Very honored and excited to have my Sandhill Cranes image featured in the 2015 Audubon Photography Awards! This was a shot that took some work and patience( and luck!) to get, but is one of my favorites I have of Sandhill Cranes. The sequence of images below was pretty intense to watch and something I hadn’t witnessed before. This all took place with just a few minutes of the setting sun left and the encounter happened so fast it was hard to register what was captured. I had been hunkered down behind a sage bush waiting for a pair of nesting cranes to make an appearance and had been there for way too many hours and was just getting ready to call it quits. I decided to give it just five more minutes and sure enough the pair emerged and were quickly joined by a third. Within a few moments the third crane engaged in an aggressive display that sent feathers flying and had the two embattled in a aerial encounter that was pretty intense. When it was over, although both appeared shaking up with some feathers missing, neither of the two cranes appeared seriously injured and the third crane retreated and went his own way. When I returned home I was surprised to see what I had captured and pleasantly surprised with this particular frame as the light and position of the cranes all came together. Not only was it a memorable moment, but Sandhill Cranes hold a special place for me and are one of my favorite birds to photograph.
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