Tag Archives: sandhill

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Levee, Fog, and Sandhill Cranes

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Levee, Fog, and Sandhill Cranes - A row of sandhill cranes pass above a levee on a foggy winter morning, Central Valley of California.
A row of sandhill cranes pass above a levee on a foggy winter morning, Central Valley of California.

Levee, Fog, and Sandhill Cranes. Central Valley, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A row of sandhill cranes pass above a levee on a foggy winter morning, Central Valley of California.

This is yet another photograph in which my landscape photographer brain perhaps took over from my wildlife photographer brain. I wrote elsewhere that even when I shoot wildlife, I often catch myself thinking about the landscape in any of several ways. While the birds are overhead, I’m purely in wildlife photographer mode, but during pauses in the action my eyes drift off to fix on elements of the landscape that might make interesting photographs.

Sometimes I put the two together and use a technique that, perhaps oddly, I also apply when doing some kinds of street photography. In essence, I think about what I can control in the scene, namely the fixed landscape elements, and I more or less create a composition with a “hole” in it where transient elements like birds might fit. Now I obviously have no control at all over what the birds will do or when and where they will pass through the frame, so there is an element of chance in all of this. Using a zoom lens helps, in that I can quickly reframe the scene if the birds happen to be lower or higher when they pass by. Needless to say, there is a lot of waiting involved, some of it which could be slightly frustrating as birds fly past just above the frame or too far away, or too low. But every so often they do pass though in an appealing location. To further blur the landscape/wildlife photography lines, I frequently do what I did in the sequence of images from which this frame comes – I pan with the camera on the tripod as the birds move along. In this case, I have to make instant landscape decisions as the background, formerly-fixed elements are now moving in the frame. Yes, landscape photography as an action sport!

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Sandhill Cranes, Dusk

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Sandhill Cranes, Dusk - A flock of sandhill cranes against the dusk sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California.
A flock of sandhill cranes against the dusk sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California.

Sandhill Cranes, Dusk. Merced National Wildlife Refuge, California. January 28, 2012. © Copyright 2012 G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

A flock of sandhill cranes against the dusk sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California.

The sandhill cranes are amazing creatures. On the ground they seem rather ungainly, but in the air they seem, to me at least, to fly with remarkable grace and strength. Several things can make them tricky to photograph. On the ground, they are frequently in less than photogenic locations such as turned under fields, and they are skittish, moving away quickly if you come too close. In flight they can appear and disappear quickly, and if you aren’t looking the right direction you can miss them as they fly over. And they seem to come in waves – you can wait for a while without seeing any of them, let down your guard and become distracted, the suddenly groups of them seem to appear.

I had fewer opportunities to photograph them close up at Merced National Wildlife Refuge on this evening than I had earlier in the day back north at Woodbridge Road. But a few did come close and I managed to photograph this portion of a large group that flew over as the evening light was turning portions of the sky pink and purple.

G Dan Mitchell is a California photographer whose subjects include the Pacific coast, redwood forests, central California oak/grasslands, the Sierra Nevada, California deserts, urban landscapes, night photography, and more.
Blog | About | Flickr | Twitter | Facebook | Google+ | 500px.com | LinkedIn | Email

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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky

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Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky
Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky

Two Sandhill Cranes, Winter Sky. Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California. February 21, 2011.© Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Black and white photograph of two sandhill cranes taking to the air against a cloud-filled winter sky above the Merced National Wildlife Reserve.

This is another photograph from my detour to the Merced National Wildlife Reserve as I returned from my February trip to Death Valley. I arrived late in the day as a winter storm was just beginning to clear, and at times the migratory birds flew in front of a cloud-filled sky that ranged from dark and ominous to being colorfully lit by sunset light.

I chose to render this photograph in black and white for several reasons. First, to be quite honest, I wasn’t very fond of the particular coloration of the clouds behind these birds! However, in black and white the shapes and glowing quality of the sky seem to work better in this case. And from this distance the sandhill cranes’ coloration is subtle enough that I don’t feel that much is lost by going to monochrome.

I think I have mentioned earlier that when I photograph birds like these in flight I try to keep my eye not only on the birds but also on the background. I don’t have any control at all over what appears behind them, but I do have control over when I press the shutter – and as they pass in front of clouds and other background elements I try to time shots to place the birds in interesting compositions relative to these subjects. Every so often I like to think that I actually succeed! :-)

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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: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Wildlife

Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight

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Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight
Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight

Seven Sandhill Cranes in Flight. Merced National Wildlife Reserve, California. February 21, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Panoramic photograph of seven sandhill cranes in flight above the Merced National Wildlife Area against a sky full of clearing evening storm clouds.

As I wrote when I posted the first in this series recently, on my return drive from Death Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area I realized that I had enough time to stop at the Merced National Wildlife Reserve just before sunset, so I altered my route so that I could drive out on Sandy Mush Road (I still love writing that road name!) to the Reserve and do a little bit of photography. Although I’ve done a bit of wildlife photography, it isn’t my main thing and this is the first year that I’ve headed out to the migratory bird areas of California’s Great Central Valley – so this is a relatively new experience for me.

I had seen video and photographs of the morning “fly out” and evening “fly in” at several locations in the Valley and was hoping that I might get to witness something like this. That didn’t happen, though at one point I saw and heard the event taking place at pond a ways north of the road I had stopped on. I’m getting the impression that this experiences probably requires some persistence and repeat visits. However, I did find a field that was filled with scores of sandhill cranes. I quietly stopped my car, grabbed the camera with a long lens, and got out on the side away from the field and watched quietly. Even these attempts at quiet weren’t enough as the birds began to edge a ways away from the roadside edge of the field before they quieted again and went about their business.

Before long a few small groups began to take flight. I was fortunate that a storm had just passed through and the remnant clouds were beginning to clear in the west, both providing a dramatic background in that direction and allowing a bit of colorful light to strike clouds directly above and to my east. This brings up an observation about photographing birds – admittedly from a photographer who isn’t quite an expert on this but who likes to try to learn… thinking about what is behind and around the birds is often as important as getting the birds themselves into the frame. I like to say that in this series I was thinking about the clouds almost as much as I was thinking about the birds. As I continue to practice and learn how to photograph these animals in flight, I find that I can begin to simultaneously think about keeping them framed in the viewfinder in interesting ways and remain aware of what else is in the frame as I pan.

Special thanks to my friend Tom Clifton for helping me identify some of the other birds I photographed on this visit.

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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.

Canon EOS 5D Mark II (at B&H)
Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 L IS USM at 400mm (at B&H)
ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/3200 second