sky

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Cranes and Geese, Winter Fog

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Black and White, Cranes and Geese

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.

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Photographer and visual opportunist. Daily photos since 2005, plus articles, reviews, news, and ideas.