Tag Archives: pair

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

Pas de Deux #1

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Pas de Deux
“Pas de Deux #1” — A pair of sandhill cranes performing “the dance.”

Sandhill cranes have become perhaps my favorite bird subject. These large and ancient birds behave in ways that fascinate me more and more over time. (Their distinctive call is the first thing I listen for when I arrive at my favorite bird photography locations.) Geese that first drew me to photographing birds, but the more time I spent in the field the more the cranes attracted me. (Perhaps the earliest push in this direction came years ago, long before I had even seen a Sandhill crane, when I read about them in the writings of Aldo Leopold.)

It is a constant challenge to try to figure out their behavior and its logic. For example, even though I’ve spent a lot of time watching them around sunrise, when they generally fly out for the day, almost every lift-off comes as a surprise. I learned to be strategic about where I placed myself when photographing birds. After watching groups of cranes fly successively over a particular spot, I would move quietly to that location and wait… at which point they would all avoid that location, sometimes diverting the place I had just left! The “crane dance” seen here also seems to be a bit of a mystery — and not just to me. From what I read, while there is a courtship angle to the behavior, that may not be its only context.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

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

Two Cranes in Flight

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Two Cranes in Flight
Two sandhill cranes fly in close formation.

Two Cranes in Flight. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Two sandhill cranes fly in close formation.

Since I now have a group of sandhill crane photographs in process it looks like I’ll be continuing to share this subject over the next week or so, mixed in with some other subjects that I’m working on at the same time. These wildlife photographs come from my winter visits to the Pacific Flyway to see geese, cranes, herons, egrets and lots of other seasonal visitors to California.

I’m certainly repeating myself when I write that sandhill cranes have perhaps become my favorite birds among those I photograph. For some reason, perhaps some passages in Aldo Leopold’s “A Sand County Almanac” that I read decades ago, these birds have fascinated me since I first saw them. Unlike the geese that first attracted me to winter bird photography, cranes tend to be found (at least in these parts) in smaller groups. Where migratory geese are often found in groups of thousands, cranes are more typically in groups which, at their largest, may be in the hundreds, and which may often be as small as a couple of birds, as in this 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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Photographs: Austria, Photographs: Travel, Photographs: Urban/Street

Salzburg Sisters

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Salzburg Sisters
“Salzburg Sisters ” — Two women walking down a cobbled Salzburg street.

There’s a part of me that is tempted to jump over the large number of travel and street photography images that I’m coming across as I traverse my old raw file archive… and move to some of the more familiar scenes from the natural world. But I’m going to continue to (mostly) resist that temptation and double down on these subject a bit longer, at least until I make it through this archive of images from a multi-week European trip back in 2013.

We stayed in Bavaria with family for about a week, just across the border from Salzburg, which we visited on several occasions during our stay. I love narrow streets and figures that quickly appear and disappear, challenging my ability to quickly see and create a photograph. As these women walked ahead of us I had just enough time to bring the camera up to my eye and make three quick exposures as they headed into a very narrow cobbled street.

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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” (Heyday Books) is available directly from him. Blog | Bluesky | Mastodon | Substack Notes | Flickr | Email

All media © Copyright G Dan Mitchell and others.

Photographs: Birds, Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Wildlife

Two Geese in Flight

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Two Geese in Flight
A pair of snow geese in flight just above the ground.

Two Geese in Flight. © Copyright 2021 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A pair of snow geese in flight just above the ground.

Snow geese and other types of geese can sometimes seem graceful, but they can also manage to put themselves into some quite awkward and even odd positions at times. This is often true then they are taking off or landing — perhaps less so when you look at them with your own eyes and more so when the camera halts the motion. The acts of landing and taking off require some brief and extraordinary efforts — especially the landings when the birds need to find a clear spot in the flock, slow their flight, and finally descend almost vertically with feet extended and nicks craned.

Frequently, photographs of creatures like these come from times of day with especially beautiful light and/or atmosphere — perhaps in fog or during the morning and evening golden hours. This is partly due to the appeal of those conditions but it is also because the birds tend to do more interesting things at the edges of the day. But in February, at least where I photograph them, the birds begin to be much more active and there may be no lull in the middle of the day.

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.

Blog | About | Flickr | Facebook | Email

Links to Articles, Sales and Licensing, my Sierra Nevada Fall Color book, Contact Information.

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