Before
After
A few years ago I learned that when the Sandhill Cranes leave Bosque del Apache they stop off in Colorado’s San Luis Valley for a few weeks and it is there that they do their mating dance. The dance is said to renew the bonds with lifetime mates or establish new bonds for younger birds or those whose mates have been lost. I was determined that this year I would finally make the trek north (which is not much further than the trek to the Bosque from Santa Fe) but after several weeks of unsettled weather I decided the window of opportunity was going to be small and ended up just going for the day this past Sunday. Though the weather was perfect the birds were hanging out quite a ways from the road. Even with my 100-400mm zoom at it’s fullest extent it was hard to isolate individual birds as can be seen in the before picture above. And, although there was a lot of jumping around and wing flapping, by the time I got an image framed and focused the birds would have already settled down. So, out of over 300 exposures that day, this is the only one that I felt captured the dance (notice the crane’s feet are fully off the ground and out of the water). The after picture is an enlarged outtake from the before. I’m glad I went but if I go again I think I had better look into renting a 600mm lens!