BIRD OF THE WEEK NO. 23

Sandhill Crane

THIS IS A TALE of two cranes. It begins four years ago at the George C. Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary, near Vancouver, BC, one of the more unusual refuges I’ve visited. The little shop at the entrance sells birdseed to visitors. As a result, birds that normally flee when approached in the wild, such as extravagantly colored Wood Ducks, approach you instead. While walking one of the trails, a guide pointed to a grassy area a few hundred feet away where a pair of Sandhill Cranes had built a nest. Through my lens I could only detect a couple of heads poking up, but second later, a juvenile crane flew over and landed on the path, not ten feet away from us. These birds are large and I was using a 300mm telephoto lens. I was forced to reverse the usual dance with my avian subjects and retreated backwards to get the crane in the frame. In the process, I took close-ups of parts of the bird, including an array of feathers. The sun was at high noon and the harsh light somehow rendered the feathers as if they were backlit. One of the ironic delights of photographing birds is that, as hard as you work to determine the variables for seeing them, in fact you must adapt to the situation and the surprises presented. As the birds do.

THE SECOND CRANE appeared to me just last week at the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, an expanse of fields and streams north of Portland. There, I saw more Wood Ducks in the wild than ever before. And while watching a pair of Killdeer preening, I detected a movement in the tall grass, a large bird that I somehow intuited was a Sandhill Crane. The crane saw me as well, but I was apparently far enough away not to disturb its search for seeds or small animals to eat. I had to shift positions several times to get the bird in focus through the grass, but my decision to visit the refuge late in the day paid off. When the crane looked up, its red-crested head was bathed in warm evening sunlight.