Sandhill Cranes

When we were in Yellowstone early in the year we saw a lot of Sandhill Cranes, these on the west side of the lower loop. They were making a racket and soon moved into the woods where they began their mating dance, something we watched but had trouble photographing because of the surrounding trees. The last inset was the only decent photo I had of their mating ritual. When we first saw them and before they moved off into the trees, they were engaged in "unison calling," described elsewhere as a "synchronized and complex duet." Their calls were very loud and could be heard over a long distance.

Fred Fouarge, Annemarie, tiabunna, neira-Dan and 21 other people have particularly liked this photo

22 comments - The latest ones

Jaap van 't Veen ^club

Wonderful bird image Ron.

5 years ago.

Jaap van 't Veen ^club has added

Stunning PiP's Ron.

5 years ago.

Malik Raoulda ^club

Remarquable et belle capture mon ami.
Les pips sont fascinantes.
Bonne semaine.

5 years ago.

©UdoSm ^club

Fantastic photos of these Sandhill Cranes in this beautiful series...

5 years ago.

J.Garcia ^club

So well camouflaged!

Another wonderful moment, Ron!

5 years ago.

Malik Raoulda ^club

Vu et admiré/Admired in
www.ipernity.com/group/nous.-nature
NATURE et Biodiversité..!

5 years ago.

Jeff Farley

An excellent capture Ron. Thank you for posting to FFF.

5 years ago.

Hansruedi Voegele ^club

Wau wunderschöne Aufnahmen!

5 years ago.

Beatrice Degan(MARS)

Masterly series of photos !!!

5 years ago.

Janet Brien ^club

FANTASTIC RON!!! You lucky STINKERS! :D I really love these pictures and you got so many fine angles and great timing too. I do know what you mean about not being able to get pictures when they're behind trees, etc, the same thing happens when the turkeys are doing their thing! :) I would say you were totally successful though, what a nice presentation. BTW I was very interested to see their ritual and to hear them so I found a YouTube video which I've linked as a note--please remove if you don't want it! :) They sound really neat. Yesterday I heard such a ruckus of turkeys outside...I peeked out and the whole crew of about 25 turkeys was running around in one of our meadows, making all sorts of noise, chasing each other around...what a show! Such funny dinosaurs! :)

I forgot to reply to one of your comments--you asked why we didn't fish or use our boat at Lost Creek Lake...well, it was cold enough that Steve wasn't really in the mood, though he strongly considered it. The problem is that you really do need a boat to get to the nice spots. You can see the points from the trails but you can't get down to them so a boat is really the only practical way to do it. And Steve hasn't created a way to bring our Porta-Bote with us yet. So many things to do first, so it's going to be a next-season situation probably. We'll see though.

Hope all is GREAT with you guys! :)

5 years ago.