The goal of our trip to Nebraska was to see sandhill cranes and see them we did! It is almost impossible to describe the overwhelming sight and sound of so many birds in one place. It was everything I hoped for and more.
During the day the big birds spent most of their time in the corn fields cleaning up leftovers from the harvest. It seemed like every field we saw had hundreds of cranes busy fueling up for the trip north. And those fields that didn't have cranes had snow geese by the thousands.
But the real treat of the trip was the ability to spend time two evenings and one morning in a blind on the Platte River watching the cranes and the geese come in to settle on the sandbars. The only problem was that although the sights were amazing, the photography was challenged, at best. By the time the birds arrived the sky was usually so dark that I was shooting wide open at 3200 ISO and still getting blurry shots.
The first evening we were in the blind we had one of the most intense, colorful sunsets I have ever seen in my life. There was no need to saturate any of these images - what you see is what I saw!
The cranes waited until the last light to start making their way to the sandbars in front of the blind. It had been a beautiful day and I think they knew that was about to change. The following day was cold, wet and windy; not much fun for flying.
This shot shows the cranes darkening the sky as they come in to land. The first evening I ended up with almost no usable shots of cranes from the blind but it was still worth the time and effort to witness the spectacle.
The photo above is from the second evening. A few cranes came in a little earlier and I was able to get some shots of them settling in for the night.
My favorite shots from the trip are of cranes in flight. These last few were all taken on the cold second day. The light was grey but the birds were beautiful!
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