Saturday, September 8, 2018

Sandhill Cranes in Flight

So, this bird identification business is taxing.
I'm fairly certain these are Sandhill Cranes.  First, they have been seen in the Refuge.  And they pretty much match the pictures on-line.  Confidence is high.
Had a great morning at the Refuge.  I arrived just after the gates opened.  And I wasn't the first person there either.  There were quite a few ahead of me, which I wasn't expecting.  I live in a shell.
I wanted to get there early to catch the morning activities.  I wasn't disappointed.  Aside from the usual suspects, first time sights for me today were the Sandhill Cranes and a Broadwing Hawk.  I also have more juvenile Eagle and Wood Duck photos.  I have some photos of a take-off from the water (critter to be yet identified) and a Egret feeding.  Good for the Egret, not so good for the fish.  Well worth the effort to get up early.
So today's drive was much slower, I really took my time.  Probably took 90 minutes to do the 6.5 miles - not including stops and one short distance trail hike.  I was looking down in a culvert when these four caught my eye.  They aren't as fast as the duck, so I had some time to recover and get these four in flight.




ISO 400, f/5.6, 1/1250 sec, 165 mm

The weather, according the Weather Channel said it was mostly sunny.  I need to look up the definition of 'mostly'.  I will say it was better lighting that last weekend.

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