Whooping Crane Family

Gallery: AvianPosted March 28, 201577 views4 comments

The main impetus for the timing of the trip I just took was to ensure I'd be in Texas while the Whooping Cranes were still there. After Bob McQuade posted some images last year I conferred with him on the location and found that they were near Goose Island State Park between Rockport and Aransas NWR. There's a cow pasture just a bit north of the park that about a dozen of them would visit regularly as well as feeders set up by residents in the area. I ended up spending 7 days there, though some of it was at Port Aransas-another great place for birds.

It was a rare privilege to see so many of these magnificent birds.

7Dii, 500mm f4 ISL + 2.0 TC, Jobu Gimbal on RRS legs, f8, 1/1250, iso 640, aperture priority, no exposure compensation. This was taken my first morning, February 19th at 7:54 am. Processed in CS6 and cropped to 14.4 MP from the 20 MP original.

Your comments and criticisms are always appreciated.

Thanks for looking,

Comments

4 comments

Comment posted by Hans Overduin on March 29, 2015 at 9:54 AM

Impressive birds, and nice light as well. Probably if the third bird had been looking as well instead of preening, the image would have been even stronger, but I love it as posted already

, Hans

Registered on August 31, 2011, 491 Posts, 3807 Comments

Comment posted by Nate Chappell on March 29, 2015 at 3:18 PM

Very nice family grouping Dennis, sweet lighting and I like the similar poses of the middle bird and young bird.

Registered on February 1, 2006, 1158 Posts, 19528 Comments

Comment posted by Kurt Bowman on March 30, 2015 at 1:32 AM

I would have been super thrilled to see and photograph these Dennis, so I understand your excitement. Nice job on the exposure. I agree with Hans about the third one looking up, but would still love to have this image in my portfolio. At first I did think the head seemed to be a touch on the soft side and then read you used a 2x which probably accounts for the tad bit of softness.

Registered on June 19, 2008, 1005 Posts, 8028 Comments

Comment posted by John Launstein on March 30, 2015 at 3:48 AM

Nice family portrait, Dennis! You must have had an assistant to get them all to look back for you!

I agree with Hans re wishing the left-most Crane wasn't preening in this particular group shot, but it's a very cool shot anyway. I like the feather definition in particular.

Registered on April 5, 2011, 223 Posts, 1193 Comments