[envira-gallery id=”38457″]
Many, many years ago at one of our old Photo Marketing weekends, we had a participant, kinda quiet with his arm in a cast. Come to find out he’s a pastor and that he had crashed his motorcycle. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out Mark is unique to say the least. One of the last things he said to me that weekend was, “Ever want to come out to the Platt Rive for the Sandhill Cranes, I’ve got a blind.” We’ve been doing it ever since.
I’ve spent April Fools for many years now in Nebraska, waiting to be locked in a box for 16+ hours in hopes of capturing that one image I’ve always wanted. At the beginning of the season there are as many as 100k Sandhill Cranes on the Platt, most are Lessers. They arrive near Kearny, NE on Valentines Day, peak around St Patricks day and are all gone my Tax Day. It’s a brief window and looking for the behavior I want to photograph, the Dancing, the window is even smaller. So each year Mark gets a blind reserved at Rowe Sanctuary and off we go.
So far, I’ve not gotten the photo I envisioned, not even close so we started this trip with the hope of scoring that shot. And the day started out great. Cranes were in the air when we arrived, circling overhead as they do in the afternoon and they move about. Nearly half of the cranes has already taken off north which left 50k on the river, I only need one for my photo so the odds were still good. Shooting with the D750 / 80-400VR3, these masters of the skies performed. Then as it was time to get locked in the blind, 1630, the skies closed in and an hour before sunset, it was so dark, even ISO3200 wasn’t going to help. Sleeping in the blind all night on the mud floor with temps getting down to 30 or below, we woke to the same, miserable, gray, dark skies. Then, at 0645 a Bald Eagle, probably the same one from years past who has done the same dastardly deed, flew down the river spooking all the cranes off the river. ALL! And that was it, the day was done until 1630 when we got back in the blind again. And the hope continues ….