Sandhill Cranes

Last Friday a group of friends and I went to Kearney Nebraska to take pictures of the Sandhill Cranes. We piled in the car at 3:30 in the morning for the 2 hour trip. Though we should have all taken naps on the way down none of us could sleep because of the anticipation of the day that was to come. We arrived at where we were going to take our morning pictures at about 5:30. It was still dark out and we could hear the cranes all around us.

Regretfully there were not as many cranes on the Platte compared to my previous years here. The good news was that the birds were more active this year. They danced and played with corn stalks for us all morning. This is my favorite time to photograph them because when they are dancing it really brings out their personality. As the day moved into the afternoon the birds became really jumpy. So much so that they would fly off the moment they saw our car. We decided that this would be the best time to take a lunch break. After we filled our stomachs with some good barbecue we jumped back into the car for 6 more hours of shooting.

This day I tried out a 400mm 2.8 L Series lens with a 2.0 teleconverter. This gave me on my 20D about a 1200mm lens. The lens was considerably bigger and heavier than my 100-400mm L Series that I primarily use. So much so that I had to use a tripod for ever shot. Even though it was more cumbersome and time consuming to use I loved the lens. It offered superior optics and it was really really fast. If you ever get a chance to try out this lens I would recommend you jump on it, you will not regret it.

Here are a few shots from the day. I will be posting some more later this week so stay tuned.