{"id":11228,"date":"2013-01-08T09:12:29","date_gmt":"2013-01-08T16:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/?p=11228"},"modified":"2013-01-08T09:14:27","modified_gmt":"2013-01-08T16:14:27","slug":"male-sandhill-crane-dancing-for-his-lady","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/08\/male-sandhill-crane-dancing-for-his-lady\/","title":{"rendered":"Male Sandhill Crane Dancing For His Lady"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sandhill Cranes are impressive birds, weighing up to about 11 pounds, standing 4′ tall with a wing span of almost 6 1\/2′.\u00a0 And their\u00a0very loud and penetrating bugling call is something\u00a0every nature lover should experience.<\/p>\n

These birds are perennially monogamous with\u00a0pair bonds formed in the spring when they perform elaborate courtship dances.\u00a0 These dances, usually performed just after sunrise,\u00a0are the primary mechanism in pair bond formation.<\/p>\n

I found this pair of cranes in late April along the\u00a0Antelope Island causeway.\u00a0 It was early morning and the birds were sidelit so I didn’t get light in the eyes\u00a0in some of these shots but I found the behavior (and the sounds) to be fascinating and I think the image quality is sufficient for documentary purposes.\u00a0 All images presented here are in the order they were taken.<\/p>\n

Techs for all of these images: f\/9, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, shutter speed ranged from 1\/400 to 1\/800.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sandhill<\/p>\n

Here the larger male in the back is approaching the female and calling loudly.\u00a0\u00a0That distinctive\u00a0sound absolutely boomed across the shallow water.<\/p>\n

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\"sandhill<\/p>\n

Then he begins to dance as he calls.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"sandhill<\/p>\n

He seemed to try to move in front of her as she walked to the left, in order to get her attention.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"sandhill<\/p>\n

He repeatedly jumped up into the air with his wings spread.\u00a0 Here he’s about a foot off the water surface though it’s difficult to tell because you can’t see his feet.<\/p>\n

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\"sandhill<\/p>\n

Sometimes the female joins in the dancing but in this case she seemed more intent on walking to shore, perhaps to feed.<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

\"sandhill<\/p>\n

So the male\u00a0danced again…<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"sandhill<\/p>\n

while he continued to bugle in her direction.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\"sandhill<\/p>\n

When they reached the shore the male spread his wings…<\/p>\n

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\"sandhill<\/p>\n

And then almost seemed to bow to the female in a respectful and genuflective manner (anthropomorphism be damned…).<\/p>\n

This was an event I won’t soon forget.\u00a0 The isolation we had with the birds, the warm early morning light, the smells of the lake,\u00a0the fascinating behavior and the booming calls of the birds all combined to form an indelible impression on my senses.<\/p>\n

Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sandhill Cranes are impressive birds, weighing up to about 11 pounds, standing 4′ tall with a wing span of almost 6 1\/2′.\u00a0 And their\u00a0very loud and penetrating bugling call is something\u00a0every nature lover should experience. These birds are perennially monogamous with\u00a0pair bonds formed in the spring when they perform elaborate courtship dances.\u00a0 These dances, usually performed just after sunrise,\u00a0are the primary mechanism in pair bond formation. I found this pair of cranes in late April along the\u00a0Antelope Island causeway.\u00a0 It was early morning and the birds were sidelit so I didn’t get light in the eyes\u00a0in some of these shots but I found the behavior (and the sounds) to be fascinating and I think the image quality is sufficient for documentary purposes.\u00a0 All images presented here are in the order they were taken. Techs for all of these images: f\/9, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc, shutter speed ranged from 1\/400 to 1\/800.   Here the larger male in the back is approaching the female and calling loudly.\u00a0\u00a0That distinctive\u00a0sound absolutely boomed across the shallow water.     Then he begins to dance as he calls.     He seemed to try to move in front of her as she walked to the left, in order to get her attention.     He repeatedly jumped up into the air with his wings spread.\u00a0 Here he’s about a foot off the water surface though it’s difficult to tell because you can’t see his feet.     Sometimes the female joins in the dancing but in this case…<\/p>\n

Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[334,1128],"tags":[31,1131,1130,137,1129,211,1132,743,311],"class_list":["post-11228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds","category-sandhill-cranes","tag-antelope-island-2","tag-courtship-dance","tag-dance","tag-female","tag-grus-canadensis","tag-male","tag-pair-bond-formation","tag-sandhill-crane","tag-utah-2"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-2V6","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11228"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11228\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}