Sandhill cranes migrate through New Mexico’s Rio Grande Valley each winter. I love everything about them: their unparalleled flying skills, their grace and dignity, and most especially their incredibly beautiful music.1
I think I’ve mentioned before that I don’t see very well. My vision is so poor that, for a long time, cranes were one of the few types of birds I could identify, simply because they were so big I could actually see them.
At the end of 2001 — almost exactly two decades ago now — I was in the midst of some very expensive and painful dental work. There was an after-Christmas camera sale and I somehow decided that, since I was spending so much money on pain, it was only fair to spend some more on a camera, just to even things out a bit.2
I bought a 2-megapixel camera with a whopping 10x optical zoom.3 I took it out for a spin and saw some cranes in a field, so I took a few photos of them. When I got home, I looked at the photos on my computer monitor and realized, “Those cranes have red heads!!!” I’d had no idea their heads were red until that moment.
That is when I got hooked on photography. The thought that I might finally be able to see more than indistinct shapes, even if not in real time, was incredibly intoxicating.
I hadn’t had much luck with binoculars. I never knew where to look and then, even if I figured that out, I had to focus them, which was a near-impossible task for me. Generally, by the time I was able to see through them, whatever I’d wanted to look at was long gone.
I realized that a camera would focus automatically, with minimal input on my part, and learned that I really didn’t have to see what I was pointing at in the moment — I could snap the shot, take it home, and put it on a monitor. Then I could take as much time as I wanted to really look at whatever it was.
Now I know enough about sandhill cranes to be able to say with some confidence that the crane on the right is what birders call a juvenile. It hasn’t quite grown into its red head yet.
And I can (more or less) identify other birds these days as well, even much smaller birds. I’m not sure exactly how that came to be, but I do know it had something to do with that first 10x camera and my attempts to photograph cranes.
I’m incredibly grateful to the sandhill cranes for their many amazing gifts to me over the years, not the least of which has been the ongoing impetus to become a better photographer.
Still photography isn’t very good at capturing sound. However, I do have some crane videos — with audio — that I’ll be sharing with you soon.
I was aware, even then, that my thinking wasn’t exactly rational. On the other hand, it was some of the best money I’ve ever spent (on the camera, that is, not necessarily the dental work).
To put that into today’s context, just about every smartphone has a camera (or several) with many more than two megapixels. As for that massive 10x optical zoom, it was very quickly superseded by cameras with 20x, 50x, 60x, and now even 125x optical zoom.
So the Sandhill Crane is what is called your “spark bird,” the bird that led you to an interest in all birds. Or into photography, same thing. Mine is either the Great Blue Heron or the Belted Kingfisher; I can’t remember which came first, but birds can lead to a whole new way of looking at the world.
Sandhill Cranes are so majestic - I photograph them also. Thanks for these great pics. judith