this<\/strong><\/span><\/a> <\/span>link (scroll just over half way down).\u00a0 When you hear it up close in real life\u00a0the sound goes right through you.\u00a0 It’s haunting – in a good way.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0392b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nWhen they’re in a hurry to lift off their efforts can produce some athletic poses.<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0393b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0Another composition to include the splash behind the crane.<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0399b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0The background behind the head is a bit busy here but I like the vertically extended wing position.<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0401b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0By now the male is just about past me so I…<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0403b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nturned slightly to my right to concentrate on the approaching female (at least I think this was the female of the mated pair).<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0406b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2000, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0At first she was content to let the male make all the noise.<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0407b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\u00a0But she soon joined in the cacophony.<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0408b-ron-dudley.jpg\")
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\u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nThis is the last shot I got of her that I liked as she rose up into the shaded and moody Promontory Mountains in the upper background.\u00a0 The bird is a bit centered in the frame but I had no more room on the left.<\/p>\n
A few days ago as Mia and I\u00a0were out looking for birds to photograph (mostly unsuccessfully) the topic of conversation turned to the birds we’re most looking forward to seeing again this spring.\u00a0 The Sandhill Crane was at the top of\u00a0our list.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On a beautiful spring morning in May of 2011 we\u00a0found a small group of Sandhill Cranes on a pond as we approached Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge.\u00a0 We were some of the first folks on the access road and our careful\u00a0approach made two of the birds a little nervous\u00a0so they decided to vacate the area.\u00a0 I believe they were a mated pair.\u00a0 I got my pickup stopped and my lens aimed just after the first bird began to take off. \u00a01\/2500, f\/6.3, ISO 500, 500 f\/4, 1.4 tc I believe this to be the slightly larger male who took off first.\u00a0 The unconventional composition is meant to highlight the water splashes behind the bird. If you’ve never heard the distinctive, penetrating and very loud bugling calls (also called “trumpeting”)\u00a0of this species you’re really missing something.\u00a0 As is typical of these cranes, these two were calling during\u00a0lift off and just looking at these images has that haunting sound bouncing around in my head. These cranes have an unusual throat anatomy that allows them to make such resonating sounds.\u00a0 The trachea extends and coils down the long neck and well into the sternum.\u00a0 This\u00a0unique anatomy “expands the amplitude and alters the pitch of the voice by\u00a0 the addition of harmonies”.\u00a0 Until these birds are\u00a09-10 months old they can\u00a0produce only a series of trilled whistles and peeps but as they mature their tracheas\u00a0elongate and coil intrasternally which allows them to develop the adult voice. If you’re curious about their call, check out both the “unison call” and…<\/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":[338,334,1128],"tags":[49,1267,1102,1269,1129,1264,743,1266,1268,1265],"class_list":["post-12605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge-favorite-locations","category-birds","category-sandhill-cranes","tag-bear-river-migratory-bird-refuge","tag-bugling","tag-calling","tag-coiled-trachea","tag-grus-canadensis","tag-mated-pairi","tag-sandhill-crane","tag-sounds","tag-throat-anatomy","tag-trumpeting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-3hj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605","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=12605"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12605\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"sandhill](\"http:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/sandhill-crane-0386bron-dudley.jpg\")
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