\u201can area where the earth and community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain” and “an area of undeveloped Federal land retaining its primeval character and influence, without permanent improvements or human habitation, which is protected and managed so as to preserve its natural conditions.”<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/p>\n
Red Rock Lakes\u00a0NWR is\u00a0a special place for me\u00a0– it’s one of those few truly wild\u00a0areas we have left that I have reasonable access to.<\/p>\n
In some areas of the US (parts of Florida come to mind)\u00a0Sandhill Cranes tend to be rather\u00a0tame and approachable in urban areas and I must admit that when I see photos of them taken there my gut response to the images is tainted by\u00a0that context, justifiably or not.<\/p>\n
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![\"sandhill](\"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/sandhill-crane-0940-ron-dudley.jpg\")
1\/3200, f\/6.3, ISO 400, Canon 7D Mark II, Canon EF500mm f\/4L IS II USM, not baited, set up or called in<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\nI photographed this male Sandhill Crane two weeks ago at Red Rocks. Because of a wet spring the Centennial Valley was as lush as I’ve ever seen it and I love the natural setting of this bird – green, native (I presume)\u00a0grasses and wildflowers galore. And the lichen-covered rock in front of the crane is the icing on the cake for me. These bright orange-red lichens, so common in Montana, remind me of another area of the state where I grew up on a farm near Glacier National Park.\u00a0Many of the\u00a0rocks and even some of the old buildings on the farm had these red lichens growing on them. And\u00a0I also used to occasionally\u00a0see Sandhill Cranes on the farm, especially\u00a0in the spring.<\/p>\n
The emotional impact of an image is often a very\u00a0personal one. For reasons I’ve mentioned this one has that impact for me.<\/p>\n
Ron<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Photographs of wildlife in wilderness have special meaning for me. If I’m aware that an image was taken in a truly wild setting it changes the context in a positive way.<\/p>\n
Continue reading<\/span><\/i><\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32342,"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":[334,8,1493,360,1128],"tags":[555,1129,2548,211,263,2546,743,2547],"class_list":["post-32341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-birds","category-ecology-and-environment","category-montana-favorite-locations","category-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge-favorite-locations","category-sandhill-cranes","tag-centennial-valley","tag-grus-canadensis","tag-lichens","tag-male","tag-red-rock-lakes-national-wildlife-refuge","tag-red-rock-lakes-wilderness","tag-sandhill-crane","tag-wilderness-area"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/sandhill-crane-0940-ron-dudley.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1zzJh-8pD","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32341","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=32341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/featheredphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}